Welcome to Vinyl Week on What Hi-Fi?, in association with Technics. You can find out more about how Technics has been defining turntable culture for half a century and the company's SL-1200M7L Limited Edition turntable.
Our Vinyl Week culminates in Record Store Day 2022, the annual celebration of independent record stores. And we're here to help you find a participating store near you, so you can support your local independent record shop.
If you're new here, Record Store Day celebrates all things vinyl. This year, over 260 independent record shops are taking part, with special limited edition vinyl releases (of which our pick is here), events, live music and more. It's going to be quite a party.
This year's Record Store Day is also significant for another reason: it's the first in two years that won't be disrupted due to Covid. That means in-store releases and events have the green light. In 2020 and 2021 the event was forced to go online and be split into multiple dates, which took away from the full bricks-and-mortar experience. But this year RSD is back with a bang.
As is vinyl. Record sales in the UK are at their highest level in over 30 years, while in the US, vinyl revenue has grown to $1 billion for the first time since 1986, following 15 consecutive years of growth.
So shelve your plans for Saturday, find your local participating record store and get yourself down there. You can see a full list on the UK RSD website (Record Store Day US if you're Stateside; Record Store AU in Australia) – just enter your address to find the closest.
You can also see which stores are hosting events on the day.
Roll on Saturday. In the meantime, we'll be bringing you lots of record-themed articles during Vinyl Week to get you in the mood.
MORE:
Check out all our Vinyl Week articles
10 of the best Record Store Day 2022 releases
Where to buy vinyl: affordable ways to start a record collection
