Record Store Day 2025 Lineup: Vinyl Exclusives From Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Charli XCX, Post Malone, Wu Tang, John Lennon, ‘Wicked’ and Hundreds More: For vinyl aficionados, the rollout of the Record Store Day lineup each year, with 350-plus titles revealed all at once, can prompt a paralyzing case of information overload. There’s no hurry to absorb it all; the day in question is April 12, which leaves plenty of time to peruse the full list — which you can find here. But if you want a quick overview of what are bound to be some of the most covetable titles among the (mostly) vinyl exclusives, Variety is here to help. We’ve broken down some 2025 list highlights by categories, to give you a head start if classic rock, hip-hop, jazz, country or contemporary pop is your primary thing, even if it’s just scratching the surface of the whole list.
Coeur d’Alene, ID | Meet Major Tom, The Long Ear record store’s resident feisty feline: Amid the stacks at the Long Ear record store in Coeur d’Alene, you’ll find the usual fare: used Neil Young records, shiny new Taylor Swift releases, hundreds of CDs and plenty of groovy trinkets. But, if you’re lucky, sometimes you’ll be greeted by an adorable, furry face betwixt the vintage discs. That would be Major Tom, the Long Ear’s store cat. Named for a character in the opening line of David Bowie’s iconic song “Space Oddity,” Major Tom was rescued by longtime Long Ear employee Ben Schoelen just over a year ago. “We found him behind my house,” Schoelen says. “There are a lot of stray cats in my neighborhood up in Garwood. He was a kitten, teeny tiny, and we happened to become well-versed in cat trapping to give them to the local shelter.”
Dayton, OH | Dayton Record Fair 2025: We are excited to bring back the Dayton Record Fair to Eudora Brewing Company on Sunday, February 9th 2025! Come browse thousands of new & used records, CDs, tapes, and music memorabilia for sale from some of the best vendors in the midwest. Eudora Brewing Company and local record stores Skeleton Dust Records, Omega Music, Blind Rage Records, Catacomb Records, and Resignation Records are teaming up to co-sponsor the event and we’ll be giving out $20 gift cards to six lucky winners that attend the fair! Come ready to eat & drink as Eudora will be offering a full food menu from their kitchen, as well as their excellent selection of in-house brewed craft beers. Live all-vinyl DJs will be providing your shopping soundtrack for the day as well!
Kingston, UK | Music sales hit a 20-year high but what about CDs? It’s been the biggest year for music purchases since 2001 with market growth for streaming and vinyl. But CD sales have remained flat. The UK music market boasted a new record in 2024 – the nation’s most successful year in music consumption since the peak of CD sales in 2001, figures from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) show. While CDs continued to sell more than vinyl, a look the compact disc’s rapid decline over the years shows increased competition between the two physical formats. While vinyl sales grew by 10.5% to £196m, CD album revenue remained flat at £126.2m. …“Physical music is definitely coming back into fashion,” said Dan Burton, who works at local record shop Banquet Records. “People are not completely sacking off streaming, but realising I own my music, this is mine,” Burton added.
Lenco’s latest price-friendly turntables are now available in the U.S. Swiss audio gear makers Lenco announced today, that a handful of their most recent turntables and record players, including the $449 belt-driven LBT-345WA and the $329 direct drive L-3810, are now available for Americans to purchase on Amazon and through a new partnership with hi-fi retailer Audio Advice. …Chief among the new releases is the flagship LBT-345WA, a stylish-looking belt-driven mid-range turntable that Lenco says is built with upgradability in mind. This is largely due to the inclusion of Ortofon’s excellent 2M Red moving magnet (MM) cartridge that can be easily fitted with Ortofon’s step-up Blue or top-of-the-range Silver stylus, which means that as users grow into their record collecting addictions, the turntable grows with them, providing increasingly improved sound and dynamics.
Minneapolis, MN | New Minneapolis vinyl pressing plant Outta Wax focuses on local music, south side pride: At the Outta Wax pressing plant there are five key characters. The first four are Sara Pette and her brother John, Pette’s best friend Alex Stillman and a dog named Tulip found outside the warehouse who is now the CEO. The fifth character is the south side of Minneapolis. In a former mascot and costume building in the Phillips neighborhood, Outta Wax Record Pressing & Lathe Cutting greets guests with a big red door reading “It spins!” …This has been a huge, five-year undertaking. On March 2, 2020, Pette was scrolling Facebook and saw a post that made her pause. “Who wants a free record label?” it read. She thought to herself, “Me. I really do.” Then, the world went on lockdown for COVID-19. She had a bit more free time and decided to pursue it. “I was just like, you know, eff it. I’ll do the record label,” Pette said.
Los Angeles, CA | First Los Angeles Vinyl Records Fair of 2025: In the heart of downtown Los Angeles, people arrived in droves to attend the Los Angeles Records Fair in the brewery district on Jan. 19 from noon to 5 p.m. Thuy Phon Helix Sounds, filled with Japanese city pop records, attracted many fair attendees. Phon, who listens to Japanese city pop, explained the genre, “It has a lot of fusion in it. There are jazz elements, funk, soul, and disco and I just love the beat. Artists like Tatsuro Yamashita, Miki Matsubara, and Mariya Takeuchi.” There were records in other languages available as well, as highlighted by Giovanna Luna, a fair attendee who was looking for Spanish records. “So I’ve been looking for some Spanish records that might be like what my parents used to play as a kid, but there’s not a lot of Latin records stores—so this is like a good place to come to find some,” Luna said.
Angel announce reissue of debut album with limited-edition vinyl and collector bundles: Employing a mix of glam rock, hard rock and progressive rock, Angel’s white-satin-heavy image and over-the-top stage shows made them one of the more colorful arena rock bands of the mid ’70s and early ’80s. Discovered by KISS bass player, Gene Simmons, the group issued their eponymous debut album in 1975, which was closer to prog rock than the glam pop that would be on future endeavors like On Earth as It Is in Heaven (1977) and Sinful (1979). The group released a total of five studio albums and one live album before going their separate ways in 1981. The band officially re-formed in 2019 with original members, Punky Meadows and Frank DiMino, and released their comeback studio effort, Risen, later that October and followed up with 2023’s Once Upon A Time.
New York, NY | 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Blue Note Records: This label’s 86-year run has been one of the most storied in jazz — and it’s still going. Hear tracks by Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, Robert Glasper and more from the Blue Note catalog. This month, we look at the legacy of Blue Note Records, perhaps the best-known label in jazz, with its instantly recognizable blue-and-white vinyl center labels and decades-long run of landmark albums, some of which have become cornerstones in the genre. Founded in 1939 by the German American record executive Alfred Lion and the writer Max Margulis, Blue Note began as a passion project for Lion, who visited the recently opened Café Society club to talk about recording music with the pianists Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. Soon after, Lion paid the artists to play in a Manhattan studio, later pressing up the music from the session and releasing it as the first album ever on Blue Note Records.
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