Pantera / Down Frontman Phil Anselmo Praises Record Store Day’s Passion
It's Record Store Day today (April 20) and music fans around the world are heading to their local independent shops to support the longtime standard of how to purchase music. Making the experience even more of an event is the amount of bands and labels responsible for issuing unique vinyl releases and other specialty items tied to the day. One rocker enthused that there is such a thing as Record Store Day is Pantera / Down frontman Phil Anselmo.
The musician, who himself runs the Housecore Records label, told Forbes magazine that he loved scouring the record store racks when he was younger, looking for interesting vinyl releases and he's thrilled the vinyl option is still available. "Record Store Day promotes this type of passion of having the actual product in your hand instead of just a download. I love having the full album, art, lyrics and I think vinyl sounds better," says Anselmo.
He added, "As a label owner, it makes me happy to see that people slowly but surely want to have this tangible copy in their hands instead of a free [expletive] download, which is driving me [expletive] bananas.”
While the music industry has suffered a downturn in recent years and the CD format appears to be dwindling, vinyl, which once was the standard, has enjoyed a resurgence. Part of that can be credited to Record Store Day, as a number of the initial offerings from acts came in the vinyl format and soon were sought after as collector's items.
Record Store Day co-founder Michael Kurtz revealed, "Vinyl manufacturing plants are bursting at the seams. We took a nascent industry -- vinyl -- breathed life into it and now we can't even handle the amount of business we are creating."
To find out which stores closest to you are participating in Record Store Day, click here.