Celebrate Record Store Day: Aloe Blacc, A Great Big World + VH1 Staff Share Their First Record Buying Experiences!

Music fans rejoice for today is Record Store Day, when we celebrate the contributions of independent music retailers worldwide. Since 2007 record stores have been banding together to combat their decline due to internet sales and digital formats and enticing shoppers, collectors and music fans of all stripes with limited edition releases and intimate in-store performances. If you grew up in the digital era it may take some explaining, but once upon a time you had to go to an actual store to buy your music which came on an actual physical record, tape or CD and if you were lucky the store was run by other music fanatics who would turn you onto great new sounds and albums that you might otherwise never have heard of. And it was AWESOME. Trust us.

We’ve already talked to this year’s Record Store Day Ambassador Chuck D of Public Enemy and Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, whose upcoming documentary Jaco is the Official Film Of Record Store Day. Today we’d like to honor the holiday by sharing with you an exclusive video of Aloe Blacc, A Great Big World and other artists sharing their first record buying experiences, as well as the VH1.com staff’s reminiscences of the same which can be found on the following pages. Whether you’re a casual music fan or a hardcore record collector, get out there today and support your local record store and indulge yourself in one of life’s great joys, the discovery of new music.

It sounded much better than my tape…and I could skip tracks in a flash! Technology is an incredible thing. I would always jump to “The Night Before,” my favorite song.  A band as big as the Beatles doesn’t really have “deep cuts,” but this one was about as obscure as they come. Fifteen years later when I finally was able to see Sir Paul McCartney in concert, he performed the “The Night Before” live for the very first time. It sounded WAY better than my cassette tape.

There are few pleasures in life that rank up there with the discovery of new music. And if you grew up in a certain age, buying new records was a major part of the joy. The artwork of the 12” vinyl record is an amazing template for a band to project their identity and ideas and we would fiend trying to find the versions of classic LPs that came with lyrics sheets or special promo labels. I can remember the paper cuts you would get under your thumbnail from opening the plastic in the jacket seam. New records even smell good. But ultimately it’s the sounds within that matter most, not the format, and I can thank many of the record stores of my youth for turning me onto so much of the music that has changed my life for the better.

The second: George Michael, Listen Without Prejudice Volume 1 because HOLY S***, this is one of the greatest albums of all time. Nothing captures that transition of ‘80s plastic and excess into the 90s hodgepodge of grunge/political consciousness/Real World: San Francisco like LWPV1. Obviously “Freedom! ‘90” is the ultimate jam off the album, but “Waiting For The Day” is a premium George Michael deep cut with a weird Rolling Stones shout out at the end. Give it a second listen.

Both are big albums from big performers of the time, but back then owning them felt very cutting edge and avant garde. In just two years I’d graduated from New Kids on the Block to surly Brits and Irishmen singing about things I didn’t understand but desperately wanted to. In the ‘80s and ‘90s you had to really work hard to learn about music. Often times you’d hear a song on the radio and if the DJ didn’t announce the title and artist you’d have to wait and try to hear it again just to ID it. I’d sit around with my cassette player and record the songs I liked off the radio. There were no iPods or Spotify or Rap Genius to help you. CDs came imprisoned in eight thousand layers of plastic of varying strengths, so you had to perform major surgery just to extract the CD from its case. The whole experience made me feel very sexy and dangerous, despite my braces, GAP jeans, and general pubescent awkwardness.