Universal Music ask, “Who wins from Record Store Day?”

Record Store Day takes place on Saturday 18th April and sees independent record stores up and down the country stocking a range of limited edition vinyl, released specially for the event. Started in 2008, a year after it launched in America, Record Store Day has always been viewed with a raised eyebrow but recently both bands (Drenge) and indie labels (Sonic Cathedral / Howling Owl) have expressed their discontent at the event.

Universal Music have listened to these criticisms, mainly revolving around unnecessary re-releases and major labels disrupting vinyl pressing, and waded in via a blog post asking the question, ‘Who Wins From Record Store Day?’

They claim that, “RSD has given the indie store sector, decimated over the last decade or so with the closure of over 500 shops, a new lease of life. It has also provided them a bonanza sales day. And it has helped rejuvenate the vinyl market; sales of LPs snuck past one million sales mark in 2014 for the first time since 1996.”

There’s a testimonial from Marc Fayd’Herbe, Universal’s independent sales manager who says: “I have worked with independent record stores for 25 years and RSD has been the single best thing that has ever happened to them. We should never forget that,” before arguing that RSD is only place where fans can get hold of long lost songs and albums. “Only a handful of original copies of Frank Wilson’s Northern Soul classic ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’, first released on the Soul label in 1965, now survive. They are valued at over £25,000 each, but this year UMC/Virgin will make it available again.“

It ends by talking to the people who RSD is out to support with Banquet Record’s Jon Tolley explaining, “It’s a very important part of the music year. There’s the feel good factor of seeing the queues around the block and then the financial shot in the arm. There are three sales spikes throughout the year and Record Store Day is the biggest,” before concluding “When bands more up our street, like Bloc Party and Slow Club, got involved we got more excited. Different releases encourage a lot of other music fans to shop in stores and maybe see stuff they wouldn’t have ordinarily bought.”