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Record Store Day

The resurgence of vinyl, according to Looney Tunes Record Store owner Karl Groeger, is 100% attributed to one thing-- Record Store Day.

Record Store Day
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Looney Tunes Record Store1.jpg
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Credit: Looney Tunes Record Store

The idea of Record Store Day was introduced in 2007 as a way for independent record stores to get exclusive records that weren’t available anywhere else. Groeger elaborated that big-box stores like Target, Walmart, and Kmart were getting CDs from huge artists that included additional bonus tracks that were only available to them. As a result, people were buying more CDs from these major chain stores instead of the independent record stores. To gain more financial opportunities, a group of independent record store owners went to the record companies and asked to receive vinyl records of different releases. 

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“Vinyl came back because of the demand that was put towards the record companies,” Groeger said.

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Since big-box stores weren’t carrying vinyl releases at the time, record companies gave these smaller independent stores a shot. The first Record Store Day took place on April 19th, 2008, and vinyl has grown in popularity ever since.

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“It was because of that organization, Record Store Day, that the vinyl resurgence has grown all over the world,” Groeger said.

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When the big retailers started releasing records after the fact, Groeger wasn’t worried about losing revenue to these huge chains.

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“We didn’t have to adapt because we were already the industry leaders,” Groeger said. “When you’re leading the pack on something, and you’re the ones that everybody else is following, you don’t have to adapt, they need to try to adapt to you.”

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