Does Record Store Day Need A Rethink?
It's every serious music fans favourite punchbag, but Record Store Day serves an important purpose for shops worldwide. It's time to look at it differently.
Some housekeeping to start: A warm and heartfelt thankyou to everyone who engaged with me on my last newsletter about Blackest Ever Black. It was amazing to see just how many people had their lives changed by this label, and to reminisce about records that were overlooked at the time or I’d forgotten about as the years gone by. It was shared fairly far and wide, and got lovely feedback from fans and former BEB artists alike, and I’m really grateful to everyone who subscribed off the back of it.
On to this weeks hot topic: Record Store Day. The discourse that comes round once a year, and keeps on giving. Record Store Day started in the US back in the mid-00’s and came to the UK a year or so later, if you don’t know what it is - it’s essentially a day each year to celebrate independent record shops, which are the lifeblood of the physical music industry. Shops get access to a number of exclusive titles, which they can only sell in-store, in order to drive footfall to their shops during what was a fairly barren time for physical music - remember 2007-2014 were the heyday of the iTunes download, and loads of titles weren’t even getting pressed up on to vinyl. I worked in the second-biggest HMV in the country during this time and watched as our vinyl offering got steadily smaller, going from a dedicated mezzanine floor with multiple listening decks a wide range of 12” singles, imports and genre/label sections to maybe a twelve foot section of racking populated sparsely with big legacy albums (Springsteen, Nirvana, Mike Oldfield, that kinda stuff).
Every year numerous hot takes get sprouted about RSD, and every year the number of titles seems to grow (although over the past two years RSD have been a bit more picky about what they’d accept as a title). I’m not even going to moan about the policy of appointing RSD ambassadors like Taylor Swift - I actually think artists like that are pretty important in driving the physical market (although majors clogging up pressing plants is always a concern) and getting younger music fans into record shops - with their reputation of being fairly unwelcoming places - is only a good thing.
My issue is that labels in particular need to remember who RSD is for - this is especially aimed at the majors, although indies can be guilty of this too - it’s Record STORE Day, not record label day, the amount of labels who see it as an opportunity to flog any old shite rather than something shops might actually want is still staggering. That’s where the disconnect is, although the organisers (who are great at helping shops, labels and distros in managing the sheer workload of the day) try and bring together shops and distros in debreifs after each event there’s still this attitude of ‘if you press it they will come’ from some labels, and the reality is that shops (and eBay) is full of unsold RSD product years later.
Don’t get me wrong - there’s been some great titles made available for RSD in the past and I once queued up outside Rough Trade East to buy a copy of Radiohead’s Supercollider 12” many years ago, but looking at this years list which was just announced yesterday it has me thinking what is the point of a lot of these titles? Vinyl is a very environmentally-destructive product, does the world need a splatter vinyl edition of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid? There’s over 1800 copies of that currently available on Discogs, in a variety of coloured pressings, many for under £10. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours on picture disc? There’s over 500 different pressings of that record alone, a picture disc was released in 2010 already, and four seprate pressings of it were a RSD exclusive release back in 2011 (of which almost 50 copies are available in Europe from about £30). Rumours is a staple of record shops everywhere - I think my own copy cost a tenner in Sainsbury’s, I’m not sure it’s the kind of thing that’s going to drag a new audience into discovering record stores.
Other stuff available this year? Dr. Alban’s It’s My Life on orange vinyl. Remember that? A eurodance one hit wonder back in 1992/93. There’s three other tracks on the EP too.
This limited colored 10" edition features four timeless tracks that have left an indelible mark on the music pop history. From the infectious beats of "It's My Life" to the uplifting anthem "Sing Hallelujah," and the powerful messages of "No Coke" and "Reggae Gone Rage," Dr. Alban's music has shaped the pop landscape of the 90s and continues to captivate audiences today.
I’m not sure even the most ardent Dr. Alban fan could name you more than one Dr. Alban track, but here we have 500+ copies of a finite resource being pressed up and flown around the globe, all to aid the coffers of little independent Sony BMG… That said, if you were desperate to own a vinyl copy of It’s My Life, there’s currently 200+ copies on Discogs for as little as £0.59p. You literally can’t give this record away. There’s another pressing of Blur’s Parklife (a great album, but come on - they literally did a 25th anniversary version of it last year, how much life is left in this horse to flog?) Michael Gray’s The Weekend - one of my least favourite dance records of all time - and perhaps worst of all a Paul Weller album simply listed as TBC; You can almost hear the label execs saying “just submit some Weller, doesn’t matter what it is, tell ‘em it’s limited and they’ll lap it up”.
Who’s asking shops if they actually want this stuff? Of course no-one’s forcing shops to order these titles but I imagine the major distros are pushing them pretty hard with the threat of being shorted on the ‘good’ stuff if they don’t take at least a few copies (when I was distributing records I think we only did 3 or 4 RSD titles in six or so years - but we never even considered making shops take less popular titles in order to get the popular ones, that kind of behaviour is completely against what RSD is meant to be about, but I know it goes on). Shops want interesting titles, preferably things that appeal to collectors and music fans - stuff that isn’t readily available digitally. It’s a tough balance, and an ever tougher job keeping hot records out of the hands of Discogs & eBay resellers, but that’s a fight they’ll never really be able to win.
This being said, there’s actually some decent stuff available for RSD this year, a few titles I’d be keen on getting myself. A 25th Anniversary version of Nightmares on Wax’s Carboot Soul with a 7” of two unreleased tracks? That’ll be expensive but a decent looking package (but perhaps could have been better as a standalone 7”). The Global Communication Maiden Voyage tracks on one EP including the Spiritualized mix? Yes please! A Maximum Joy EP with some live tracks? Sign me up! A Two Lone Swordsmen Japan-only promo CD, pressed onto vinyl for the first time? I’m having some of that!
Despite all this, I still believe in Record Store Day - it serves a valuable purpose as seen by the queues outside record stores all over the country. I still enjoy spending time in a good record shop, whether a tiny shop in a small town, or a larger store like Rough Trade East, and they aid discovery better than any algorithm can. They won’t survive without days like RSD, and we should try and remember that when we get annoyed that we can’t get into our favourite shop without queuing one day a year.
I’d like to see a better curated selection of records though, maybe with a rule that the titles can’t be widely available already. I don’t mind pop acts getting in on the act, but it’s frustrating to see majors use it as an opportunity to shift a load of catalogue that wouldn’t be strong enough to sell on its own. Think about what you’re putting out - many indie labels are starting to avoid releasing on or around RSD - not least because of the delays in pressing plants in the months leading up to it, but because of the sheer amount of releases on the day. Titles don’t just get given out to shops for free, they have to buy what they can afford, what they have room for, and more importantly what they think they can sell. If that means they stock 100 Tom Jones or Emma Bunton records instead of the Orbital LP then so be it, at least it means they’ll be able to open the other 364 days of the year. No one has ever bought a Spice Girls album from Sounds of the Universe, but if someone comes in looking for the Emma Bunton RSD release they’ll gain a customer by having it, and if they can convince that person to come back and buy more records then that’s a win for them surely? It would be nice for some of the established online shops to get a crack at RSD products, as they’re important too and still have overheads like premises and staff, but I understand how that goes a bit against the ethos of the day. I’m not working in the physical music world any more, but have spent enough time talking to record shops over the years to know that the current system isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean we need to turn our backs on Record Store Day - it just might need a bit of a different approach.
Little Bird
On to this weeks new music then: There’s a new one from Four Tet - guess what? It’s actually alright, although that’s probably because it sounds really like Underworld. See for yourself.
There’s a new album from William Doyle, I really liked the last one he did and the first few tracks of this sound nice and prime for a lazy sunday morning.
Not on Spotify but M. Quake (aka Tarquin Manek, Tarquin Magnet, Kallista Kult, Static Cleaner Lost Reward) has reworked Annie Lennox’s Little Bird. I really like this, Jonnine’s vocals add a subtle dimension to the track that meanders its way over eight dubby minutes. Get it on Bandcamp or some record shops.
On a similar tip, and also not on digital - Andy Stott returns to Modern Love after a few years hiatus with this crunchy little 7”.
Keepin’ it crunchy, Techno Animal’s The Brotherhood of the Bomb got repressed. Kevin ‘The Bug’ Martin and Justin K Broaderick’s Hip-Hop project and one for fans of Cannibal Ox, Company Flow and all that kind of stuff.
Fatima drops a new EP on Eglo for all you soulful heads. And Yet It’s All Love was a favourite of mine from a few years ago. Eglo feels like it’s been quiet recently, but they still know how to drop a tune or two. Wrapping things up from me this week is an atmospheric rework of Lolina’s Music Is The Drug by Dr. Pit - proper spooky tackle, this.
That’s it for this week - once again thanks for subscribing, sharing, commenting and critiquing!