Record Store Day lineup

Some Record Store Day shoppers will be lining up for vinyl at dawn on Saturday, April 18, but in Australia the bigger play is turning record shops into one-day venues with live sets, signings, raffles, and all-day bills. The official Record Store Day site says the releases start in participating stores on April 18, and Australian coverage shows stores using concerts to pull people in before the rarest copies disappear. (recordstoreday.com, themusicnetwork.com) Record Store Day started in 2008 after being conceived in 2007 as a way to celebrate independent record stores, and the organization now says it spans nearly 1,400 independently owned stores in the United States plus thousands more internationally. The basic rule has not changed: the event is built around brick-and-mortar shops, not a central online checkout page. (recordstoreday.com, recordstoreday.com) That store-by-store setup is why the lineup matters so much. Record Store Day says each shop orders directly from distributors, each shop chooses its own titles, and there are no pre-orders, so two stores on the same street can have completely different stock on April 18. (recordstoreday.com) The official 2026 list is huge, with several hundred special titles tied to April 18, and Scottish reporting says buyers can expect releases from artists including Air, Arcade Fire, Blur, Bruce Springsteen, Charli XCX, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Lucy Dacus, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Taylor Swift, and The Vaccines. The same Scotsman guide warns that not every shop will carry every title, which is why collectors often map out more than one stop. (recordstoreday.com, scotsman.com) Australia is leaning hardest into the “go to the shop and stay there” version of the event. The Music Network reports live in-store appearances from Hermitude, Baker Boy, Kee’ahn, The Gnomes, Public Figures, Naomi Keyte, and others across New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Queensland. (themusicnetwork.com) Hermitude are the clearest example of how far stores are pushing this. The duo plan to visit eight record stores in 24 hours in New South Wales to mark their new LP EIGHT, with some stops featuring live performances and others running limited lathe-cut vinyl raffles. (themusicnetwork.com, bluntmag.com.au) Melbourne and regional Victoria are treating the day like a mini festival circuit. Northside Records is set for live performances from Kee’ahn, Mokomokai, and Steppers plus a Baker Boy signing, while Soundmerch is running day-long sets with Public Figures, Owelu Dreamhouse, The Antics, and The Gnomes, and Popcultcha Records in Geelong has The Vasco Era, Saint Ergo, and Winksy booked. (themusicnetwork.com, bluntmag.com.au) That turns the usual Record Store Day strategy on its head a little. Instead of treating the record as the whole event, stores are treating the record like the ticket stub you take home after seeing a set, meeting an artist, or catching a signing in a room that normally just sells stock. (recordstoreday.com, themusicnetwork.com) If you miss out in person, the fallback is delayed and uncertain by design. Record Store Day says leftover stock may go online starting Sunday, April 19, but only if individual stores choose to list it, which means the shop with the live set may also be the only shop that ever had the pressing you wanted. (recordstoreday.com) So the real 2026 lineup is not just a list of vinyl titles. It is a map of which independent stores are turning one Saturday into a concert room, merch table, autograph line, and record bin all at once, with Australia currently showing the most aggressive version of that formula. (recordstoreday.com, themusicnetwork.com, bluntmag.com.au)