It’s Back! Your Guide to Record Store Day 2025!
It's that time again—the time to pull the record player off the shelf, dust it off, and get it ready to play some new tunes. Record Store Day is back again! The day of deals and special releases all across your local record stores. The Annual 2025 Record Store Day arrives in just a week on Saturday, April 12th, so let this serve as your abridged guide to what good tunes you should get!
But first, I should probably mention what Record Store Day is. The first RSD was back on April 19th, 2008, and was conceived simply as a day to draw more attention to the vinyl collector culture in small businesses. It was a hit. Artists would create special edition vinyls to release just for the day, and they would be solely exclusive to small businesses and never to retailers. It is a tradition still kept up to this day, and it helps the local stores thrive.
Now let's jump right into the guide with one that's highly priced and well worth it. Now, I'll tell you, this record is $99, but that price is worth it when I tell you it's a 3LP, ZOETROPE vinyl! If you don’t know what a zoetrope is, it's a type of animation that simulates movement by spinning quickly using different still images, and the record is covered in them! The album is George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and it is arguably his most famous album. It features his biggest hit single My Sweet Lord and collaborations from all sorts of famous artists from Billy Preston to Eric Clapton. It’ll cost a pretty penny, but if you want it go quick because there’s only 2300 copies!
If you’ve heard me on the station before, you probably know one of my favorite artists is Gorillaz, so as you could probably guess, I was very excited when I saw they released for RSD. It’s the 20th anniversary of their second and arguably their most famous album, Demon Days, and they are releasing a first-time pressed 2LP of Demon Days Live from the Apollo Theater! The vinyl is pressed in a bright red, and the gatefold sleeves are decorated with the signature Gorillaz artwork. The vinyl is priced at around $45, but there's a good bunch of copies released at 6,500, so you’re sure to find one!
For Harry Potter fans, you could get the soundtracks to the first four films this Record Store Day! You could get your hands on the soundtracks from The Sorcerer’s Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Goblet of Fire, only for $35 a piece! The first three albums were all composed by the great John Williams and all four records are pressed on clear vinyl.
Lastly, on my guide, I give you a picture disc of a now 50-year-old classic album. Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album is celebrating its half-century anniversary with an RSD exclusive picture disc. The album features some of their greatest hits, such as Rhiannon, Say You Love Me, and Landslide. The album is a great example of Fleetwood Mac’s wonderful sound, and there are 6,475 copies of this one, so no worries about not finding it.
Now my recommendations are just a very small number of the true number of releases that are for this Record Store Day. This year, there are 334 different music releases! So if none of these piqued your interest, I would highly recommend going to the RSD website to look at the full list of releases, and you’ll surely find something you love. From CDs to LPs, colored vinyl and not, there's always something to find on Record Store Day. Just remember, shop local and support your favorite small stores!
