While a lot has changed in the music world over the last 16 years, one tradition is still hitting its groove to this day – Record Store Day.
The event, typically held on the third Saturday of April (April 20 this year), was proposed by now-Vice President of Finance at Bull Moose Chris Brown as a means to support independent record stores.
In an interview with The Equinox, Brown said he, as chair of the board of directors at the Music Monitor Network’s Department of Record Stores, got together with other coalitions at the time to craft the now world-renowned holiday.
“We’ll call it a holiday, but we will all just do whatever cool thing we usually do but we’ll all try to do it on the same day,” Brown said.
Getting the word out about the day proved to be a grassroots effort, but come 2008, the first Record Store Day, even Brown was caught off guard by the success.
“Metallica did an event in their hometown, which is San Francisco, the first year. I hoped Metallica would get interested at some point, like ‘Could we grow it to be big enough that Metallica would want to get involved?’ Yes, I was hoping for that, but it was amazing that they wanted to just step right in and do it the first year,” Brown recounted.
Brown said a statement from Paul McCartney of The Beatles about the day also came early on, but another breakthrough manifested during an airing of American Idol.
“The person who was doing PR for Bull Moose at the time called into American Idol and got through … and asked Paula Abdul ‘As you know, tomorrow is Record Store Day’ which of course nobody knew, and asked ‘What was the first record you ever bought?’ and so Paula Abdul is now talking about [it],” Brown said.
Brown said through all this, the organizers were able to accomplish their goal of building a bridge between independent record stores and major labels.
“It gave us more clout within the music industry and as a result, record labels paid more attention to us all year long,” Brown said.
Now, Record Store Day organizers officially operate in several countries, ranging from Mexico to Japan to Australia, to name a few.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) 2023 year-end revenue report, physical music formats made up $1.9 billion worth of sales, an 11% increase from the previous year and outpacing CDs, which also showed growth, for the first time since 1987.
While the annual sales event brings revenue bumps for independent music stores in the short term, Finance & Economics Department Chair William McColloch said it appears the long-term effects may be limited in keeping the shops open.
“It might be something that’s keeping some number of those stores alive or building a connection for consumers to physical media, or for younger consumers perhaps introducing them in the first place to that kind of consumption, but I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence that it’s been sufficient to prevent the forces of streaming,” McColloch said.
Despite this, McColloch said the staying power of physical media has proven itself in recent years, prevailing in the market despite the accessibility and low cost of streaming services.
“Not everything, particularly when we’re looking at back catalogs, actually makes it onto those [streaming] services and for those who care about history or care about retaining that lineage of film or music, I do think that physical media still has a role to play there,” McColloch said.
However, the rise of streaming has not only impacted the consumption of music but has also shaken up artists’ compensation and their ability to make a living from the field. In recent years the streaming service Spotify has gained notoriety for its low pay rates. Artists can be expected to be paid between $0.003 to $0.005 cents per steam after Spotify’s 30 percent cut, according to a 2024 LabelGrid article.
“That’s of course deeply consequential, lots of independent artists are probably not in it entirely for the money but people need to recoup basic costs and it becomes difficult to persist as an artist if you’re not seeing that minimal level of support from your fans and have some basis to sustain yourself,” McColloch explained.
At Keene State, WKNH has made it a point to support independent artists throughout the years.
WKNH Event Coordinator Ryan Stone said part of that support comes from both receiving and using physical media from artists.
“People send in CDs and even vinyl sometimes to the radio station for us to listen and to put on air and it’s always really awesome when people send us [that] physical media because it shows that they genuinely care about the music that they’re making [and] wanting to get their stuff out there,” Stone said.
Additionally, Stone said artists WKNH brings on campus to perform still frequently bring CDs with them for attendees to purchase and show support for the bands.
“Their success is important to them and it’s important to us as WKNH as people who bring them here and want to support them and boost their careers as musicians,” Stone explained.
While WKNH traditionally allows those with radio shows to play CDs and vinyl on-air, due to technical issues that is not possible at the moment, though Stone said she hopes to get the players set back up again soon.
“We’re hoping to, once we get all that stuff set back up, to have shows that are full-physical media which I think would be really cool to have for our radio station,” Stone said.
WKNH General Manager Trevor Adams said while streaming may make the listening experience easier, it is still worthwhile to keep physical media around.
“Every now and then there’s just something very charming about the old style of it, just having a physical record even if it’s just for the sleeve because the art is good, or sometimes the record itself is designed a little differently, rather than just being black,” Adams said.
Adams added continuing the collection of media is also a means to remembering the past.
“That used to be the way of life for a lot of people and at the very least remembering that a little bit is, I think is still a pretty worthwhile cause, just knowing where we came from,” Adams said.
According to Record Store Day’s website, local participating stores include Keene’s Bull Moose location, Keene on Vinyl, Turn It Up! in Brattleboro, Vt. and Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, N.H.
Nathan Hope can be contacted at
nhope@kscequinox.com
