Record Store Day week

Record Store Day lands on Saturday, April 18, with hundreds of limited-run releases heading to independent shops in the United States and abroad. (recordstoreday.com) The official Record Store Day site says the event began with a 2007 meeting of independent store owners and employees, and the first Record Store Day was held on April 19, 2008. The same site says nearly 1,400 independently owned stores in the United States now take part, alongside thousands more internationally. (recordstoreday.com) This year’s official release list runs past 365 titles, with exclusive or limited editions tied to artists including Taylor Swift and Charli XCX. Record Store Day’s catalog page also lists a Taylor Swift 7-inch single, “Elizabeth Taylor,” for April 18. (recordstoreday.com 1) (recordstoreday.com 2) Record Store Day also named Robert Plant its 2026 Record Store Legend. Record Store Day said Plant marked the honor with a visit to Spillers Records in Wales and will have an April 18 exclusive release, “Saving Grace: All That Glitters.” (recordstoreday.com) Plant said at Spillers Records that “record stores have always been a part of my life,” tying the award to the physical-record format that Record Store Day was built to promote. Record Store Day separately named Bruno Mars its 2026 ambassador. (nme.com) (recordstoreday.com) The supply chain behind the event is getting attention too. Goldmine reported this week that Microforum Service Group, a Record Store Day manufacturing sponsor in Canada, runs a 60,000-square-foot vinyl and compact disc plant and says it hits more than 99 percent of its deadlines. (goldminemag.com) Microforum’s Noble Musa told Goldmine the plant typically handles five or six Record Store Day titles a year, with runs that can start around 500 copies and rise to a few thousand. He said some titles are approved only for Canadian stores, while others are cleared for worldwide release. (goldminemag.com) At the store level, The Record Exchange in Boise says it will open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on April 18 and stretch the promotion into a four-day event from Friday, April 17, through Monday, April 20. The store says it expects to stock 350 Record Store Day releases on Saturday. (therecordexchange.com) That Boise schedule shows how the event now works as both a sales day and a local in-person draw. The Record Exchange says its weekend plan includes discounts, giveaways and surrounding events rather than a single morning line for exclusives. (therecordexchange.com) By next Saturday, the test will be simple: whether stores can turn a one-day rush for scarce vinyl into another year of foot traffic for the independent shops Record Store Day was created to support. (recordstoreday.com)