Taylor sets sights on Record Store Day after taking over Super Bowl - Kevin Buckle

When I wrote my column about Record Store Day last week, even though it had already been announced, I hadn’t realised that the new Taylor Swift album would in fact be released the day before.

US singer Taylor Swift performs on stage during a concert as part of her Eras World Tour in Sydney. (Photo by David Gray/Getty Images)

Swifties, as Taylor’s fans are known, have had releases on Record Store Day for the last two years with a seven inch of The Lakes being released in 2022 and Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions album available in 2023. This year however it would appear that after taking over this year’s Super Bowl her next mission is to show she is in fact bigger than Record Store Day. In terms of sales that won’t be too difficult as RSD releases are always limited so there will be no doubt about the number one album but both from a sales and a publicity viewpoint it will be interesting to see how the two big events compare.

As yet there is very little information that the shops have about Taylor’s new album titled The Tortured Poets Department. The album is already on sale from her own website on vinyl, cassette and compact disc with all claiming to have the bonus track The Manuscript. However it is not clear if this means that the formats offered to retailers will not have this track. The vinyl comes on two ghosted vinyl white discs and again I would be very surprised if shops aren’t offered a different colour variant. The cassette is already showing as sold out.

Already on February 16 during her first Eras Tour stop in Melbourne, Taylor unveiled an alternate edition of the album, The Bolter Edition, which featured a new cover and a different bonus track, The Bolter. It was only made available for a limited time to pre-order on her website and is no longer listed.

We can certainly expect more fun and games in the run up to the album’s release which will detract from the usual blanket publicity given to Record Store Day. This may not be all together a bad thing as often the focus is not even on the artists but the popularity of “vinyls” and it is too often the case that the format has become more important than the music.

There is an irony for Avalanche known for all 40 of its years as a purveyor of “miserable boy indie” that now we sell huge numbers of not just Taylor Swift but also Lana Del Rey, Mitski, Fiona Apple and more recently Gracie Abrams. Thankfully those who visit Avalanche, often from far afield, are pleased to still find all the bands they would hope to see just with added Taylor and others much favoured by the kids from My Chemical Romance and Slipknot to more recent faves Ghost.

Of course if all goes to plan it will be a bumper weekend and the good thing about a Taylor Swift album for us is that it will continue to sell unlike most new releases these days that die off very quickly. Record Store Day releases also stop selling quite quickly but luckily after all these years I normally get the figures right so we don’t need to join the online selling madness that follows.Whatever happens it is sure to be an interesting weekend in more ways than one.