Music fans know all about Record Store Day, that occasional holiday when buyers flock to their favorite local brick-and-mortar shops to load up on playable media. And while the growth of Record Store Day’s popularity has gone hand in hand with a resurgence in vinyl sales over recent years (see last year’s cover story on the subject here), it’s worth remembering that RSD is media-agnostic. There are even those who come home with nothing but a load of CDs after the day’s grand events. Meanwhile, there’s one holiday for vinyl and vinyl only: National Vinyl Record Day, which falls on Saturday, August 12th this year. And, given the importance of Memphis to every step of the vinyl food chain, it comes as no surprise that there will be a unique celebration here.
Vinyl is clearly no joke here. Memphis Record Pressing (MRP) recently underwent a multimillion-dollar expansion, tripling the size of the company and bringing the total number of presses to 52 and the staff to more than 400. With these changes, the company’s on track to produce 20-25 million records this year. When running at full capacity, MRP can press as many as 125,000 records a day or more than 45 million a year, making it the largest vinyl record manufacturer by volume in North America.
Having turned this monumental corner, MRP is now marking National Vinyl Record Day with a giveaway for record enthusiasts. In partnership with local record stores Goner Records, Shangri-la Records, and River City Records, MRP is giving away a limited-edition, specially designed National Vinyl Record Day commemorative pin, to be available on a first-come-first-served basis at the participating stores. MRP employees will also be sporting the pins at work in the week leading up to National Vinyl Record Day.
“National Vinyl Record Day, obviously, means a lot to us, and we thought this was a fun way to mark the occasion and thank all the vinyl enthusiasts who have helped our industry thrive in recent years,” noted MRP CEO and co-founder Brandon Seavers in a statement.
California radio host and vinyl enthusiast Gary Freiberg started National Vinyl Record Day in 2002 to promote the “preservation of the cultural influence, the recordings, and the cover art of the vinyl record.” The date was chosen to honor the reported date in 1877 when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. This year’s celebration comes fast on the heels of the 75th anniversary of the long-playing album, or LP, marked this June.
The event also comes as the vinyl renaissance that began almost two decades ago has reached a new milestone. Vinyl record sales have been increasing steadily for 17 years, and only grew more during the pandemic. Last year, vinyl album sales overtook CD sales for the first time since 1987, with 43.46 million copies sold.
MRPs growth in recent years has been equally impressive. An offshoot of defunct CD manufacturer AudioGraphc Masterworks, MRP has expanded dramatically since opening its doors in 2015.
Meanwhile, what of the city’s veritable temple to vinyl culture and music, Memphis Listening Lab, on this day of tribute to the majesty of wax? “We don’t have anything planned,” says MLL head archivist Jim Cole. “But we’re here if anyone wants to come spin some records.”
