Record Store Day

While its difficult to overlook the fact that the undoing of the modern recording industry is largely a decline initiated by their own hand, it coincides with the more unfortunate decline of the independent record store. I have no qualms with seeing Best Buy or Wall-Mart sacrifice CD’s to gain additional floor space for other, more profitable media formats, such as the Larry the Cable Guy’s Big Ol’ DVD Box Set of Yuks Yuks and Cheese Farts, or a bargain bin full of Left Behind video games. But I find it disheartening to see indie record shops fall like a series of dominos. It seems likely that an entire generation of music listeners will acquire records from the sterile, human-free interfaces of services such as iTunes, never knowing that unique smell that lingers in the air of a basement record store, the intermingling scents of cellophane wrapping and dust rising off box after box of used LP’s.

But all is not lost yet. Today is Record Store Day! Indies from coast to coast are featuring special in-store performances and giveaways. So shut off that BitTorrent client, eject that iPod, and head to your local indie and experience what one day might be a nostalgia exhibit a la Colonial Willaimsburg.