Vinyl Industry Organization Promotes a Record Store Day for Black Friday
A vinyl industry organization hopes to steer enthusiasts into record stores on Black Friday with the lure of hard-to-find LPs, blogged the Record Store Day group. The organization, which works with labels, artists, managers and distribution companies in the vinyl…
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industry, organizes the annual Record Store Day in the spring, and its fall event is designed to counter the “super-cheap prices” of Black Friday, it said. “We like the idea of a shopping season, especially when that shopping is, at its heart, a way to show the people you like that you like them,” it said, also promoting “gift-getting.” The list of LPs for this season, available first at participating RSD Black Friday events, may be available at record stores throughout the year, it said. Categories of LPs included in the event, available to independent businesses that sell records, are (1) exclusives available only at record stores; (2) titles that appear first at participating stores; and (3) small-run or regional titles that may be hard to find nationwide. Some 158 titles are on this year’s Black Friday list, covering a range of formats including 7-inch, 10-inch and LP vinyl, LP Picture Disc and multi-LP sets. A few CDs sneaked in, we found. Recordings largely fall into jazz, rock, pop, country and alternative genres and artists range from popular (Taylor Swift, The Beatles, Grateful Dead, Guns N’ Roses, Ella Fitzgerald) to obscure. Production runs range from 400 units of Blue Frog … and Others by Orchestra Di Enrico Simonetti to 7,000 for U2’s Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me. Record Store Day doesn’t give or sell the releases to participating stores, leaving each indie record store to make its own buying decisions, it said, and because of limited runs, a store may not get all the copies it wants, or it may sell out of a release. While Record Store Day Black Friday releases will be available only in participating physical record stores on the day of their release, stores with a year-round online website -- or that sell through marketplaces at non-auction prices under their store name -- may offer the titles on the Black Friday list for sale online, said RSD. It encouraged consumers to make sure they buy from a record store “so you know you're paying a fair price and supporting an independent business.”