I've actually been sitting on this content for a little bit now. There are a number of reasons, but none of them are really that important. That doesn't mean I still won't share them with you. As many of you know, the day after Thanksgiving is often referred to as "Black Friday". What you may not know is that the third Saturday in April is a day known as Record Store Day. It's a worldwide event that brings special edition and early edition vinyl records to collectors.
In addition to the April date, they also have a special Black Friday drop every year. I've written posts in the past about lining up in the wee hours of the morning waiting for my local record store to open to get my hands on something special.
As I said, there are "RSD First" items and "RSD Exclusive" items. The First items usually become available to the masses after the fact, but the exclusive items are only available on RSD and when they are gone, they are gone.
If you jump up and look at the link I shared above, you might find a list on that website. There, I made it easier for you. It should show all the releases that were available this past Black Friday. If you look to the far right of the list, you will see a number. For some albums it's in the thousands, ten thousands, or hundreds.
Looking at the list, let's take the Phil Collins album "Live From The Board... The Official Bootleg". That is a RSD Exclusive and there were only 3000 copies pressed. Record stores across the globe can request any of these albums, but they may only get a handful of them. They also may not get any copies of a particular record. As you can imagine, this has made the secondary market for RSD albums pretty lucrative.
As part of the rules, record stores also aren't allowed to "hold" any of the albums for you. If the RSD authorities (I don't know if that is a thing) find out you did, they can blacklist your store from getting drops in the future.
When my older nieces were home for Thanksgiving this year, I wanted to do something special for the younger one, since there was some stuff going on with my oldest niece which I can't really talk about here. Anyway, I wanted to do something special for the younger one, and she shares my love of vinyl records so I asked if she wanted to go to record store day with me.
She was so excited, and I think she had a really good time. She picked up a Noah Kahan RSD First and a Billie Eilish RSD First. The Billie one was interesting as it was her recent album with just her vocals extracted. I haven't asked her how it sounds yet, but the idea seems cool and it was a pretty exclusive thing for her to pick up. I would guess none of her friends probably have a copy of it.
As you can see from the photos, I got an RSD Exclusive album from the Jazz Dispensary called The Golden Hour. It's a compilation album they release once a year and there are only 4000 copies pressed. I'm actually on the fence about whether I will even open it or not!
I also picked up my first copy of The Chronic by Dr. Dre. I think it was his first solo album after NWA and it is considered one of the greatest of all time. I've been wanting a copy for a while now and I finally couldn't pass it up.
With that in mind, for #threetunetuesday I am going to share three songs for you off that album. Not a lot of commentary on this one as I already told you quite the story before sharing the songs!
It's actually so crazy to see how young Snoop Dogg was in these videos. I wasn't really into this kind of music back then, but I really appreciate it now. I've said it before, but it's interesting that it's the east coast rappers that are getting in so much trouble these days. Given their association with Suge Knight I would have guessed the west coast rappers would wind up in jail sooner than the east coast ones.
It's also a little bittersweet to see Easy E in some of these videos. He was definitely taken too soon.
"Nuthin' But A "G" Thang" is probably one of the most iconic songs on the album alongside "Bitches Ain't Shit". I've gotta say, if you haven't watched the movie Straight Outta Compton yet, you really need to because it gives you the foundation to really appreciate this album and these songs.
Finally, I decided to close things out with "Let Me Ride". It's a great anthem and continues the vibe that this whole album has. I just can't get over how good of an album this is. My stereo system at home has a set of large speakers with 15" woofers. You better believe I had this album cranked up and shaking the windows when I got it home!
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