RSD: big releases & events
Time Out New York flags limited Record Store Day releases from Taylor Swift, Paramore, Charli XCX, and Weezer and notes a major Rockefeller Center celebration, while local shops—from Nail City Record opening at 10 a.m. in Wheeling to Black Dog Books & Records’ combined two‑year anniversary in Grand Rapids—are planning queues, parties, and giveaways. ( )
On Saturday, April 18, Record Store Day turns Rockefeller Center into a free nine-hour festival called iNDIEPLAZA, and organizers say the Midtown event is now in its fifth year and expected to draw tens of thousands of people from noon to 9 p.m. Rough Trade is running the music side, with sales starting at 9 a.m. at the rink-level shop and 10 a.m. upstairs, which means the line for records starts before the first band does. (timeout.com) The bait is scarcity. Time Out says this year’s limited-run titles include releases tied to Taylor Swift, Paramore, Charli XCX, and Weezer, and the official Record Store Day site says those special records are sold through participating brick-and-mortar stores, not through Record Store Day itself. (timeout.com, recordstoreday.com) That last part is the whole engine of the day. Record Store Day says stores choose their own orders, most shops do not carry every title, there are no pre-orders, and any leftover copies can start showing up on store websites on Sunday, April 19. (recordstoreday.com) The event started as a shop-first holiday long before Rockefeller Center turned it into a plaza-sized spectacle. Record Store Day says it was conceived in 2007 by independent record store owners and employees, and the first one took place on April 19, 2008. (recordstoreday.com) That local-first model is why a store in Wheeling, West Virginia, can matter as much to collectors as a giant Manhattan event. The Intelligencer reports that Nail City Record, on the third floor of the McClain Building at 40 12th Street, Suite 300, opens at 10 a.m. on April 18 and is expecting people to line up well before the doors open. (theintelligencer.net) Nail City is treating the day like a town fair built around a turntable. Owners Jon and Molly Napier told The Intelligencer they ordered heavily on sought-after titles, planned giveaways tied to Bruno Mars merchandise, and commissioned a limited run of 50 screen-printed posters, including 10 foil editions. (theintelligencer.net) Grand Rapids is doing a different version of the same thing. Yahoo’s pickup of WOOD TV says Black Dog Books & Records is folding Record Store Day into its two-year anniversary on April 18, with the shop open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., complimentary baked goods in the morning, free pizza from Quarantino’s at 12:30 p.m., and live disc jockey sets through the day. (yahoo.com) Black Dog is also leaning into volume, not just exclusives. General manager Bill Moore said the store is putting out hundreds of new books along with hundreds of compact discs, tapes, and digital video discs, and he said past Record Store Day events there have brought in more than 1,000 shoppers. (yahoo.com) So the shape of Record Store Day in 2026 is two things at once. In New York, it looks like a plaza packed with Superchunk, Avalon Emerson, food vendors, and a discounted ride to Top of the Rock; in places like Wheeling and Grand Rapids, it looks like a line outside a neighborhood shop, a stack of limited records behind the counter, and a store using one Saturday to pull its whole city through the door. (timeout.com, theintelligencer.net, yahoo.com)
