The Releases: Plantations of Pale Pink (EP—Matador, 1996) / Sunfish Holy Breakfast (EP—Matador, 1996)
This Saturday, music enthusiasts across the globe will be lining up outside of hundreds of independently-owned businesses in celebration of “Record Store Day”: an event that was first held in 2008, at a time in which music downloads seemed to represent a legitimate threat to the purveyors of the physical media that I’m sure many of you readers genuinely love. If you happen to celebrate Record Store Day, have a great time; and I genuinely hope that you find whatever special releases you’re on the hunt for.
But with that said, I have come to hate Record Store Day.
Now look, I love records. In the COVID-and-beyond era, my library has grown exponentially—to limits that have long since surpassed the boundaries of ‘sound’ spending, and that occasionally test the stability of an otherwise rock-solid marriage. I also love record stores. In that same five-year span, I’ve gone to practically-comic lengths in order to sample the best that New York, Seattle, Phoenix, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Boston, Kansas City, London, Liverpool, and Edinburgh have to offer; all while reaffirming my belief that I am lucky enough to live in the best “record city” (Portland, Oregon) in America.
And even Record Store Day itself played an outsized role in my evolution from ‘collector’ to ‘obsessive.’ It was the 2019 limited RSD issue of Frank Black’s Teenager of the Year—on the shortest of short lists of my favorite albums of all-time—that truly kicked my hobby into overdrive. While I was out of town supervising a school trip that weekend, I pounced on a resale copy on Discogs—priced at a hefty, but not quite exorbitant, markup—and then embarked upon a never-ending quest to acquire all of my favorite music in vinyl form. And at the point of this writing—and of particular relevance to this ongoing project—I own well over a hundred Guided by Voices/Robert Pollard releases on vinyl, and have every intention of eventually completing the catalog; save perhaps for one of the five-hundred original Propeller copies.
But as for me, I don’t plan to visit any record shops this Saturday. Sure, I’ll probably swing by one on Friday afternoon to (hopefully) grab the latest Sharp Pins LP—and if you, fellow GBV fan, have not heard it yet, you really should. But my Saturday won’t be spent at Music Millennium, 2nd Avenue, Crossroads, Exiled, Jackpot, Tomorrow, Little Axe, or even my beloved Mississippi Records. Granted, several of those shops don’t participate in Record Store Day—at least not in the traditional sense—but they’ll still be around next weekend; and chances are you’ll find me at (at least) one of them.
Now, I know that I can come off as a bit of a curmudgeon, but I feel like a lot of my specific gripes with Record Store Day are plenty valid—and none of them are particularly unique. Despite the good intentions with which the project began, RSD has become something of a battle over scare resources: one in which Goliath typically prevails over the many Davids. Take a look at the list of Record Store Day releases, and you’ll see that it has come to be dominated by major artists on major labels.
And don’t get me wrong; I love plenty of major artists, and plenty of albums that have been released by major labels. But let’s really evaluate the quality of these “RSD Exclusive” releases. Looking through the list, I see an abundance of the following: lackluster live albums, demo collections, singles headed by unimaginative covers, soundtracks to films not particularly well-known for their music, and yet another Fleetwood Mac picture disc (there’s always a fucking Fleetwood Mac picture disc). And honestly, I don’t even really begrudge the folks who buy these things. In addition to supporting shops that I love, they’re supporting a hobby that I consider to be a noble venture.
But, like anything else economic, there are significant trade-offs to consider here. First off, those Fleetwood Mac picture discs are putting extra strain on pressing plants that are already struggling to keep up with demand. I won’t pretend to know all of the details of their situation, but that Sharp Pins album that I referenced earlier was digitally released almost a year ago, and still hasn’t been put out in a physical format. Then, there’s also the fact—supported by actual research—that many of these “RSD Exclusives” won’t ever actually find their way onto a turntable, and are likely sought out by collectors simply because they are rare. And therein lies my biggest problem with Record Store Day: manufactured scarcity.
From the ages of 9-13, the thing that I was most obsessed with was collecting baseball cards. To ten-year-old me, there was nothing better than going to Price Club and spending fifteen bucks on a box of ‘junk wax’—thirty-six packs of cards, sixteen cards per pack—and trying to piece together a complete set through persistence and a little bit of luck. In 1990, my set of choice was Topps—which, despite their era-reflecting gaudiness, I’d still suggest was a better choice than that of my older (Donruss) and younger (Fleer) brothers. It didn’t really register that these cards were so mass-produced that we were literally buying them for about 2 1/2 cents apiece. All that mattered was that we loved baseball, and that we loved the idea of building a collection.
But it was around that time that the makers of baseball cards began the pivot towards the ‘manufactured scarcity’ that would ultimately be the death blow to my first favorite hobby. By 1991, most brands had introduced a line of premium cards—Topps’ were the glossy Stadium Club series—largely inspired by Upper Deck’s 1989 entry into the marketplace. And granted, I loved Upper Deck—UD#1, Ken Griffey Jr’s rookie card, sits on the very desk at which I’m writing this—but their arrival was like Record Store Day 2008: a good idea that would soon shift the marketplace in a troubling direction.
By the summer of 1993, the baseball card industry had been turned upside-down by these so-called ‘premium’ series, and the intentionally-rare insert cards that would ultimately price thirteen-year-old kids such as myself out of the hobby. Packs ballooned in price, while the number of cards per pack was cut nearly in half. For awhile, cheaper cards remained an option, but sets like Donruss’ Triple Play—marketed specifically towards kids younger than myself—were an aesthetic nightmare. Coupled with my beloved Phillies’ loss in the 1993 World Series—seriously, fuck Joe Carter—baseball cards were soon relegated to a relic of my childhood.
So, what exactly is the connection to Record Store Day? Well, think of the poor kid who waits in line for an RSD Exclusive Taylor Swift 7″ single, only to find that the store sold the last one of them hours before—and to someone who only plans to flip it for a profit on Discogs. In the name of ‘supporting’ an independently-owned business, her object of intrigue was limited in availability; and her ultimate experience in trying to acquire it will be one that is likely to breed cynicism toward the very place that could turn her youthful curiosity into a lifelong passion for musical discovery. If rush orders of second-tier product by major labels—and this isn’t an indictment of Taylor Swift’s output per se, but more a commentary on the typical RSD Exclusive release—are going to push aside the work of genuinely independent artists, those major labels should at least make sure that the people who actually want those ‘exclusive’ releases can acquire them, right?
And that’s the thing: the love of that with broad appeal does have the ability to inspire deeper exploration. This past weekend, I decided to pull out my boxes of late-eighties/early-nineties ‘junk wax’ for the first time in a few years. I bought a 3″ binder and acid-free sleeves to store a complete set of 1990 Topps cards that isn’t worth half the price of said binder and sleeves. I did it to honor the work of a ten-year-old kid: one who spent countless hours hunched over those stacks of essentially-worthless cardboard; one who organized them with care, meticulous attention to detail, and genuine love.
And not only did it rekindle my enthusiasm for a hobby that has spent most of the past thirty-five years dormant, but it has also relit my determination to resume an attempt to build the entire 1960 Topps set: a project that I started with my daughter nearly seven years ago. After all, while I may have issues with manufactured scarcity, taking on the real thing—at least in the sense of a hobby—can actually be kind of fun.
Ratings: Plantations of Pale Pink (7.1) / Sunfish Holy Breakfast (8.2)*
*Singles are star-rated by their A-side; albums and EPs use the “Russman Reviews” scale.
Bob-ism(s) of the Week: Um, how about we just go with the entirety of “Subtle Gear Shifting.” I’m not sure how accurate the (possibly AI-aided) online transcriptions of the lyrics are, but either way the whole thing is gloriously Pollardian.
Next Week: A final hurrah for the “classic era” of Guided by Voices, before Robert Pollard departs for (potentially) greener pastures.
