Record Store Day exclusive releases from Pearl Jam, Ball Park Music and Peking Duck

From a rare Pearl Jam double LP to new music on vinyl for the first time, Record Store Day 2023 has lots of goodies. See the most valuable releases.

When Australian indie rock heroes Ball Park Music released their debut record Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs in 2011, the CD and digital downloads ruled.

Six chart-slaying records later, these festival heroes make more from their vinyl album sales than they do from streaming.

Their most popular track on streaming, the 2011 platinum-selling single It’s Nice To Be Alive which has 22 million Spotify streams, will get its first-ever vinyl release on Saturday for Record Store Day which has celebrated the resilience of independent outlets for the past 14 years.

Ball Park Music fans love their vinyl. Picture: Thomas Calder

Hit electronic duo Peking Duk, who also started releasing singles in 2011, join the vinyl revival with their first 7 inch record with Spend It featuring Circa Waves (Side A) and I Want You featuring Darren Hayes (Side B).

Ball Park’s frontman Sam Cromack said when the band first started releasing their music, labels didn’t automatically offer a vinyl version due to cost and a lack of big fan demand despite artists’ nostalgic adoration of the format.

“I think our third album Puddinghead, which came out in 2014, was the first one we put out on vinyl at the same time it was released,” he said.

“Around that time was when we finally had the resources to retrospectively release our other records on vinyl.”

Peking Duk release their first ever vinyl single for RSD 2023. Picture: Supplied

For Australian artists who struggle to achieve the volume of streams to make a mark on the charts, vinyl sales are not only more profitable than digital music, but signal a deeper relationship with a fanbase who love the format as both a listening experience and a souvenir of their devotion to a band.

Some limited edition coloured vinyl versions of their previous records can sell for $300 on collector’s site Discogs.

“Our vinyl income now rivals our streaming income which was a bit of a milestone for us,” he said.

“It makes you almost want to retreat from all the pressures of the streaming and online environment and trust that you have a fanbase that might be smaller in number but is more meaningful.”

Northside Records’ Chris Gill said independent record stores are a haven for music fans. Picture: Wayne Taylor.

The vinyl fanbase continues to grow in Australia with the 2022 wholesale figures recently released by ARIA showing the dollar value of LP sales increasing by 23 per cent last year to $37 million.

Record Store Day, which started in the US in 2007 and Australia two years later, has helped fuel the swing back to the revered format which now is not only celebrated for its warm sound and cover art display but as a status symbol of fandom.

Chris Gill, the operator of Northside Records in Melbourne, has seen a much broader demographic of vinyl lovers shuffling through the shelves of classic and new soul, reggae and hip hop music over the past two decades.

Gill, who proudly displays a photo of Australia’s late Queen of Soul Renee Geyer on the shop wall, said more women now shop for records because stores are “fresh and bright and inviting”.

He said the gender shift kicked in over the past decade or so thanks to the demise of the “grumpy’ and judgmental proprietor as captured in the 2000 cult comedy film High Fidelity.

In that time, the local soul and jazz scene has also bloomed.

“Now I look in my soul section and there would be at least 400 records just from local acts,” Gill said.

He may not part with the store’s most valuable offerings – a 1964 South African afrojazz compilation featuring the Malombo Jazz Men worth about $750 or a rare album by short-lived 70s German krautrock band Zarathustra for $1000 – on Record Store Day, but Gill loves watching fans get into the groove.

“Everyone is treated as a serious collector because they care enough to walk in the door. To me, people remain the No. 1 way to discover new music; I will trust something I hear about via word of mouth 1000 times over something offered up to me online.”

For all participating stores, exclusive RSD releases and in-store gigs, https://www.recordstoreday.com.au/

Originally published as Record Store Day exclusive releases from Pearl Jam, Ball Park Music and Peking Duck