For eight years now, it's been a day to celebrate music at the place that brings it to us – the record store.
National Record Store Day happens every year during rock week at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where vinyl favourites like Joan Jett, Bill Withers, Lou Reed and Ringo Starr are just some of the artists being inducted.
“We had a record store in our little town and everybody went so if you had any money from about the time you were 13, that's where you went,” says vinyl lover Patty Duff.
Thousands of record stores around the world celebrate the day and a growing number of people are listening to music on vinyl. In fact, Nielsen reports vinyl sales have grown by 260 per cent since 2009.
“The clarity of a CD isn't the same as the spinning of the record and the crackling,” says Duff. “You really have to sit and listen to it and you love it.”
Darryl Rayner remembers 30 years ago, the first time he walked into a record store.
“The first time I walked in there, there was a Judas Priest record and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to have it,’” he says.
So Rayner bought it and today has thousands of vinyl albums, CDs and everything else.
“My iPod has got 43,000 songs on it and it's everything from Scorpions to Iron Maiden to Jethro Tull.”
Record store owner Dan Stephens says he believes there will always be a place for the record store, not only to touch, feel and read about the music, but to learn about it.
“Guy comes in here and says ‘I like jazz,’ we can direct him to buy some Brubeck, buy some Davis, some Getz. Pretty soon he knows what he wants to buy, before he even walks in the door.”
