Vinyl is king on National Record Store Day

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WLOX) - National Record Store Day may not be the best known retail holiday, but you can bet that those into vintage vinyl have been planning their lives around it.

“I’ve had it on my calendar for months now because I was like, I will be going out there,” said Tori Sullivan. “It’s just absolutely amazing. Because then you get to see different people who also love the same thing as you. And you can get so many things that you normally wouldn’t be able to get on a normal shopping day.”

Special releases on this day are for locally owned record stores only.

“We have 1,400 independent record stores in the United States,” said Matthew Comstock owner of Maynard’s Music in Ocean Springs. “So, when you have something with a limited production amount of 500 - and here we are in Ocean Springs I’m able to get two of the Paul’s here, that makes it really special, and that’s why people are out there lining up waiting to get their hands on it.”

Other formats - like CDs and 8-track tapes - are included, but on this day, vinyl is king.

“People just want to hold in in their hands so they can connect to it,” Comstock added.

That connection is deep for Brian Sy of Bay St. Louis.

“I mean I grew up with my father listening to Beatles records and ABBA, things like that. Just recently in the last year or so - actually maybe a few years ago when COVID started, I got into a little hobby of, you know, finding those records again and I’ve been collecting ever since.”

Sullivan’s introduction was similar.

“My Dad actually gifted me some of his when he was a kid,” she said. “So, I fell in love with that and then just kept going and kept going and kept going.”

There are two National Record Days. If you missed the one on Saturday, you can catch it again on Black Friday.

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