As Record Store Day 2026 inches closer, scheduled for Saturday 18 April, there is a growing sense that the event has never been further from its original ideals. What began in 2007 as a grassroots celebration of independently owned record shops, a genuine attempt to remind people that these places existed and mattered, has slowly morphed into something its founders might struggle to recognise. The queues still form at five in the morning. The tills still ring. But the question of who this is actually for, and what is really being celebrated, has become considerably harder to answer. Has this become less about the scene and more…
