I'm getting burnt out on RSD. I think the retailers are too. I have sat outside in the cold for hours to get a ticket to spend 5 minutes going through the RSD releases. I have more than once ended up buying more than I planned to because something looks cool, and then find it sitting in my "on-deck" bin months later or being disappointed because of poor quality, either of the recording itself, or the media.
It was raining yesterday and there were really only 3 things that interested me at all, the Best of Judas Priest, Little Feat - Electric Lycanthrope, and Dusty Springfield - The Complete Atlantic Singles 1968-1971. I decided not to go sit outside and wait to get in.
I stopped by the local record store about 1 PM and everything I wanted was there except for Dusty, and I picked that up online this morning. I ended up grabbing a copy of Fleetwood Mac Live while at the record store.
From what I understand, the point of RSD is to get people to go shop at their local record store, which I totally support. During the height of lockdown I was ordering a bunch of vinyl from my local record store through Discogs to support them. With the resurgence in vinyl and ever increasing rising prices for used vinyl, they seem to be doing better than ever.
In talking with the owner of the local record store, it seems like a real pain to manage RSD. They have to order a bunch of titles that they have no idea whether they will sell or not. If you walk into most record stores that participate you'll often find some titles from the previous RSD or even things a year or two old.
Since they get such a big rush of people trying to score the RSD titles, the stores here at least have a period of time where they are letting people in only for the RSD titles, so they're not selling any of the rest of their inventory during the time that people are flocking to the record store for the RSD titles.
That seems to defeat the stated purpose of getting people to shop at their local record store, when the store can't manage the RSD rush as well as people shopping the rest of their inventory.
Then there are the titles themselves, which often seem like found leftovers that didn't make it on an original release and are put out as new "RSD First" titles or "Indie exclusives", often on colored vinyl that is hit or miss in terms of sound quality.
Finally, you have the flippers. The ones that pay someone to stand in line and get the few rare and sought after releases and put them on Discogs the next day for multiples of their original price.
I don't hate RSD. The last one had Steely Dan's Everything Must Go and Two Against Nature and they were both really well done. That was more than worth sitting outside waiting for my ticket. There have been a few other gems, but (IMHO) they are few and far between. I love the concept of supporting local record stores that's behind it, but it's always kind of a mix of excitement and frustration for me.
