Record Store Daydream

My tolerance for Record Store Day (RSD) is getting less and less as each year passes. What started out with good intentions has turned into a Frankenstein’s monster. Who wins in this one day, free for all  folly of low supply/high demand? It sure isn’t the dedicated music buyer. It definitely isn’t the eBay buyer, aka also a consumer or customer of said goods. I suppose you could say the stores come out on top (which is good) but, sadly, the true moneymakers are the eBay flippers. Those who either camp out in front of a store or pay someone to do so for them and just stock up on the rarest of the rare and turn it over immediately. Many RSD releases will sell for hundreds of dollars that day and then go down in value to a more reasonable price just days later (mostly but not all).

Stores are beholden to a strict Record Store Day policy that makes online auctioning, price mark ups, early sales, etc. illegal. If stores are caught in the act, they will be blacklisted by the RSD organization, taken off the official list of participating stores and will no longer receive the exclusive stock of RSD releases going forward. So, while stores do enjoy more traffic and sales on RSD, their day is mostly spent either selling to horrible people whose goal is to feed off of obsessed record collectors or, in turn, to tell the stores usual clientele they no longer have the item they’re looking for. Yes, this gives the stores a profit of a few bucks for each record they sell but it really pales in comparison to the hundred dollar plus profits that can be made online that very same day.

Why do items go for this price? Well, just take a popular band and press 1,000 copies of an exclusive album for worldwide sale and then only place a handful of them in each participating store that has lines around the block before opening. That’s an equation that results in disappointment for the majority of fans of that band, for the regular customers of said store and for humanity in general. Simultaneously, the low life who couldn’t give a shit about music or the store it’s being purchased from can walk away with that release and all the other hardest to find items. Sure, you can make the argument that the same music fans waiting in line are also the ones buying the eBay items from these soul-sucking jerks but I can’t blame them. They just want the music and are willing to go to extremes to get it. It really is ridiculous that these fans and music buyers are the ones being exploited not only by the eBay sellers but also by the Record Store Day organization itself. These fans are the ones who support these bands, these labels and these stores year round and just not on one made up capitalist holiday in April. It’s time for the RSD company to wake up and stop with the ridiculous limited edition aspect of all their titles. If it’s customers they want and not circling vultures, then up the supply and allow the stores to sell to their customer base and to any new customer who walks in for the first time. After all, isn’t that what this whole day is about- buying records at a physical brick and mortar store and not online like everybody does the other 364 days of the year.

Record Store Day is now something completely different than it was that first year of it’s existence. It’s time for the RSD organization to reassess its goals and point for existing. Without fail, every year the number of release goes up and the number of each pressed goes down. What is the point of this exploitation? This premeditated and falsely created demand only feeds secondary markets with the physical stores just acting as the supply house for astronomic online sales. Just something to think about, that’s all and remember only 11 months and half months to the next Record Store Day…