It’s Record Store Day again — that greatest of all the made-up consumer holidays. There are a lot of reasons to love and support independent record stores — from the role they play in supporting independent and local music and artists, to providing an outlet for non-mainstream genres like jazz, bluegrass, and “world” music, to the simple value local, independent businesses add to our communities. Yet there is another benefit they provide that might get overlooked; that is, they help keep our cultural history alive and in circulation.
The vinyl bins at a good independent record store are a treasure trove of modern cultural history. They are veritable wax museums, chocked full of priceless artifacts. Our memories, our histories, and those of our friends and neighbors and parents and grandparents sit in these bins, often undisturbed for decades, preserved in vinyl and shellac, waiting to be awoken by the staticy drop of a needle attached to an amp.
I’m not just talking about the obvious stuff — the stuff we as a society hold in collective agreement as symbolic of a given time and place — but rather, the less obvious stuff. The stuff that’s been forgotten, lost to memory, relegated to become the detritus upon which our modern narratives have been built. For in this less obvious stuff lies a fuller, richer truth — like the subtle shades and details of a larger tapestry, faded and obscured over time, but which cumulatively form an essential part of our collective story.
These are the artists and albums that didn’t endure for whatever reason, but were part of the connective tissue of those that did. These are one-hit wonders. The experimental busts. The albums that crossed genres, not fitting neatly into any particular one. The albums you’ve never heard, but influenced your favorite artists, that helped shape an emerging “sound.” It’s stuff you might listen to and wonder, “why didn’t these guys ever make it?” and stuff that makes you scratch your head and think, “how in the hell did these guys ever get a record deal to begin with?” It’s not all great, to be sure, and some may indeed even suck (like some that endured). But it’s part of the story just the same— a rich and fascinating one at that.
It occurs to me that history, even at its best, is often a mere caricature of what really went down. As time goes by, our caricatures become simpler, cruder. More and more details are lost — forgotten outright, or deemed non-essential. Over time, simpler narratives emerge. Entire decades eventually devolve into 30-second sound bytes. Entire generations, lumped together under a single umbrella. The exceptions, the complexity, the nuance, are lost.
A search through a good vinyl bin helps to unwind some of our oversimplified myths. It reminds us that the world that existed thirty or forty or fifty years ago was richer and more complex than today’s narratives would suggest. Tastes were broader. Choices, more plentiful. There was greater diversity. “Sounds” and “genres” were less clearly defined. Styles, tastes, and trends were constantly shifting, morphing, evolving. It all overlapped. It all wove together. Even at its simplest, there was an underlying complexity, as in our own lives and histories.
It’s not just record stores that help keep alive this wider swath of cultural history. Libraries, archives, museums, antique stores (all places I love) do this same thing. So, support your local record store today. Then head to your local library or historical museum. And may you — may all of us — continue to challenge our ears, our minds, and conceptions.
Thanks for reading, and best regards 🙂
– T