Three Record Store Days Are Better Than One
Words and photo by Rafe Arnott
No longer one day to pay homage to those brick and mortar establishments that bring the noise, Record Store Day 2020 is dropping three days of new, exclusive in-store releases and sales on August 29, September 26 and October 24 due to covid-19 health and safety concerns.
This trifecta of dates is meant to allow local vinyl shops to spread out and better serve the deluge of customers that would normally descend en mass for RSD. The thousands of titles pressed and scheduled for RSD 2020 release will be divided between the three Saturdays.
I don’t know about you, but I for one would love to see every year moving forward feature a three-day event schedule. The usual RSD, while loads of fun, is a frenetic, exhausting and long-lined affair that leaves many ecstatic with their purchases, and many frustrated and empty-handed as they watch customer after customer exit past the queue they’re in with the albums they want to buy.
Spreading out the album drops over three distinct weekends, would in my mind, make it a way more fun and engaging experience for collectors, music lovers and record shop employees as those people hitting the stores hardest on each day would (in theory) be there for the specific releases scheduled to drop that weekend… in theory.
A full list of the hundreds of albums set to drop, their drop dates, along with specific information on each LP can be found HERE.
