Record Store Day Has Gotten Sooooo Commercial
I remember when Record Store Day was special. My sister would wake me up and say, “Carl, it’s finally Record Store Day again. Let’s go – I heard that Twin/Tone is offering a limited, split 7″ featuring The Feelies and Pere Ubu just for today”. And so off we would go – her on her bike, me following on my skateboard – towards the local record shop to grab some rare tunes and chat with our fellow music lovers.
my sister (left) and our neighbor Michelle (right) looking for the new Tall Dwarfs album at Sound Exchange in Tampa, 1985.The joy of previous Record Store Days was trying to figure out which few bands would be releasing limited items on that day. Would it be an IRS Records cassette sampler featuring R.E.M.’s extended version of “Driver 8″? An acoustic Minutemen EP? Maybe a quickie, Husker Du live album? There was no internet or nothin’, so you didn’t know ’til you showed up at the store.
It wasn’t just music either. I fondly remember Record Store Day 1987, when I purchased a replica of the wristwatch from the cover of The Replacement’s Pleased To Meet Me that was only sold that day. It kept good time, that watch – just like Chris Mars.
fuck yeah!It was fun because only a small handful of bands participated (and only the best ones, too). Those R.E.M., Minutemen, and Husker Du records I mentioned above? Got ‘em all for 10 bucks during the ‘86 Record Store Day, with enough leftover change to snag a couple packs of Donruss baseball cards from the card shop next door.
That was a fun time. But then everything started to change. I can’t pinpoint when it happened (maybe it was when the main draw at the ‘95 Record Store Day was a demo collection from Stone Temple Pilots) but the day started to lose everything that made it special – a little bit every year.
Nowadays, every artist you could possibly think of is releasing something on Record Store Day. This year, Christina Aguilera has a remix CD. Evanescence is coming back from hiatus to play a special in-store at ear X-tacy in Louisville, then releasing it on eMusic later that day. MGMT will have a special DVD which plays the “Time To Pretend” video over and over again.
It’s just one big gimmick now. Every artist sees an opportunity to make some extra bucks by throwing a bone to an independent record store for one day. They can cobble up whatever garbage they’ve got laying around their studio, slap a “limited edition” sticker on it, then watch the kids eat it up. They make their cash, come across as supporters of the little guy, then ignore the little guy until the next Record Store Day comes around.
The day has lost all it’s uniqueness. Everything that gave my sister and my younger self so much happiness is gone. And that’s just sad.
Did I tell you about my Replacements wristwatch?
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