Record Store Day: Yay or Nay?

Refracting Sound reflects on RSD’s 15 year anniversary

Record Store Day started in 2007/2008 as a way to support independent record stores worldwide, with special, limited edition curated releases released twice a year (Once in April, one on Black Friday in November). During the fifteen years since it’s inception, it has grown in size and popularity, coming to a climax (pause) with rabid record buyers standing in block-long lines outside their favorite record shops to scoop up vinyl rarities specially made for that day. 

Full disclosure, I used to scoff at Record Store Day because, for the first several years, the releases simply didn’t appeal to me. The blueprint seemed to be: charge $20+ for a rerelease of an album that you stumble over at any thrift store for $2, but including updated liner notes from the 1st bass player’s (who left the group in 1973) barber or something equally as silly.  It seemed like a ploy/stretch and, while I love my local record stores and want to see them thrive, it seemed a bit corny and worthy of derision. 

Over the years, as the vinyl resurgence grew in popularity, so did Record Store Day. With this growth, the amount of releases increased and also, seemingly, more diversity. Where I used to pride myself and puff out my chest, declaring “Guess what I’m NOT doing today? Record Store Day!!!”, I started noticing things I actually liked  started appearing tucked in the lists released before each RSD.  It seemed like these changes started occurring about a decade ago. Now releases range from blockbuster “A List Artists” (Hi Taylor Swift!) all the way to obscure 80s punk/HC band rereleasing long forgotten 7in EPS from that era.

Popular opinion about Record Store Day sways widely. Clearly, there are more than enough fans/supporters who are happy to scoop up these limited releases and support their local shops.  Other people argue it’s a gross display of commercial capitalism at work and “true record fans would be purchasing vinyl all year round from these stores” (which many do, but whatever). Another intertwined issue is the “flippers”, who vie for the highly coveted first spots in line and scoop up as many discs as they’re allowed and immediately put them on Ebay or Discogs and make the maximum amount of profit. Common conjecture states that these people, in general, may not even be fans of the bands whose records they’re buying, maybe not even music in general. 

In addition to some of the Gun Club and Clash RSD releases which have sparked my interest, here are some of my favorite Record Store Day releases that have made it worthwhile for me over the years:

Gil Scott Heron “Nothing New” LP

Legend has it that during the recording sessions for Gil Scott Heron’s last album, “I’m New Here” (XL Recordings, 2010), producer Richard Russell encouraged Gil to run through some of the old classics from his catalog, just vocals and piano, recorded between 2005 - 2009. On this then-limited LP for RSD 2014 (Now a “regular release”, I believe), we get stripped down, re-recorded versions of “Pieces of a Man”, “Better Days Ahead”, “Your Daddy Loves You” and more. The reinterpretations vary wildly and, to be honest, Gil’s voice is a bit worse for the wear at times, but this is really the last document of him doing these tracks before his passing in 2011. When you hear him sing, “I see the steel-gray clouds above me, yeah, well, the anguish and the pain… yes, I been looking everywhere for peace, but I swear, there just ain't none around… and you can't name where I ain't been down cause there ain’t no place I ain’t been down” on “Blue Collar”, you know you’re listening to something special.

Ramones “The Sire Albums 1981 - 1989” Box Set

Common consensus states that the first four (five if you want to count “It’s Alive”) Ramones albums are best and it’s hard to fight that notion. But when this 7 album box set of out of print 80s releases spanning from “Pleasant Dreams” (released in ‘81) up to 1989’s “Brain Drain” (also including a full LP of rarities and outtakes on fancy splattered vinyl) came out for RSD 2022, an argument could be made for extending that run somewhat. Yes, yes, yes…I hear you. Most of the albums here don’t measure up song for song to the mid/late 70s releases, but I will make the case that all Ramones records have some good (albeit forgotten) songs on them. Highlights include Too Tough To Die’s “Daytime Dilemma”, underrated B side “Smash You”, Johnny Ramone’s least favorite “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” and more.

Shabaka Hutchings “Afrikan Culture” 12in EP

Shabaka Hutchings came onto the UK jazz scene in the early/mid 2010s as the kinetic saxophonist/front person for not one but three acts: Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors. While each group is different, Hutchings’ playing weaves a common thread though it all, hitting the musical touch points of spiritual jazz, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, classic American jazz (Coltrane, etc.) and more. His first solo album, “Afrikan Culture”, was a limited RSD release in 2022, and revealed a huge left turn. Putting down his saxophone, Shabaka picked up a shakuhachi, a type of Japanese bamboo flute, a kora, an African stringed instrument and an mbira, another African instrument similar to a kalimba. The result is about 30 minutes of meditative, wandering, instrumental passages: a soft, quiet, calming, contemplative release that seems to run counter to the modern, reductive, transitory ways we communicate.