Every year music geeks and luddites alike celebrate the one day come to be known as Record Store Day. As vinyl continues to surge in popularity against the decline of the compact disc, this festival of wax is a bastion for music lovers of all stripes: above ground, underground, indie, and lately—to the chagrin of many—commercial.
This year’s list is probably the best in a year or two, here are some of the highlights:
In EPs and Singles, Air is releasing “Playground Love,” the haunting ode that played the soundtrack to even more haunting The Virgin Suicides. The Replacements are releasing “Alex Chilton,” Alex Chilton is seeing a posthumous release of “Jesus Christ” (and here’s hoping it’s as cool as his Dalai Lama EP). Courtney Barnett’s new album comes out at the end of this month, and she has a 7” called “Kim’s Caravan,” coming out specially for RSD. J Dilla is getting two singles, one of those splits for Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” is probably going to end up ruining one of the greatest songs of all time. Another split is Gram Parsons’ “Brass Buttons” backed with a cover by the Lemonheads, and I hope that that doesn’t suck either. I’m pretty psyched about this Father John Misty single that will be in the shape of a heart on red vinyl.
The 1975 is releasing four EPs for the first time on 12” vinyl. They played Boston Calling last year, and Tove Lo who will be there this May is releasing Truth Serum EP in limited numbers. Liam Finn is releasing the demos from The Nihlist—the first album I reviewed for Pancakes and Whiskey, and I’m interested to see if some of my comments panned out. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is releasing something called The Time Warp EP, which I can only hope has a large grinning Tim Curry as Dr. Franknfurter on the cover.
Soundtracks are big this year: Bernard Herrman, soundtracker extraordinaire, is getting a 7” release of the theme from Psycho, while more song oriented soundtracks for The Darjeeling Limited, Orange is the New Black, and The Walking Dead are all getting limited releases. There is something listed only as Twin Peaks, and here’s to hoping that it’s a full release of the soundtrack, but it could just be the band (sigh). The most special release in this category is Music from the Adventures of Pete & Pete by Polaris, a band fronted by Mark Mulcahy, whose 2013 album Dear Mark J Mulcahy, I Love You was one of the year’s best. Here’s to my childhood!
Social D, The Hold Steady, and Run the Jewels are getting Record Store Day first releases, as is the long awaited vinyl release of Get Behind Me Satan, the White Stripes’ best album (don’t argue, it is). The one thing I think people always sleep on is the Rough Guide series, it’s like a travel guide Anthology of American Folk Music minus the American part. This year includes titles like: Psychedelic Salsa, Latin Rare Grooves, Bollywood Disco, African Rare Groove, and Psychedelic India.
For the classics: Dylan has a limited run of The Basement Tapes, but you could probably find an original in good condition for a similar price (of all his records, this is, for some reason the one that never sells in record stores). The Sugarhill Gang has a two-disc best of, so does the late Johnny Winter. Springsteen is releasing a handful of early albums. Jam bands are fairly represented by Grateful Dead, Phish and Trey Anastasio Band. Macca is releasing something that he didn’t do with Yeezy, and I’m fine with that.
The whole list is worth checking out, as I’m sure that I probably missed your favorite band, and as always support your local record store.
The full list here.
Article by: Christopher Gilson
