Retail in Review: Record Store Day

Record Store Day was on the 20^th April, which followed two weeks later by Free Comic Book Day. I checked both of these days out. Both were nice. However, Comic Book Day felt less like a commercial affair, coming across as more genuine than the frantic scramble for records I experienced in late April.

Record Store Day champions the world’s independent record shops, battling against the likes of Soundcloud, Itunes, Amazon and the rest of the 21^st century. The day is normally accompanied by limited edition singles being released on the day and in-store performances.

I heard that my favourite surf-pop band, ‘Best Coast’, was releasing a limited edition 7 inch vinyl single. Since I was in town on the day I thought I’d swing by Sister Ray Records.

What I did like was Record Day was that it gave a festival feel to London’s Soho, since there was stage erected on Berwick Street, which had assortment of bands playing to entertain the crowds.

 What I did not like was the mega queue I faced when I got to Sister Ray Records. The queue was so people could get their hands on the all the limited edition singles. It’s apparently become a normal part of the day for people to begin queuing in the early hours of the morning.

We were passed a list of the records the shop still had while in line (which snaked on for another 10 minutes once through the doors), so we could request the record we were after the second we got to the counter. It made everything feel rather commoditised. It wasn’t a day when people had the record shop experience of listening to new records, browsing through unfamiliar albums and having pleasantly inane chats with staff. Instead it comes across as a day for record aficionados to revel in their niche tastes.

 It’s not really for kids or people with a passing interest in music, since the limited release 7 inch records are extremely expensive – I spent £7 on Best Coast’s ‘Fear of My Identity’ single. Incidentally, the single was fantastic and it did feel nice to get something that felt exclusive. 

However, it seemed to be something for record shops to make more money out of the kind of people that come to such shops anyway, something to make up for their dwindling sales throughout the year. What it didn’t do was bring across why people should buy something in a shop as opposed to getting it cheaper online.