Wasn’t especially interested this year, but had 3 things on my list. John and Yoko live EP being one of them $54.99 plus tax for 4 songs? Nope. Both Bowie and Talking Heads live albums were $59.99 (doubles), I glanced slightly to my right and saw the Talking Heads album on CD for $17.99, $42 cheaper.
Readers, I bought the CD
Annoyingly, the CD is only available in the UK on import. The vinyl was £42. I’ll wait.
The main reason to leave the house today was to buy the Sunhouse album. By the time I got there (3pm) I bagged the last copy. I also bought the Colourfield double. Both were typical ‘new’ prices.
I bought lots more from the LPs £2 each, 12″ a quid each, bargain bins under the gazebos outside. I didn’t have enough time to go through the 7″ singles 3-for-a-quid crates. Ian the shop owner had been up since 5am and wanted to close on time.
Damn…I completely forgot about that Sunhouse album!
Steve, what’s the Colourfield double album? Thanks.
It’s Virgins and Philistines and a second disc of singles and b-sides.
https://www.discogs.com/release/33677853-The-Colourfield-Virgins-And-Philistines
Years ago, I worked on a couple of Cherry Red reissues with the bloke who is now head of archive at Chrysalis Records. He does these and they’re all great (e.g. the three albums by The Beat had the same treatment last year).
There’s a Colourfield box on the way, just like the FB3 box from last year.
Is RSD losing it’s shine?
I’m looking at recent lists and thinking “yes, there is stuff there but do I really need any of it?”
Still serves the purpose of getting people to visit local record shops (at least once a year), and allowing the ebay flipping market to continue.
Seems to be fewer special release of not available elsewhere stuff in favour of coloured vinyl, splatter vinyl, zoetrope vinyl, etc
I will happily spend hours mooching and browsing in record shops looking for something and nothing in particular (and probably leaving with something I never planned on buying), but RSD just doesn’t appeal to me anymore.
Am I just being old and grumpy about it?
I think somebody says this every year. 3 on my list which is probably a little lower than some but I didn’t bother at all last year. There are a lot of record stores in Ottawa and some make it a day out with free coffee, muffins and live bands playing.
Anyway my daughter has expressed an interest in something so looks like I am going back in.
There is also the biggest record fair of the year in Ottawa today which is strange timing
I think the pendulum is beginning to swing back away from needless coloured vinyl to actually interesting and/or otherwise unavailable things. Someone must have taken note of all those copies of old RSD stock still clogging up racks.
And the eBay scalpers only have until Monday, when it all officially goes online.
It gets people through the door. My local shop had his busiest year ever today, plus four live acts in the garden. It was lovely.
I still spent twice as much on S/H cratedigging bargains as I did on RSD releases, though.
I haven’t bothered with RSD in recent years, but the Nick Mason’s SoS Echoes 12” piqued my interest and possibly the Plastic Ono Band EP, but that was reportedly limited to 5,000 worldwide, so had little expectation. I managed to get the last POB copy (£26) and the SoS disc (£20) which didn’t seem bad.
I notice there are loads of the POB being flipped for large amounts on eBay, which annoys me a lot.
But that’s the point of that record – it was specifically designed to be a collector’s item. A vinyl record by a major artist that is limited to 5,000 copies worldwide is no different than a Hello Kitty plush or a pair of limited edition sneakers. These records were made for eBay.
There were six or seven records I was interested in – five live albums and Gorkys and Blur reissues. But not sufficiently interested to go the shop and either a) queue up for hours or b) arrive later in the day to discover they hadn’t ordered what I was after, or had sold what I was looking for.
The thing is in past years I have found I can buy what I want readily enough online ( surplus stock from other shops, not scalpers), or it’s going to get a regular release anyway and I can get it from Juno Vinyl. Of course this means I actually end up spending considerably less in the local shop, but I guess it’s small fry compared to the overall boost to trade from RSD.
I’m amazed they had a CD edition for Record Store Day. My main beef with RSD is that it is 100% (or close to) vinyl product. Is this really what the record shops and their customers want? “We’d like you to provide us with a curated range of exclusive reissues for RSD, but for God’s sake, don’t give us any CDs”.
There have been CDs previously for RSD. I bought Tears For Fears live from Massey Hall on CD in – checks the ‘cogs – 2021.
I prefer live albums, especially those of more than 40 minutes – on CD because it doesn’t break the mood.
I helped out in the record shop I used to work in. I got there at 6.30 and the queue was around 120 people the earliest of whom had been there since 5.10pm the night before.
It was sunny but cold and many had camping chairs, flasks and blankets. The local coffee shop opened early and took orders from the queue which was a nice little boost of business for them.
It was a convivial atmosphere and my guess is friendships were forged while people waited for their turn to acquire what they were looking for.
The Oasis box set was one of the most popular – God knows why.,It was selling at £90.00. The shop ordered 60 but were capped at 35. They could have sold 100 easily.
I came away with Nick Lowe, Ry Cooder, Bobby Charles, Mark Knopfler, The Coral and The Liminanas. Would have liked the Blasters but it wasn’t ordered and I think I can get cheaper after the event. I agree that the day should include cd’s but that doesn’t fit the remit.
As an indication RSD is about 10 percent of annual turnover – for one day!!! So yes it is important to participating shops.
When I left my local shop at 5pm, there was a whole crate full of Oasis left unsold.
And, yes, good point – the local cafe does a roaring trade in bacon butties and coffee. Someone camped out from 6pm on Friday, at least there wasn’t a frost. I hope they got what they were after – I wandered in at 3pm and bought everything I wanted.
Yep, this is my beef with it.
I’m pretty sure when it started that CDs and vinlys were fairly evenly spread… but that was before the Vinly Police got busy, very busy.
Unless I’m mistaken the original premise of RSD was to focus on independent record shops at a time when streaming and downloads began to take a huge bite out of the physical record market. At no point was it meant to be exclusively about LP releases, but that’s the way it has developed.
The decline in CD sales and relative unfashionably of CDs has been driven by the industry dictating to the public what it should have, rather than the public getting what it wants. The resurgent LP market has been a huge marketing success, but LPs are still the emperor’s new (old) clothes; outdated technology built on misplaced nostalgia and notions of coolness rather than quality and convenience.
Says you. The success of Record Store Day seems to indicate otherwise.
I buy both, but vinyl for me is an all round more satisfying music listening experience. I just rip CDs and dump the cases, can’t read any of the liner notes (if they bother) anyway.
It also coincided with supermarkets selling CDs as loss-leaders and putting local record shops out of business in the process. The Walmart effect.
Of course, someone posted a piece featuring a German (?) fella on here about a year ago that explained quite clearly, and without too much ambiguity, that CDs STILL sell significantly more than vinlys… and you can’t get CDs anywhere!!!
That was me and it was John Darko who was then and still is an Australian. I don’t know why you have such a problem buying CDs. I buy lots of them, brand new ones, second-hand ones, single discs, box sets, double disc sets, triple disc sets all from online outlets. It very easy.
Vinyl outsells CDs in North America. Germany is still into CDs as is Japan. I thought John Darko was a Brit. He lives in Berlin though
I believe HMV still sells CDs
@Boneshaker thing is in terms of units CD’S sell way more. It’s just that the powers that be don’t want to promote because vinyl is where the money is. How about they let the punters decide rather than decide for them?
I buy both but CD would be my first choice as I can buy at least two for the price of one lp.
There have always been a few CDs, but always a definite minority. In my experience (think I first participated in 2008 or 9). Loads of the releases are on coloured vinyl, picture discs or really expensive 7 inch singles ($25 for Taylor Swift) or EPs which isn’t going to work on CD. Also many releases are for stuff that is readily available digitally but has not been on vinyl for a while or something from a CD box set is pressed to vinyl.
A lot of the releases are pretty unnecessary and actually never sell, with CDs I would expect more unsold stock
As an aside, perhaps it’s just the places where I have lived, but RSD appears to attract the least ethnically diverse bunch not people this side of a Just Stop Oil protest :). Albeit perhaps not surprising given the releases on offer.
Ever been to Cambridge Folk Festival? I once saw a black man in the crowd, turns out he was performing later that day.
I once had a similar experience at Towersey.
This year I tried to plan in advance as my local record shop scaled down its RSD involvement. I made a request for the Sunhouse and Colourfield albums both of which were still there when i turned up at about 11. I also found a copy of Low End Theory and the David Sylvian compilation to i bagged those too. Then on the way out i saw a copy of the Joni Mitchell live extracts from the latest Asylum release.
As a result i spent much more than i intended to and now have to work out how to smuggle them into the kennel away from the raised eyebrows of Mrs. Hound.
I tend to buy from RSD every year and it has become a bit of habit but I do enjoy the experience and it certainly increases footfall into my local shop. I just hope that some of the casual attenders return and support the shop.
Well said that man. Exactly the purpose of RSD.
I went to Rough Trade in Berlin, it was crowded apparently in the morning but by lunchtime when I arrived it was pretty quiet. Agree with those who were underwhelmed by the offer this year. Seems to be summed up by EUR50-odd for a remastered Metal Machine Music (really??) Likewise the Bowie estate pumping out the 2003 London gig for around 50-odd is just boring. Still got a non RSD vinyl reissue of Seefeel’s “Quique” and original 12″ single “Everything’s Gone Green” so that made the trip worthwhile. And today picked up a mint 1972 vinyl edition of “Sometime in New York City” at local flea market for only EUR20 so that’s made up for it