Rare, limited releases and in-store events highlight fourth annual celebration

Once was the day that record stores dotted the landscape of the Western world. No Main Street, shopping center or mega mall was without a national chain store or, better yet, an independent record retailer that catered to casual shoppers and hardcore collectors alike.

But the Digital Age was no friend to those bricks-and-mortar purveyors of shiny black and silver discs. As illegal downloads devastated an industry that was slow to embrace and monetize the new technology of online file-sharing, the more obvious casualties were the Mom & Pop shops whose already slim margins of profit were erased by a new generation who perceived music to be a free commodity. Record stores began closing at a rapid pace.

Just 12 years after college student Shawn Fanning unleashed Napster on the world, it’s not uncommon to find as few as one or two independent music retailers in any given major U.S. city. The UK fares only slightly better. In addition to the demise of the tactile sensation of scouring through dusty bins of discs (take that, eBay!), patrons decried the loss of a true linchpin in the social fabric of their communities—the physical music shop.

In 2007, a group of U.S. music fans and retailers hatched a scheme to call attention to this endangered species of retailers and, on April 19, 2008, Record Store Day was launched. A celebration of the nearly 700 independently-owned music stores in the U.S. and hundreds of others internationally, this day is characterized by festivities unique to each location—in-store artists’ appearances, parties, special sales and more.

Contributing significantly to the success of this year's fourth annual event was the enthusiastic participation of both indie record labels and the four major label groups—Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI—who created unique and collectable releases to be sold exclusively at these independent locations and only on Record Store Day. Artists featured in this unique promotion this year include AC/DC, Adele, the Beach Boys, Death Cab For Cutie, Foo Fighters, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Kings of Leon, Nirvana Regina Spektor, Bruce Springsteen and more than 200 others.

Nationwide, in both the U.S. and UK, customers, eager to secure copies of these limited collectibles, were reported to have begun queueing up outside their local shops in the pre-dawn hours.  While no industry-wide sales figures are available, store owners have reported that sales volume on Record Store Day was anywhere from three-to-ten times higher than on a typical Saturday.

Just as coffee shops have made a comeback and proliferated over the past two decades, there are signs that the attrition in record stores has ended, with an upswing, perhaps, in the works. One of the factors cited in this possible renaissance is the growing interest in that once-moribund format, the vinyl record. With new sales of the 7 & 12-inch black plastic discs up by 14% this past year, and an increasing demand for vintage pressings, many struggling retailers cite the 45 and LP as key factors in their survival.