Bangladesh celebrates inaugural Record Store Day
Vinyl record collector Tanmoy Das was among the first to arrive at the Daily Star Art Gallery in the capital to celebrate the inaugural Record Store Day. Having been collecting vinyl records for about a decade, Das was excited to be part of the event and share his love for the medium with others.
Das sees Record Store Day as a positive step forward for the record industry in Bangladesh. While music can be easily pirated from CDs or other digital media, vinyl records offer a nostalgic and unique experience that cannot be replicated. "The feeling of listening to gramophone music is totally different," said Das.
The day-long event featured 12 to 15 stalls selling and displaying almost 50 thousand vinyl records, including Manna Dey's songs, Lata Mangeshkar songs, Pannalal Bhattacharya's devotional songs, Rabindra Sangeet, Nazrul Sangeet, and many other foreign artists' vinyl records.
Inaugurated by renowned musician Syed Abdul Hadi at 10 AM, the event also featured Matiur Rahman, editor of Prothom Alo, as the main speaker. Organised by Harun Al Rashid, Record Star Day marks the first time that Bangladesh has celebrated the annual World Record Store Day, which is held on the third Saturday of April every year.
The promotion and spread of gramophone records have grown in popularity since the inception of World Record Store Day in 2007. The first year of the event saw 1.5 million record sales in the United States, which more than doubled the following year. By 2022, record sales had grown to an estimated 41 million. According to Harun Al Rashid, plans to host the event in 2020 in Bangladesh were scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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"Record Store Day offers an opportunity for music lovers to connect over their shared passion for vinyl records, and organizers hope that the event will help to increase vinyl record sales in Bangladesh in the coming years", said Harun Al Rashid.
Mr. Rashid confirmed that this event will be an annual event moving forward, with hopes that it will help to promote and preserve the unique and nostalgic experience of listening to gramophone music.
