Music Book Review: Record Store Day: The Most Improbable Comeback of the 21st Century by Larry Jaffee

Record Store Day: The Most Improbable Comeback of the 21st Century
by Larry Jaffee (Music 781.66 Jaf)

Even if you don’t play vinyl records yourself, you’ve probably bumped into the many think pieces that have been written in magazines and newspapers about the pros and cons of Record Store Day (RSD) events, and how they’re perceived to affect the music industry. In the early years of these twice-annual events (there is usually one on the third Saturday in April, and another on Black Friday in November), the critical reception of RSD tended to be warmer. Now that there are so many complex pressures on the market, such as competing ways to consume recorded music, supply chain interruptions, and a noticeable increase in demand for records, commentaries about the events have become less supportive. Are the criticisms fair, though? And how has RSD affected the continued existence of brick & mortar record stores around the world?

 

To answer these questions, we now have a new book all about the history and impact of RSD, called Record Store Day: The Most Improbable Comeback of the 21st Century, which you can borrow from Polley. The author is Larry Jaffee, a music journalist and cofounder of an interesting organization called Making Vinyl, which is attempting to unite parties from all elements of the vinyl manufacturing industry toward working together more seamlessly, from record labels to manufacturers to retailers. With this broad view of the industry as a background, the observations in the book are coming from a reliable viewpoint.

 

The book’s introduction comes from Kosmo Vinyl, the manager of The Clash, who describes just how high the stakes were at the start of RSD: we were looking at a world where record stores were slowly disappearing and likely to disappear altogether. He briefly articulates the importance of record stores as places and mentions a few of his favorite attributes of vinyl records. This is followed by a short call to action from musician and Third Man Records founder Jack White, who encourages record lovers to share the joy of records and record stores with those around them who may not have experienced them. As a Record Store Day Ambassador, statements similar to White’s are sprinkled throughout the book from other celebrity Ambassadors of the event through the years.

 

Once we arrive at the main body of the text, Jaffee takes us through the formative years of RSD in great detail. In a way, there are two main stories at play here: the resurgence of the vinyl record format, and the cautious stabilization of independent record stores. It’s strange to consider how vinyl had all but disappeared from the commercial market in the 1990s, only to come back when digital physical formats were replaced by their more efficient downloadable and streamable cousins. This book asserts that Record Store Day played a role in the comeback of the media format itself, in addition to sustaining the small networks of independent record stores around the country.

 

For me, one of the most interesting takeaways from this book is how informal the beginnings of RSD were. Founders Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton were both employees of The Record Exchange, a small chain of stores in Virginia and North Carolina, in the early Oughts. At the time, there were three loose coalitions of record stores around the country, and Kurtz went to work for one of them, the Music Monitor Network. These coalitions were a way for independent music retailers to advocate for themselves in the retail world, where they found themselves competing with downloadable music (both legal and illegal) and big-box stores that were selling exclusive CDs as loss leaders to generate foot traffic, often for prices below independent stores’ wholesale costs. In September of 2007, the idea of an “Indie Record Store Day” was pitched at Noise in the Basement, a meeting of many record store owners who were members of the coalitions that book place in Baltimore. It was discussed at a coffee shop at the very end of the event, when many members had already left, but from this informal beginning, the idea started to take shape. By January of 2008, the basic idea of the event was formed: it would take place on the third Saturday in April, and the independent retail coalitions petitioned record labels to make exclusive, limited-edition releases for the event.

 

At first, this was a tough sell for many retailers. The vinyl format was being proposed as more exclusive, but many record stores at the time were focused almost entirely on compact disc sales. Those that did carry records saw tiny margins on the sale of new vinyl that didn’t make it look like a particularly profitable venture. Cofounder Kurtz began cold calling indie stores that weren’t part of the coalitions to try to get more participation for the first year, but many owners were suspicious of the idea. Ultimately, though, the first year happened with just 15 limited-edition albums available, and over 300 stores participated—not bad for a turnaround between January and April of 2008! The enthusiastic participation of artists helped in the early stages, too: Metallica did a meet and greet event at Rasputin Music in California on the first RSD, and other bands like Built to Spill, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Regina Spektor, Janelle Monae, and more held similar in-store events around the country.

 

Variations on the phrase “making it up as they go along” come up repeatedly in the early part of the book. The size and scope of RSD was adjusted on the fly, as stores became willing to give the idea a try, and record labels reconsidered the idea of vinyl pressings. Hardly any new vinyl was being pressed during the early period of Record Store Day, though the used market had some activity, so it took some convincing and experimentation in both the label and retail sectors to slowly build the event. Most indie labels had gotten out of pressing records altogether, while major labels like Warner Bros still produced small runs of vinyl, so to some extent getting the majors on board with the idea was essential to everyone feeling comfortable with the financial risk involved. With the modest success of the first event, the number of exclusive titles jumped from 15 to 85 for the 2nd year.

The global record market quickly took notice, too. Canada and the UK were hosting events by 2009, the 2nd year, and by 2010 European record labels were pressing exclusives as other countries got involved. And perhaps we know the rest of the story, as more indie stores and more labels have continued to join the festivities every year, now numbering over 1400 stores and thousands of special releases. It’s a remarkable success story that has revived a format and kept record stores (places that are often sacred spaces for knowledge not unlike libraries) from going the way of the Pony Express.

 

The rest of the book is interspersed with interesting stories from various RSD events, and recollections from respected artists on what record stores and records have meant to them personally. There is a special chapter at the end about the unusual RSD “Drops” that took place in 2020 and 2021, where the event was spread out into multiple smaller events in the hopes of minimizing huge crowds during the pandemic and providing steady visitors to stores struggling to weather the unusual economic climate.

 

While the book doesn’t address some of the common criticisms of RSD directly, the arguments against them can be found in the text. The idea that the major labels created RSD as a new way to recirculate their back catalogs, for example, doesn’t fit with the origin stories of the event. And the idea that RSD pressings are responsible for the massive delays in pressing plants doesn’t seem to fit with the math presented in the earlier sections of the book: although there can be hundreds of titles each year, most are pressed in quantities of 5000 or less, while international pressing plant capacities run much higher than that. There are some supply chain issues afoot because of the pandemic, as well as labor shortages and a unique problem with obtaining the acetates used to make masters after the Apollo Masters Corp. burned down in early 2020 that all point to more complex dynamics. While it’s true that RSD titles are non-returnable by retailers, and some get stuck with over-orders of copies, generally indie record stores are the kinds of places that know their customers by name and have a pretty good sense of what to order. Overall, both the growing number of participating stores and the overall massive increase in the popularity of vinyl records, whose sales have outpaced CDs for the last few years, seem to have benefited tremendously from Record Store Day.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Vinyl Age: A Guide to Record Collecting Now by Max Brzezinski.)

 

( publisher’s official Record Store Day web page ) | ( official Larry Jaffee web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

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