Record Store Day: fast becoming a misnomer?

In case you weren't already aware, Record Store Day 2015 takes place a fortnight from today. This time last year, I posted about an open letter from UK distributor Kudos that explained how RSD had been hijacked to such an extent that it had started to have the opposite effect from that intended.

A year on, those sentiments have been echoed by Nathaniel Cramp, head honcho of well-respected shoegaze/space rock label Sonic Cathedral, who reveals that it's not just labels and distributors that are disenchanted - a lot of record shops themselves, the very institutions supposed to benefit from the initiative, admit to finding it deeply flawed. Is it really in the spirit of things that "pressing plants are constipated with, among other things, a 'deluxe' vinyl version of the U2 album that Bono already shat into our iTunes last year"?

It's time that the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), the organisation behind RSD, sought to answer the charges rather than dismissing or ducking them.

(Thanks to Del for the link.)