Record Store Day usually happens in April, right after Tax Day, but with the pandemic, it got postponed to June which then got postponed again. What they came up with was splitting Record Store Day, and its usual cache of exclusive, limited edition titles, into three RSD "Drop" events happening the last Saturday in August, September and October.
The first of those was this past Saturday (8/29) and it was by all accounts a little shaky for stores and customers around the world. Many U.S. record stores had not even opened back up yet, while others -- like Brooklyn's Academy Annex -- opened just days before. Add to this general pandemic fears and stores' safety measures, it was not the usual Record Store Day experience.
This was also the first year where stores really celebrated RSD online which, in some cases (like if their brick and mortar store wasn't open yet or had closed permanently), was their only choice. With collectors looking for those exclusive titles, there were many reports of store websites crashing from the traffic. One of those was Amoeba, whose Los Angeles store was not open as they're in-between moving from their old Sunset Blvd location to their new Hollywood Blvd location. On Monday, they apologized for the less than ideal online RSD2020 experience:
Brooklyn's Rough Trade was open for Record Store Day, with a long line snaking on both sides of N. 9th St -- a common sight on Record Store Day -- but the line dissipated by early afternoon. They then put their remaining stock online at 5 PM... which then crashed their website:
Today, Rough Trade posted a video on Instagram giving an update on online customer's RSD orders:
How was your experience? Leave a comment on our Facebook post about this.
The next Record Store Day Drop will be September 26; let's hope the kinks get worked out by then...
