Record Store Day 2013
Already getting asked a lot what we are doing and to be honest as yet nothing is confirmed. I’m thinking of doing something different to in-stores this year as there isn’t much left to do there. I have an idea or two for something I hope people will be just as happy with.
Getting lots of offers but most are just attempts at self promotion. Record Store Day is about supporting high street record shops and not about releasing something or holding an event ON Record Store Day to cash in on the surrounding publicity.
I’m organising the national poster campaign so I’m not sure what people are meant to know about the releases as I’ve obviously seen lists already but there’s certainly some good stuff along with things I’m amazed to see.
While there is a lot of vinyl that is not meant to be the focus and certainly the irony of HMV jumping on the vinyl bandwagon after the RSD coverage last year was not lost on shops. I did point out that many or maybe even most of the RSD shops don’t support new music on a weekly basis and was told that if the criteria was too stringent there would be very few shops indeed. Maybe however that should be the message we are trying to get across.
I would say record shops don’t support new music but I think that is because new music isn’t really pressed on vinyl like it used to be. I was someone that up until early 2008 would quite happily spend time buying ‘current’ music on vinyl and yes sometimes that meant HMV. The reason for that was they catered to me so I was happy with that. I can go back a few short years to 2005 when I could walk into HMV and be greeted with a huge vinyl section, imports, then UK singles, then a sale bit ranging from 50p to several £££s, albums, 7 inch singles. But again, the kind of music I listened to was in the charts and if it wasnt it was available. I love hip hop music so there was a continuous flow of 12″ promos and singles and I’d love the instrumental and acapellas that came with them and then you had the UK single which was 9 times out of 10, the same as the CD single but at least you could get a rare track or remix on vinyl. I guess people stopped buying singles. I know France and Germany still press CD single for big artists in the charts just now but it’s dead over here. I do notice labels doing more and more online only releases. Like the Emele Sande album and Lana Del Reys Paradise with the slipcover and Girls Aloud. Again name that are popular but not really names I’d expect to see in a record store.
I love vinyl. I’m really pleased it’s still selling well and breaking record sales for over 20 years now but I have to say I’m baffled at this. I’m the kind of guy that can remember the mid to late 2000’s and dropping £10 everytime i went to buy music just on singles. When I go to an HMV now I see Muse boxsets and the beatles and ACDC and if they are the big sellers…..fantastic. But IMO all that does is show anyone passing the vinyl sections now that vinyl is an old format and look at the names to prove it and then you dig deeper and you find names that you’ve never heard of before and it is mind bending. You can glance across the room at the chart CDs on the wall and remember a time not to long ago when most of what was on that wall would be sitting in the vinyl section and then another full wall of singles and most of them would be in the vinyl section too. To me there just isnt a good selection out there at all now and maybe im wrong and the sales for singles are not good at all now and maybe its albums that are pulling the money in but even in an HMV now, the choice is poor if you’re a fan of modern music. And don’t get me wrong well into 2009 there was the odd decent single her and there, even for a hip hop fan like me but I guess that really was the dying stages of it and I’m not going back a long time here. You can count on one hand the number of years I’m going back when walking into a high street record store really did mean buying the music you liked on the format you wanted, CD or vinyl. I guess DJs didnt help by switching to doing everything on their computers. I’d love it to be like that again but I know it wont but I just find it so sad that in such a short period of time we went from having such a good variety of releases on vinyl and such a big instore presence to record breaking sales for the format and very little selection instores and what is instore is from artists and bands who are long past their hey day.