Best Bafflingly Strong Music Selection

Funny how death-by-reading mega-store booksellers can pack in the good reads in shelf after shelf but find nothing more hip that U2's latest release to fill the CD bins. Next to a true record store, bookstores typically come off as lame, and their prices seem hopeful for the year 2020. Not so in Overland Park, where Borders whips up on neighboring Streetside Records. Not only does Borders regularly stock essential albums that Streetside may lack -- say, Kruder and Dorfmeister's trip-hop classic K&D Sessions -- it also peddles the secondary albums, such as the Viennese duo's Conversions and DJ Kicks. In fact, for fans of electronic music, Borders offers a number of discs from talent-heavy labels such as Studio K7 (Kid Loco, Smith & Mighty, K&D) and Ninja Tune (Kid Koala, Coldcut, Herbaliser). And what Borders lacks in some genres (appropriately, indie rock), it makes up for with generous areas of blues, jazz and folk.