RECORD HIGHS

The latest edition of Record Store Day, which took place on Saturday (4/19), once again achieved new sales highs—which nicely supplemented the other kinds of highs enjoyed by record-store customers. Let’s hear what a bunch of retailers have to say, shall we?

"It just gets better every year," says Terry Currier of Portland-based Music Millennium. "It was a monster for us. I was scared that we wouldn’t be able to beat last year’s numbers, but we were up 26%. It was like two-and-a-half weeks of sales in one day."

Said Alayna Alderman of Rochester’s Record Archive, "I feel like a broken record repeating myself year after year, but Record Store Day 2014 was the most incredible day in our stores 39-year history." She was also up 26%.

"We thought there was no way that we could be last year phenomenal sales, but we somehow did," notes RSD co-founder Michael Kurtz. "On average, stores are reporting an increase of sales of 20% or more above last year’s sales."

Dilyn Radakovitz of Sacramento’s Dimple Records provided an exclamation point, noting that his outlet was up a whopping 60% over 2013. "Just to put a little perspective on it, we went back a few years, and from 2010 through 2014, our sales are up 176%."

John Kunz of Austin’s Waterloo Records echoed many, saying that he had 300 people in line and doubled that number when he opened his doors. "It was the biggest single-day sales in the 32-year history of the store," he said, "In my all of my years in retail, the biggest sales days were always either the twenty-third of December or the Saturday before Christmas. Last year’s Record Store Day broke that trend, and this year we were still up another 12%."

Newbury Comics’ Carl Mello tells us that the chain’s 29 stores were up 8% on average, with some seeing double-digit gains.

Turntable sales were brisk across the board, as vinyl continues to rule the event; the best seller this year was the Crosley limited-edition Charles Schultz/Peanuts version (pictured at left). The biggest sellers among RSD releases included sets from Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen and Flaming Lips.

Currier noted that there was a constant line outside his store until noon, "It’s scary ordering that much product," he tells us "But it’s also exciting to see it fly off of the shelves."