In the wake of this year’s Record Store Day on April 23, Discogs is spinning up its own initiative to assist brick-and-mortar music sellers.
The online physical music database announced Tuesday (May 3) that it’s set to launch its first annual Independent Record Shop Month in June 2022. By connecting music fans and indie record stores across the globe, the initiative hopes to highlight the importance of bodily record shops and their contribution to vinyl culture.
During Independent Record Store Month, Discogs will release The Store Explorer, a new, year-round online directory highlighting brick-and-mortar record stores around the world and encouraging followers to support them. Participating shops will also receive a digital badge that verifies which sellers in the Discogs marketplace are actual physical record shops and get access in order to a forthcoming virtual conference for participating indie record store owners (more details to come). Additionally , Discogs will create a curated collection of stories plus guides profiling individual stores by diving into the people and places that define all of them.
In a press release, Discogs says the particular initiative is designed to help actual record shops that are “seeking ways to continue thriving in the face of inflation, a global pandemic, and supply chain disruptions. ” The company will be inviting over 4, 000 record stores to participate; shops interested in taking part can also register here .
Discogs’ user-built data source has a catalog of more than 15 million releases encompassing 8 million artists, while its accompanying marketplace boasts more than 64 million items.
You can learn more about Impartial Record Shop Month right here .