New essay on Record Store Day: "The concept is good hearted, but the current practice is abysmal"
An interesting new take on the practice and celebration of Record Store Day from Patrick McEachnie of The 1st Five laments the co-opting of the holiday from major labels as well as the price points at which some of the limited vinyl is placed. Here's a snippet:
“As we approach another rendition of Record Store Day, we must prepare ourselves for a number of inevitable. Frivolous 180 gram classic rock represses, Katy Perry remix singles and a scramble to put it all on ebay first thing in the morning.
Record store day is every day. You shouldn’t need prompting from an organization with a financial agenda to keep independently owned record stores afloat, especially those that push major label releases like a Disturbed vinyl boxset (I wish I could make this up, this actually exists). It’s no mystery to anyone that major labels backed the big box music stores and the file sharing lawsuits when the music industry began to rot out in the late 1990’s, yet here they are preaching innocence in an attempt to claim support of the struggling independent record stores a whopping one day a year (although it looks as if RSD is expanding to cater to the Black Friday frenzy shoppers; the connection between mob mentality, consumerism and music sales is almost too easy at this point); pretty soon you’ll see iTunes having an MP3 sale in celebration of Record Store Day.”
Record Store Day falls on Apr. 21 this year. Do you agree or disagree with the essay? Let us know in the comments.
