Why make something so great that would appeal to so many people, and then sabotage it by making it an ultra-limited edition that almost no one was able to get? Who wins other than the speculators? I mean, don’t you want people to be able to buy something you made? Isn’t that the point? And yes, I know the album is on iTunes (at least it is in some countries) but owning something on vinyl and owning a digital download is not the same thing and anyone who suggests otherwise is insane. I mean, what the fuck is that? “Rare and special?” There’s nothing special about under-producing something or screwing over your own fans for no good reason at all. 1000 copies goes thin when it stretches across the globe. Sorry some of you couldn’t track down the BLOOD DRAGON vinyl. The one that really pushed me over the edge was this one, sent out by James White, the awesome artist who designed the dope cover for the soundtrack. In their defense (seriously, good for them) they were sending out tweets all day directing people to stores that still had the LP in stock, but the aggro-inducing RTs didn’t stop either. Bragging about the insane feats people had to go to in order to get it is another set of bullshit entirely. Now, releasing a ridiculously limited LP seemingly made just for the speculator market is one thing. If I don’t get the Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon soundtrack after waiting in this long line for four hours, I’m going to murder everyone. I know I was right, because Invada was bragging it about it on their Twitter, shooting out re-tweets like this one. I suspected that this would be one of the most in-demand and understocked LPs for RSD, and it turns out that I was right. That’s so few to go around that some (okay me) might say that it’s downright crazy and a crown jewel of an example of everything wrong with Record Store Day. What I didn’t know until RSD however, was that the release was being limited to a scant 1,000 copies. So anyway, I was glad to see they were getting such a big name release, and from what I saw of it, I could tell that it was going to look incredible. This was in contrast to the horrible version that US boutique label Mondo Tees put out, a strictly disgustingly limited affair with hideously horrible cover art. I fell in love with them a few years back when they released a stellar (and still available and in-print) edition of the Drive soundtrack. The Far Cry LP was being released by Invada Records, one of my favorite indie record labels.
If there was anything I would have wanted this year for Record Store Day, it would have been that. I heard about some of the special releases, like that rad glow-in-the-dark Ghostbusters LP the insane 5LP LCD Soundsystem hipster explosion and a ultra-cool neon pink LP of the Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon video game soundtrack. Since I now live in Japan (and work a 12 hour day on Saturday) I wasn’t paying that much attention to RSD this year. It’s about making a quick buck to sell records to speculators, eBayers who will turn around and sell their finds at an even higher inflated price to turn a profit at the cost of some poor fan who loves a band so much that they have to own everything they put out no matter what the cost. More importantly, it’s no longer about record stores! It’s about making a quick buck, and it’s not even about making a quick buck by selling overpriced records to fans. In 2012, I dedicated a whole blog post to the bullshit surrounding RSD (and other ways bands screw over fans) My problem with RSD is the same now that it was then: it’s no longer about music. In 2011 when I posted some tracks from my RSD haul on my other blog Lost Turntable and got called out for it by one of the events founders, I used that chance to comment on what I thought were growing problems with the event. But every year since its inception I’ve grown more and more sour over the event.
When Record Store Day first started I lauded it as a welcome way to get people away from iTunes and back into the record store.
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