Record Store Day is a national recognized day in the music community where vinyl-enthusiasts collect records and venture to their local record store to buy limited releases of records. 

Record store day began in 2007 and occurs on one Saturday in April every year (April 23rd in 2022) and is a day used to show support for local Record Stores. The global ambassador was Taylor Swift. Her record store day release was The Lakes 7” on a clear pressing. There were only 10,000 copies made.

This record store day, the only album I truly wanted was The Lakes vinyl, which I was fortunate enough to get. 

The record store I went to only had five copies available since the release was so limited. I had woken up at the ungodly hour of 6:00am and I was still the sixth person in line. I had to wait outside the store for two hours. 

As I waited in line, I quietly stressed that everyone ahead of me had gotten Taylor’s album. This, however, was not the case. I did finally get the album, and it was the last one on the shelves. 

For any future record store day hauls, it is important to wake up early if you want the best vinyls.

I bought the record for $20. That very day, people were trying to resell the same album for $500. It was a limited release album, so it was valuable, but a $480 markup is absurd. 

To make matters worse, buyers go there to buy and resell the album only. They are not interested in the music, just the markup. 

In my opinion, that is unfair to those fans out there who love vinyls but cannot shell out ridiculous amounts of cash to buy it. This practice needs to change.