Record Store Day 2024: Why I'll be battling the crowds and heading to these Scottish vinyl hotspots on 20 April

This year’s main event takes place on Saturday 20 April and no doubt queues will be forming outside some of the 270-odd UK record stores that will be participating hours before their doors open to fans and collectors. The RSD concept originated stateside in 2007 with the first official event taking place a year later, before the revival went global.

Against a backdrop of one-touch streaming and digital downloading, the success of a venture that celebrates the virtues of the humble gramophone record - a recorded music format that can trace its roots back more than 140 years - has caught many by surprise. Clearly, people value the LP’s physical properties - the sleeve’s artwork and lyrics, the tactile delight of placing the record on the deck, cleaning it, dropping the needle into the groove. It’s a ritual that connects the listener with the artist and their creation in a way that a remotely-hosted data file never will, and trumps minor irritations such as scratches, warps and hissing.

Of course, some of us never stopped buying albums, even when their existence appeared threatened by the advent of the CD in the early 80s and, more recently, by flat-fee or even free streaming services. However, the current vinyl renaissance appears to be underpinned by younger generations discovering the delights of spinning a 12-inch piece of plastic. Collecting “vinyls” has become the cool thing to do for Generation Z. And that’s fine by me. Anything that diverts attention away from constant scrolling at a wee screen.

At the risk of torturing my musical metaphors, I have also previously waxed lyrical about the compact disc, and its attractiveness to music lovers looking for their physical format thrills. New material can easily be had for less than half the price of the equivalent LP while sources of cheap second-hand CDs, such as independent record shops, charity stores and record fairs, are abundant. In either case, new or used, you gain all the benefits of the CD - lack of surface noise, longer playing time, ease of storage, consistency of sound and longevity - plus the ability to make a digital copy for mobile listening via computer ripping.

Yet, the CD’s much larger, more fragile, more expensive and much, much older cousin still holds great appeal. And it’s why I will be muscling in and doing battle with thousands of others to grab something special at this year’s RSD (my list of must-haves is still being finalised).

Scotland will see a fair few participating stores and while it’s impossible to give them all a mention in this short piece I’m going to give a plug to a handful that I know only too well: Assai Records (now with three shops, in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow), Edinburgh’s Thorne Records, Mo’ Fidelity Records of Montrose (which has just relocated to a brilliant new store just a stone’s throw from its previous one) and the Aladdin’s cave that is Europa Music in Stirling.

Proper old-school record shops that will have bought in heavily stock-wise ahead of the Saturday extravaganza - no sale or return arrangement here - and deserve any music fan’s full support. It has its pitfalls, sure, but long may Record Store Day reign.

Scott Reid is a business journalist at The Scotsman and long-time CD and vinyl collector