Every Day Is Record Shop Day

Originally published April 2014


Last Saturday was Record Store Day — Record Shop Day if you’re a Brit — and like a lot people I have become very cynical about the whole event and how it’s gone from being a well-meaning attempt to promote record buying in actual bricks-and-mortar shops, to a crazy gold rush for overpriced RSD “exclusives” by desperate anoraks with more money than sense,and speculators who would put them on eBay for even more inflated prices (sometimes before the actual day).


I’ve only once been to a record shop on RSD and that wasn’t intentional. I popped into my local record emporium one Saturday without realizing what day it was and found the place mobbed. Getting more people into record shops is a noble pursuit but all I thought was “Where the hell are you people every other day of the year?”

So I’ve been smugly disdaining the whole event and have no intention of ever going anywhere near a record shop that day. But then someone tweeted this picture which took the snark right out of my sails and made me realize something.


See how happy she looks? Remember that feeling? Seeing this young lady with her special One Direction RSD release reminded me of how chuffed I would be when I got a new Jam single in a picture sleeve, and made me realize that this is what the day should be about. Forget about old farts shelling out a week’s rent on ancient artifacts like Springsteen rarities, REM live sets, and Nirvana 45s; Record Store Day should get younger kids into shops by offering more releases by newer acts — Ariana, Taylor, Drake — in cool picture discs, exclusive mixes, and all those gimmicks that got us to spend our pocket money in our youth.


RSD turns record shops into museums with expensive gift shops and I’ve no interest in vinyl being a rare and pricey commodity for the over-40 set. But if RSD can get youngsters like that girl to discover the magic of buying a physical record in a shop in some cool format instead of a cold mp3 download or stream on her phone, then maybe there will be a future for this record shop culture we love.

Download: EMI (Unlimited Edition) – Sex Pistols (mp3)

8 thoughts on “Every Day Is Record Shop Day”

  4. My local is a second-hand shop run on the scare-off-customers model. Record Store Day is the one day they aren’t intimidating potential browsers with death-metal and scowls but, rather, having unsigned local bands punctuated by 60s soul (albeit of the white label obscure variety, beloved of Northern Soul aficionados.) As far as purchases go they put out CDs and LPs for a dollar each rather than if-you-have-too-ask-it’s-too-much.

    On the plus side, it’s one place where a greying beard and an English accent makes me more cool rather than less. Once they’ve worked out that I’m not going to flee in terror from their playlist, I get decent service (because I’m the last punter standing). There’s usually a greebo hanging around who then tried to engage me in conversation about whatever I’ve picked. It usually gets a bit ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ after half an hour (‘it were all Field on’t Nephilim around here when I were a lad’).

    So on Saturday, as I was in town picking up a book I’d ordered from a shop a hundred yards away, I popped in and got twenty bucks’ worth of bargains after stumping up six times that a week before for rather less. Kids buying vinyl pleased me too.

    I’m not saying you’re wrong about most remaining record stores but my low-rent bit of Rhode Island’s slightly too enamoured of its indie-chic status to follow that pattern, especially now.

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  6. When I popped in to Piccadilly Records on Saturday afternoon (to see A Man Called Adam who were doing an instore live appearance and to pick up a Weatherall remix, obvs) there were quite a few younger people in there. It may have been all middle aged people queueing up through the night and ebay flippers early on but it wasn’t entirely that demographic later.

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  8. Isn’t that Liz McColgan and Tessa Sanderson both GB athletes in the top picture? Who’s the third woman? By the way RSD is a load of poo.

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