Record Store Day: Billie Eilish, Gorillaz and David Bowie among stars releasing special vinyl editions this year
Record Store Day, the annual special one-day event designed to "celebrate the culture of the independently-owned record store" will be going big this year. So big that Record Store Day will be celebrated in three installments this year, with the first coming up on August 29.
The annual event first began in 2008 and was consequently held on a single Saturday every April and on every Black Friday in November, in order to shine a light on the culture of the indie record store, but on a global scale. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the festivities had to be staggered this year, with the original April 18 celebrations delayed to June 20. And since social distancing measures continued to wreak havoc on music store release schedules, the original Record Store Day was thereafter split up into three separate events called Record Store Day Drops, with the first edition coming up on August 29.
The next two Record Store Day Drops will be held on September 26 and October 24 in the coming months. This day aims to bring together fans, artistes and thousands of independent record stores across the world, and it will be organized by the Department of Record Stores, in partnership with Alliance of Independent Media Stores (AIMS) and Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS).
For August 29, the first edition of Record Store Day, a slew of artistes will be releasing special edition releases in formats such as LP box sets, 7-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch vinyls and compact discs. Some of these artistes include Billie Eilish, Gorillaz, The Weeknd, David Bowie, The Black Keys and Gary Clark Jr. Here's a quick rundown of some release highlights from August 29.
Anoushka Shankar will drop 1,200 copies of 'Love Letters' as 12-inch vinyls via Verve Records.
Bastille will release 1,500 2-LP sets of 'All This Bad Blood' via Capitol Records.
Beck will drop 4,000 copies of 'No Distraction / Uneventful Days (Remixes)' as 7-inch vinyls via Capitol Records.
Biffy Clyro will release a white seven-inch vinyl via Warner Records, which features covers of ‘Modern Leper’ by Frightened Rabbit and ‘Modern Love’ by David Bowie. Proceeds will go directly to Tiny Changes, a mental health charity started in memory of the late Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison.
Billie Eilish will release 17,000 copies of her 'Live At Third Man Records' LP via Interscope Geffen A&M Records.
Bob Marley & The Wailers will release 7,000 copies of 'Redemption Song' as a 12-inch vinyl via UME (Tuff Gong/Island).
Charlie Parker will release 4,000 copies of the 'Jazz at Midnite' LP via UME (Blue Note).
Christine And The Queens will drop 1500 copies of two 7-inch vinyls of 'La vita nuova: séquences 2 et 3' via Because/Capitol Records.
David Bowie's 'ChangesNowBowie' and 'I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74)' will release in CD and vinyl formats via Parlophone.
Eminem will release 2,000 copies of 'My Name Is'/'Bad Guys Always Die' as a 7-inch vinyl via Interscope Geffen A&M Records.
Gary Clark Jr will drop 3,000 copies of 'Pearl Cadillac' featuring Andra Day as a 10-inch pearl vinyl single via Warner Records.
Gorillaz will release two LP box sets, limited to 15,000 copies each, called 'G-Sides' and 'D-Sides' via Warner Records. Each LP set contains B-sides, remixes and bonus tracks from the band.
John Prine will drop 2,000 copies of 'The Atlantic Albums' 4x LP box set, via Rhino Atlantic Records.
kd lang will release a red translucent vinyl version of 'Angel With a Lariat' (Sire Records) as well as a cover album 'Drag' (Warner Records) as a double vinyl set, limited to 3,000 copies each.
The Black Keys will be releasing 5,000 copies of their 'Let’s Rock' (45 RPM) 2-LP box set, via Nonesuch Records.
Tyler, The Creator will be dropping 7,250 copies of his 'Cherry Bomb' 2-LP box set and 4,500 copies of his 'Cherry Bomb (The Instrumentals)' 2-LP box set via Legacy Records.
You can check out the full list of releases for August 29 by clicking here.