How Taylor Swift took over the music world - Kevin Buckle

A fair amount of excitement in the shop from younger folk when the Record Store Day list for 2023 was announced. It was already known that The 1975 were to be RSD ambassadors and they revealed a live album but also for the second year running there is to be a Taylor Swift release.

One in 25 of all vinyl sales in the United States last year were for a Taylor Swift album

Last year there was a Taylor Swift single and to be honest we hadn’t really stocked her albums, mainly because we had never been asked.

When we moved to Waverley Market it became obvious quickly that some bands that had been quite small for us, like My Chemical Romance, Lana Del Rey and Gorillaz, would be huge sellers, while others that had previously passed us by, such as Mitski and Car Seat Headrest, would be in high demand.

Taylor fans, though, had very much kept quiet, which is even stranger given that now only a year later she is one of our biggest sellers. It helps that she has a good number of albums available and “Swifties” aim to collect them all.

Other artists I’ve mentioned may sell well but have just one or two albums everybody buys.

I did draw the line at encouraging fans to buy the new Taylor Swift album over and over again just to get a different colour vinyl and a different picture!

While it is clear the fans do actually listen to the music, it was depressing to be told that while the album Reputation is considered to be one of her best albums, it is also such a good seller because it has the bonus of being picture disc vinyl, which looks good on a wall.

To be honest there was very little on the list to excite me, though being an old person it is nice to see the

Rich Kids album Ghosts of Princes in Towers getting a release and I will be playing Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine’s album 30 Something on the big day.

I may even keep a copy of the Honey Bane / Fatal Microbes Violence Grows coloured 12-inch for myself for old times’ sake, even though I own the original seven inch.

There is the obligatory David Bowie release, but even the keenest fans gave up on Record Store Day a long time ago, while Cure fans, it was clear last year, are falling out of love with the picture disc reissues. Anybody left buying the yearly Grateful Dead box set is getting what they deserve.

Every year Avalanche opens at 9am rather than 8am on the basis 8am is no time for a record shop to be open Record Store Day or not. We will discourage people from queueing and hopefully every Taylor Swift fan will get what they want as happened last year.

The jury is out on how keen fans of The 1975 will be on a live album, while there is no doubt Taylor’s live version of Folklore will be huge and has the added credibility of including Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Aaron Dessner of The National.

Record Store Day is on 22 April and Edinburgh has six shops taking part. Before all that, Avalanche will be celebrating exactly four years at Waverley Market on Wednesday 1 March in our 40th year in the city centre.