Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions could land at No 1 on the vinyl charts
Taylor Swift has helped catapult 2023 Record Store Day (RSD) into the record books. This year’s celebration is on course to break the sales record for most vinyl sold in a single day, led by Swift’s Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions release.
The project could also produce the event’s first-ever chart topping album, and quite possibly a No. 1 Billboard album, a feat never achieved by a Record Store Day release. Each year, a number of limited edition records are pressed specifically for Record Store Day and are exclusively distributed to record stores participating in the event. Most titles have a limited pressing of under 20,000. However, due to Swift’s popularity, 115,000 copies of Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions were pressed internationally with 75,000 distributed throughout the United States on 2 LP grey vinyl.
Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on the third Saturday of each April to “celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store.” The day brings together fans, artists, and thousands of independent record stores around the world. Now in its 16th year, Record Store Day has played a major role in the continued expansion and success of vinyl records across the music industry, with physical vinyl album sales in 2022 surpassing 43 million units.
More than 800,000 units of vinyl were created and shipped to participating independent record stores around the country for this year’s Record Store Day event. Retail sales are expected to surpass $32 million, according to distributor Alliance Entertainment. Titles from Pearl Jam, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Stevie Nicks and others have also contributed to sales during the April 22nd event.
Taylor Swift’s third Grammy Album of the Year, Folklore, was recorded during the COVID-19 lockdown. Swift and her collaborators were never able to play the album together until the Long Pond Studio Sessions in September 2020. Recorded live, the album features Swift, The National’s Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.
