Vinyl lovers are in a spin ahead of Record Store Day on Saturday, with music collectors expected to start queuing from as early as 5am in Canberra to get their hands on rare releases.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The annual celebration of vinyl began in 2008 and has grown in popularity every year, with the ACT's independent record retailers saying the day "blows Christmas out of the water".
Landspeed Records owner Blake Budak said he was expecting about 200 people to be lined up outside his store in the city by the time it opened at 10am on Saturday.
"Some of them will get here at 5 o'clock," Mr Budak said.
"For all the convenience of digital music, people still love the thrill of vinyl and cramming into the record store."
Mr Budak said about 600 limited release records would go on sale globally on Saturday, with his shop stocking roughly 200 of them.
Among this year's most anticipated releases are John Farnham's Whispering Jack, which hasn't been available on vinyl for more than 30 years, four limited edition David Bowie items, a Led Zeppelin 7-inch single, and AC/DC's Back in Black on cassette.
"The majority of the titles will sell out on Saturday," Mr Budak said.
"In the last 12 months, vinyl has overtaken CDs. There's always going to be a want for vinyl because it's the coolest, most collectable form of music."
Not content with just one day, Songland Records has Record Store Day sales across the whole weekend.
Owner Brian "Frog" Harris said the Weston Creek shop would have hundreds of the limited edition releases in stock.
"It blows Christmas out of the water," he said.
"About 70 -80 per cent of the people buying vinyl fall in the 15-45 age group, so they're part of the MP3 generation that has grown up listening to a device that has 10,000 or so songs you can play at random.
"With vinyl, you make a commitment to listening to it as the artist intended, without skipping parts, and people have basically been reawakened to listening to music in a completely different way."
Mr Harris said Songland Records had also accepted "tables and tables" of donations of unwanted vinyl and other musical items, which it would sell this weekend to raise money for the RSPCA's ACT branch.
Dynomite Records, in Kambah, takes a different approach to Record Store Day, preferring not to buy into the hype around limited edition items.
Owner Phil Place said the day should instead be about celebrating the surviving record stores, with his shop to mark the occasion with live music from Capo Creek, a lucky dip, free pizza and coffee, and about 2000 records on sale for $2.
As against a regular Saturday, he was expecting about a 500 per cent increase in trade.
"It's the biggest day of the year by far," Mr Place said.
"I do a tiny amount of new vinyl, but the majority are second-hand, reconditioned records."
