For the record: People (still) love their records.
When Wax Trax closed for the night last April 19, there were already people snaking around the iconic brick building on the corner of 14th Avenue and Washington Street. They were fully prepared to spend the entire snowy night on the unforgiving sidewalk for the chance to be among those first to get back inside the next morning for Record Store Day.
By the time the shop reopened at 8 a.m., the first in line had been waiting for 15 hours, and the queue to get in had grown to more than 100. Over at nearby Twist & Shout, the line was twice as long.
“People are always surprised when I tell them that vinyl is doing better than it ever has in the post-Napster era,” Wax Trax Marketing Director Delaney Schoenfeldt said. “It is so impressive to me that so many young people have started buying and collecting vinyl.”
Are they ever. New vinyl continued its nearly two-decade resurgence in 2024 with $1.4 billion in sales, according to a just-issued report from the Recording Industry Association of America. And that doesn’t even include used sales.
Record Store Day, which returns Saturday for an 18th year, began in 2008 as a way to celebrate not just physical media like vinyl and CDs, but the community who make them and love them.
Patrick Brown on everything you need to know about this year’s Record Store Day. Most Colorado record stores open at 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 12.
Twist & Shout
Organizers describe Record Store Day as an opportunity for music fans to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role they play in their communities.
And from a business standpoint, Record Store Day has become a critical infusion of revenue. For Wax Trax, Twist & Shout and many more of Colorado’s 32 participating independent bricks-and-mortar businesses, Record Store Day is now the highest sales day of the year, by far. Twist & Shout owner Patrick Brown says foot traffic on Record Store Day can be up to 10 times greater than any other Saturday. “It’s like packing two weeks of normal business into one day,” he said.
2024 Record Store Day at Wax Trax Denver. This year’s event takes place on April 12, 2025.
DELANEY SCHOENFELDT/WAX TRAX
At Wax Trax, now 47 years old, “Record Store Day is more than just our biggest sales day,” Schoenfeldt said. “It’s a way to bring attention to the independent record shop. We are the oldest record store in the state, and the fact that we’ve been able to persevere and have resilience is all due to our loyal community.”
For consumers, the irresistible lure is the exclusive merchandise – more than 300 artists from Bad Livers to Taylor Swift have made special vinyl and CD releases available in limited quantities – and the only way to get them is to physically show up and buy them at a participating store.
On Saturday, the merch bounty will include unique offerings from Charli XCX, Laufey, the Grateful Dead, Gracie Abrams, Prince, MJ Lenderman and hundreds more.
Birdie Hughes browsing in her Nirvana onesie at 2017 Record Store Day at Twist & Shout in Denver.
STEVEN COLE HUGHES
Schoenfeldt? “I’m really excited for Joey Valence & Brae,” she said. JVB is a couple of college rappers from Penn State Schoenfeldt calls “modern-day Beastie Boys.” They have made a special Record Store Day compilation of 12 favorite songs, including four tracks making their vinyl debut (one a cover of Charli XCX’s “365.”)
Brown’s jam is K. Frimpong and His Cubanos Fiesta, a seminal 1976 Ghanaian album that is considered one of the best “highlife” albums ever made – that’s a fusion of African and Western jazz melodies infused with percussion, horns and synthesizers. Not only is the original album extremely rare, this one comes on blue vinyl with a heavyweight sleeve.
Swift’s exclusive Record Store Day offering is a 7-inch white vinyl remix of the song “Fortnight” from “The Tortured Poets Department.” A new two-LP version of the “Wicked” soundtrack is pressed on green and pink glitter vinyl with exclusive cover art, a special poster and a bonus track (“Ozdust Duet”) that was only previously released digitally.
Quantities will vary from store to store. Post Malone’s previously unreleased tribute to Nirvana, taken from a 2020 livestream, has been committed to yellow vinyl, with 17,000 copies divided up among the estimated 1,400 participating stores across the country. On the other end of the spectrum, Black Stone Cherry has compiled selected B-sides, covers, live tracks and previously unreleased songs (including a cover of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”) into a Record Store Day album that has been pressed only 200 times – so scoring it anywhere will get you an immediate collector’s item.
Billy Thieme, right, with son and constant Record Store Day companion Sandisz Thieme at Twist & Shout in Denver in 2012.
JOHN MOORE/DENVER GAZETTE
Record Store Day Quote
‘Record Store Day is like a giant happy hour with all the music and humanity – and no hangover.’ – Billy Thieme
Hidden gems will be everywhere for the taking on Saturday. But for Denver music blogger and superfan Billy Thieme’s money, “the best thing about Record Store Day is running into old friends – both human and vinyl. In an increasingly isolating, online world, seeing old faces and exchanging stories and discoveries is unmatchable,” said Thieme, longtime editor of Denver Thread.
“It’s like a giant happy hour with all the music and humanity – and no hangover.”
Brown calls Record Store Day the antithesis of, say, Black Friday – at least in terms of vibe and consumer frenzy. He limits in-store bodies at Twist & Shout to 250 at a time, and when they are ready to pay, the wait can take them up to an hour. But it’s chill, Brown said. People are not impatient. He calls what he sees develop instead “an intense camaraderie” as strangers strike up random conversations and share their enthusiasm for their purchases and favorite musical acts.
Wax Trax will be offering free donut bites courtesy of Jelly Cafe at 7 a.m. to anyone waiting in line at its Cap Hill location, which opens at 8. Starting at 2 p.m., high-energy Denver hip-pop artist Rex Winnfield will debut new music from a forthcoming EP, followed by the experimental new-wave Denver band Pink Lady Monster.
For the non-early birds, Wax Trax’s Baker location opens at 10, and it will offer its own traffic incentives, including hip-hop performer Neon Brown performing an all-vinyl DJ set at 1 p.m.
Both Wax Trax stores will be raffling off recently redesigned, all-in-one Victrola Revolution Go turntables (with collector’s cases). Twist & Shout will have giveaways as well.
While no participating Record Store Day store will be stocked with all 300 artists’ merch, Schoenfeldt puts it this way: “You’re going to have a pretty damn good chance of finding what you’re after – and what you didn’t know you were after – here at Wax Trax, as always.”
For Brown, a thriving Record Store Day reflects a thriving record-store industry, and that is the best news of all.
“Business is staying healthy,” he said. “We’ve had to make some adjustments here and there, but we have it dialed in pretty good right now. We’re going to be here as long as I am kicking.”
Record Store Day promises to be kicking all over the country on Saturday.
“It’s chaos,” said Wax Trax’s Jonny Rodriguez. “But it’s cool chaos.”
The sidewalk outside of Wax Trax on Cap Hill will surely be again filled with overnight campers hoping to be first in the door when 2025 Record Store Day officially begins at 8 am. Saturday (April 12).
DELANEY SCHOENFELDT/WAX TRAX