Check out the full list of Record Store Day 2022 releases: Featuring Blur, Taylor Swift, Elvis, Bring Me The Horizon, Pinkpanthress, Sam Fender, Blondie and many more. Hundreds of exclusive releases have been revealed for Record Store Day 2022, including records from the likes of Blur, Taylor Swift, Elvis, Bring Me The Horizon, Pinkpanthress, Sam Fender, Blondie and many more. Check out the full list below. Returning for the 15th time on April 23, RSD will see hundreds of vinyl, CD and cassette releases sold exclusively through independent record shops – with over 260 stores from every corner of the UK and thousands around the world taking part in the celebrations. This comes after the Entertainment Retailers Association’s recent report that showed that vinyl sales in the UK are at their highest level in over 30 years, growing a further 23 per cent year on year in 2021.
Record Store Day 2022: The 20 Must-Have Releases: This year’s holiday includes titles from Pixies, The Cure, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and more. Record Store Day 2022 is approaching, and this year, organizers have decided to return to the traditional single-day holiday model. In light of the pandemic, Record Store Day was spread out across multiple dates over the last couple years, but for 2022 the vast majority of special releases will drop on April 23rd. An additional day, June 18th, has also been named as a safety net date for any problems that arise. This year’s notable releases includes Alice In Chains’ first studio EP, a 40th Anniversary Edition of U2’s “A Celebration,” two different EP reissues from David Bowie, a Foo Fighters 7-inch of alternate versions from their 2021 LP Medicine At Midnight, and Pearl Jam’s double vinyl live album, Live On Two Legs. Taylor Swift, who was recently named as Record Store Day’s 2022 Global Ambassador, will also release a 7-inch of her 2020 single, “the lakes.”
Vinyl result: CD set to be overtaken by LP sales in 2022 as the vinyl revival continues: Is 2022 the year that CD finally ends its three decades as the physical format of choice? Based on market data for 2021, that result now almost seems inevitable in value terms. According to figures from the Entertainment Retailers’ Association (ERA), vinyl albums brought in £135.6 million in 2021 (up 23.2% year-on-year) compared to £150.1m in CD sales (down 3.9% year-on-year). On the current growth trajectory, vinyl will be ahead by the end of 2022. Based on unit sales from the BPI, CD still remains ahead of its rival. There were 14.4m compact discs sold (down 10.5% year-on-year) compared to 5.3m vinyl LPs (up 10.6%). But speaking to Music Week for our market analysis feature, Sony Music UK VP of market planning and sales Charles Wood predicts that vinyl will become the largest physical contributor to labels financially in the next 12 months. “Following an uplift of interest in vinyl sales during Covid, we saw that vinyl was being purchased by a broader audience, beyond your music fanatics and niche format obsessives that drove the ‘vinyl revival’,” he said.
Record Store Day is harming, not helping, independent music shops like mine: Supply chain chaos and a worldwide vinyl shortage means the annual event that once saved record shops from extinction has lost its way. Even in the age of social distancing, Record Store Day survived during the pandemic. After the 2020 edition was cancelled – it was scheduled for what became the middle of the UK’s first lockdown – the organisers staged separate release “drops” later that year, and again in 2021. You may have seen eager shoppers queueing outside record shops of all sizes up and down the country, wearing face masks as well as the usual thick coats and scarves to brave the pre-opening hours chill; perhaps you saw an obligatory news puff piece about how “vinyl is back” as the David Bowie and Prince estates scraped together yet another previously unreleased artefact. This year, on 23 April, it’s a return to business as usual as record stores around the world celebrate the 15th annual Record Store Day (RSD) with help from Taylor Swift, its starriest ambassador yet (who’s releasing a seven-inch to mark the event). But what was once a shot in the arm for physical retail is now an albatross around the neck of the establishment it purports to help.
Columbus, MS | Birney Imes: For the love of vinyl: It can be the slightest thing. A kid has an experience, seemingly insignificant at the time, and it turns out to be the spark that ignites a lifelong passion. Take Shelley Dornan, whose parents on Easter, 1964, gave their 8-year-old son a record album by a British band they had watched together a few weeks earlier on the Ed Sullivan Show. You never know. That was 57 years and more than 3,500 albums ago. Though he’s slowed down in recent years, Dornan, 65, continues to add to a collection of LPs that began with that 1964 release, “Meet the Beatles.” The seed planted on that Easter morning lay dormant until Dornan was in high school. A neighborhood friend, Stephen Ferguson, introduced him to the idea of record collecting. As it happens, it was the late 60s and early 70s a time widely considered the golden age of rock music. Dornan began collecting in earnest. This would last until the 90s when record companies slowed production of LPs. Then, 7 or 8 years ago, he resumed his quest.
Bob Marley’s Exodus: An album that defined the 20th Century: Bob Marley’s album Exodus was released 45 years ago. As a new exhibition about the reggae star opens in London, Arwa Haider explores how his music reverberated around the world. In the first room of the new Bob Marley One Love Experience at London’s Saatchi Gallery, you’re immediately hit by the Jamaican reggae megastar’s extraordinary recording catalogue with his band, The Wailers. Along the wall displays, one particular golden record sleeve radiates its own regal presence: the pivotal 10th album Exodus (1977), created while Marley and his bandmates were living a short walk away from this Chelsea venue. Now in its 45th year, it’s a work of powerful transition: arguably confirming Marley’s true global status, and continually connecting with new generations of listeners. The spirit of Exodus is multi-layered; its title track evokes the Old Testament tale of Moses leading his people to safety, and its parallels with Marley’s Rastafarian faith. It also reflects Marley’s own flight to London, amid the brutal turbulence of Jamaica’s elections, and in the wake of a December 1976 assassination attempt that wounded him and his wife, vocalist Rita Marley.
The first record Paul McCartney ever bought: In 2020, Paul McCartney made the curious decision to issue out a voice recording on Record Store Day. He decided to pay tribute to a recording that was decades old, but carried a sense of weight and purpose to it that merited its importance. And no, it wasn’t a Wings track. “Hello music lovers,” he said. “This is Paul McCartney speaking to you with his voice. The song that I would most like to post to the 6Music listeners is ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ by Gene Vincent. Now this is the first record I ever bought when I was a kid, and I saved up my pocket money for months, and then I took the bus downtown to the record shop, and I remember going into the back of the shop and listening to the record and loving it.” For those who are too young to remember it, which is basically all of us, ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ started something of a revolution when it was released in 1956. Sporting the voice of a teenage idol, it offered audiences a new form of expression, at a time when they were recuperating from the traumas of the Second World War. Rather than advocate for prosperity, ‘Be-Bop-A-Lulu’ overflowed with excitement, giving listeners the excuse they needed to put on their dancing shoes, and jive.
