Friday, April 20, 2012

Record Store Day Drops the Needle on 300 Exclusive Vinyl Releases

this from Jeff Palmer over at www.vinylnewsservice.net

A RECORD STORE NEAR YOU, April 18, 2012 – From Abba to Wilco, exclusive vinyl recordings of all genres, shapes, sizes, colors, and speeds will be released on April 21 to commemorate Record Store Day for 2012.

To celebrate and promote independently owned record stores throughout North America and Europe, Record Store Day was founded in 2007 and takes place the third Saturday of every April. 

Many record labels are honoring the day with the release of more than 300 vinyl recordings, most of them unavailable any other way. 

More than 1,700 independently owned record stores and shops in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and 25 other countries are participating in the event, from the world’s oldest record shop, Spillers Records in Cardiff, England, which first opened in 1894, to Chicago’s Hydrogen Plus Records which opened last fall.

Special vinyl releases will be sold solely at participating stores, and store owners will choose which titles they plan to stock, including:

 •James Brown – unreleased performances from his 1962 Apollo Theatre concert

•The Civil Wars – a 7-inch 45 of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”

•Miles Davis - Forever Miles, an album of previously unreleased performances

•Flaming Lips – a double-album collaboration with various musicians

•The Kinks – re-issues of three late 1960s albums on colored vinyl

•Branford Marsalis – the latest release of his jazz quartet

•Metallica – previously unreleased recordings on 12-inch silver vinyl

•Katy Perry – her song “Part of Me” on pink vinyl

•Iggy Pop – a 7-inch release on lime green vinyl

•The Supremes – a 7-inch release of their early hit “Baby Love” on heart-shaped vinyl

•Tegan & Sara – their Get Along album on white vinyl

•Peter Tosh – re-mixes of his Legalize It music on a picture disc

•Widespread Panic – Live Wood, an album of recordings from its recent tour

Music lovers of all ages continue to discover or return to their love of analog music on vinyl, describing it as “richer,” “warmer,” “more natural,” “more durable,”  and simply “cooler.”  In addition, about half of all recorded music has only been released on vinyl. 

Critics of digitized music complain mid-range sounds are compressed and distorted, while higher frequencies are missing.  At a media conference in January, rock musician Neil Young said digital music only provides 5 percent of the data of music created in a studio, and that even digital guru Steve Jobs preferred listening to analog recordings on vinyl. 

Vinyl-philes revel in the ceremony of taking a record out of its sleeve, gazing at the album cover art, and playing the record through one side, then flipping it over, claiming that is the way the music was meant to be heard.  Vinyl listening can be a social event, with music lovers gathered in clubs and dorm rooms to play their favorite albums.    

Nielsen Soundscan continues to rank vinyl as the fastest-growing musical format, with 3.9 million new long-playing vinyl albums sold in the United States, up 39.3 percent from 2010.   And the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) noted sales of new vinyl singles, typically played at 45 revolutions per minute and containing one song on each side, nearly doubled last year in retail dollars, from about $2.3 million in 2010 to more than $4.5 million.  

“Vinyl as a format has shown remarkable staying power,” said Joshua P. Friedlander, RIAA Vice President, Strategic Data Analysis.  “Although it remains only a small part of the music market today, vinyl album sales have been growing for the past few years.  In 2011, more than five million vinyl albums were shipped, the highest level since 1990.”

While most long-playing vinyl spins at 33 1/3 rpm, rock mavericks such as Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Tom Waits have all recently released records to be played at 78 rpm, since many new turntables have resurrected the vintage playing speed, a music format virtually extinct by 1960.

Extinction, the word used to describe the fate of vinyl records when CDs began usurping their shelf space in music stores in the 1980s and 1990s, is now being used in relation to CDs, as retailers strive to provide customers what they want – more vinyl. 
 
For more information on Record Store Day, participating record stores, and a complete list of special vinyl releases, go to www.recordstoreday.com

The Vinyl Institute represents the leading manufacturers involved in the production of PVC vinyl in the United States, and promotes the value of PVC and vinyl products to society.

For more information, contact:
Jeffrey B. Palmer
Director of Marketing & Communications
The Vinyl Institute
571-970-3327


jpalmer@vinylinfo.org

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