Three MORE things to love about Soundscapes, beginning where Melissa J left off...
1. A lot of their CDs are sorted by record label grouping - so for the smaller labels that have a really particular audience you can browse by genre. Arts & Crafts, Domino, Fat Cat, Merge, Warp Records, etc. It's a fun way to shop for new music if you want to hear more from a label family.
2. Biographies. Soundscapes has a ridiculously large selection of music biographies and music history books. You can find so many cool bios here beyond the usual Bob Dylan or R.E.M. book (why ARE there so many bios about these two bands, by the way?). There are books about every genre and era in music history.
3. DVDs. There isn't a music-related DVD that you won't be able to find (or at the very least, order) at Soundscapes. They have music video DVDs, biopics and live concert footage DVDs. I bought a really good Glastonbury DVD here that I had been digging around for for a long tome and I found it here.
The staff isn't over friendly or helpful but they're not dicks either, and when I'm shopping for music that's all I really care about - that I'm left alone and not judged silently (or openly for that matter!) about what I'm looking at.