We finally turned off the shop lights and sat down behind the counter to look through the stack of survey forms and online wishlists everyone turned in for Record Store Day Black Friday. Every November gets a bit hectic with distributor deadlines and boxes piling up in the back room, but flipping through these requests gives us a pretty clear picture of what people are actually going to stand in line for on November 27th. It’s a wild mix this year—everything from early 2010s mixtape grails to obscure 70s funk reissues and Japanese fusion.
In hip-hop, the inbox has been dominated by Playboi Carti’s MUSIC - SORRY 4 DA WAIT, which is easily generating the biggest line-waiter buzz across the board. People are also consistently asking about Lil Wayne’s No Ceilings and JID’s Live From NPR's Tiny Desk EP, showing a massive appetite for classic mixtape culture and standout live sets. Meanwhile, the biggest surprise in the indie section is Ween’s Shinola, Vol. 2 on brown vinyl, their fans are a different breed of dedicated, and that announcement alone has been the main counter conversation all week (but brown vinyl? yuck). Noah Kahan’s The Last of the Bugs 12" is another obvious day-one sellout, though we're personally most excited to hand people Carissa's Wierd’s You Should Be At Home Here, a 25th-anniversary slowcore reissue that saves collectors from paying $200 on the secondary market.
Over in pop and electronic, Carly Rae Jepsen’s Day and Night (Continued) 12" EP is sitting near the top of almost every wishlist we received, proving her fanbase always turns out for physical media. We’re also seeing a distinct wave of younger buyers coming in for KATSEYE’s The Dance Breaks alongside electronic regulars looking for The Chemical Brothers’ Go single. Surprisingly, our jazz section requests are being led by Japanese City Pop and 70s fusion, specifically guitar virtuoso Masayoshi Takanaka, who has three separate reissues landing on colored wax (Super Selection, Takanaka, and Super Takanaka Live!). Traditional audiophiles are still holding down holds for the unreleased Bill Evans Trio live tapes (Across The Alps) and David Axelrod’s self-titled jazz-funk classic.
The metal and punk crowd has zeroed in on Son of Sam’s Songs From The Earth, a long out-of-print horror-punk supergroup album featuring members of Samhain, AFI, and Danzig that hasn't seen a vinyl press since 2001. Thrash fans are keeping tabs on Power Trip’s Precinct 3 7" and Kreator’s 40th-anniversary reissue of Pleasure to Kill. For soul and R&B, the clear favorite is Labi Siffre’s 1975 LP Remember My Song, driven heavily by beatmakers and hip-hop heads looking for the original sample source behind Eminem's "My Name Is". Rounding out the stack, Deadheads are already planning to camp out for the 4xLP GarciaLive Volume Eight box set, folk fans are eyeing Joni Mitchell’s Live At Carnegie Hall 1972, and theater lovers have made the 4xLP Wicked: The Complete Soundtrack box set our overall highest-requested release.
Doors open early on Friday, November 27th. All RSD Black Friday drops remain strictly first-come, first-served with a limit of one copy per title per person. Subscribe to our text and emails to get the latest RSD Black Friday info from Curious Collections at The Record Garage in Bryan, TX.