Paramore at the Grand Ole Opry House, 2/6/2023
Record Store Day is coming around once again with exclusive limited-run releases to remind you to visit the mom-and-pop record shops that are here for you all year, adding layers of depth to seeking out and buying music. Local favorites like Grimey’s, The Groove and Vinyl Tap will be celebrating with stores all over on Saturday, April 20. The master list of special releases is out, boasting 386 titles — a substantial jump up from last year’s 300.
Nashville-area pop ’n’ rockers extraordinaire Paramore are this year’s Record Store Day Ambassadors, and they’ll be offering the first physical issue of Re: This Is Why. The album features 11 remixes of songs from their Grammy-winning This Is Why (plus the band’s own demo of the song “Sanity”), and it’ll be available on its own or in a bundle with This Is Why.
The array of other RSD ’24 titles with a Nashville connection includes a set of four songs on a pair of 7-inches called “Ain’t That Some Shit, I Found a Few Hits ’Cause Country’s Cool Again” from Paramore’s fellow Grammy winner Lainey Wilson. Jenny Lewis, who moved to Nashville just a few years ago, has a 12-inch picture disc of her single “Puppy and a Truck,” while rocker Briston Maroney, who recently left town for Los Angeles, is releasing a rarities collection called All My Little Shooting Stars. Art-music bass legend Edgar Meyer has teamed up with Christian McBride for a set called Who’s Gonna Play the Melody? that’s an “RSD First” release, meaning you’ll be able to get it later through other channels but your first crack at the double LP will be April 20.
In 2018 and 2019, The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman teamed up with Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives for a run of shows celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sweetheart of the Rodeo. A double LP of recordings from the tour is another RSD First title. Meanwhile, a remixed, remastered and expanded edition of late, great songsmith and instrumentalist John Hartford’s Morning Bugle is an RSD exclusive. And Bare Jr. — the hard-charging rock band led by Bobby Bare Jr. and featuring Grimey’s namesake and founder Mike Grimes on guitar — is releasing a two-disc set of their 1998 debut Boo-Tay with a second LP that includes demos and their promo EP Custom Gauge Electric.
And there’s much more to check out, by musicians from Nashville and beyond. There’s new stuff from rising stars like Chappell Roan and Noah Kahan. There’s great music too easily overlooked (The Roches, Lowell George, Buena Vista Social Club) and looks at the early work of hugely influential artists — the Ramones, The Rolling Stones. There’s a solid helping of hip-hop, from Schooly D to De La Soul, from Kool Keith to Metro Boomin, from Lil Wayne to Key Glock and Moneybagg Yo and beyond.
Beatle-heads can check out a special 3-inch turntable (and suite of discs to go with it), picture discs of George Harrison’s Wonderwall Music and Electronic Sound and Ringo Starr’s new Linda Perry-produced EP Crooked Boy. There are some intriguing multi-album reissue box sets coming from Linda Ronstadt (including Don’t Cry Now, Prisoner in Disguise, Hasten Down the Wind and Simple Dreams), Television’s late frontman Tom Verlaine (Tom Verlaine, Dreamtime, Words From the Front and Cover), and Dwight Yoakam (Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.; Hillbilly DeLuxe; Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room; and Etc., So Forth & So On).
Mark your calendar for April 20, watch the social media and websites of your favorite local store for updates, and check out the entire list of special releases on the RSD website.
