One day, small children will press their oily noses against the glass of a museum display cabinet and marvel at the black shiny disc that comes in 12?, 10? and 7? sizes. Fear not though, this won't be a documentation of the period when pizza bases all went a bit wonky, instead it'll be a memorial to the humble vinyl disc.
The choice medium for music geeks everywhere, there really isn't like the crackly sound of vinyl being played for the first time.
As time and technology has moved on, the disposable culture we live in has seen music fans able to receive tracks a couple of hours after a band has finished recording them, eliminating the need for music to be pressed at all. Digital downloading has hurt the physical medium, but now, there’s a special day to celebrate the wonder of the physical format and the shops that sell them.
Record Store Day is designed to encourage people who might not have visited a record shop before to step away from handy services such as iTunes, Bleep and Amazon and visit places where you can physically hold the products you're purchasing and speak to like-minded enthusiasts.
But what's the incentive? A number of high profile artists such as Beastie Boys, The Flaming Lips and Radiohead are releasing highly limited edition records that feature either brand tracks, unreleased recordings, alternative album sessions or boxsets of old work that's neatly bound together. These are items worth having in your collection and basically piss all over any MP3?s you own. All genres are covered with labels such as Warp leading the way on the electronic front. They?ve even brought back the old style sleeve for their Clark/Bibio split 12?.
Of course, there are those that will simply take advantage of record store and simply buy up the limited releases just to ultimately flog them for money.
This year, limited edition by acts such as Queen and Nirvana are likely to be snapped up and flogged on the internet to people who?d genuinely like to own them. Last year, limited 45s by The Beatles and Blur sold for stupid money which to us, kind of defies the point of celebrating music to people who want to purchase it in an ailing format.
Each to their own we guess, as some people couldn't care less about owning a copy and will instead be quite happy with leaked versions from promo copies or inferior sounding rips that come from USB turntables.
But enough of all that griping! Let’s celebrate buying things from nice (and grumpy) people behind the counters of the nation’s record shops! All information about Record Store Day and participating stores can be found. Go mental you swines.