Record Store Day 2026 came and went. The lineup at the door at Spank was longer than 2024, shorter than 2017. The energy was different. Fewer hardcore collectors, more curious twenty-year-olds in band tees they bought from a Depop reseller, and almost no flippers. That last bit is the story.

For five years, RSD was a flipper economy. People with no relationship to the music queueing for releases they would list on Discogs at 9:01am for triple the retail. RSD 2026 had almost none of that. The releases this year were less collectible — fewer one-off coloured variants, fewer hyped reissues. The flippers smelled it and stayed home. Genuine fans got the records they wanted at the price they were meant to pay.

What sold and what did not

The reissue program this year leaned into mid-catalogue Australian indie. A bunch of 90s and early-2000s Australian records got proper vinyl pressings for the first time. That stuff moved. The shop had to call customers off the waiting list within the first hour for some titles.

The international RSD exclusives, the colour-variant pop and rock reissues, the major-label cash-in releases — they sat. We sold them through the day but not in the first rush. That is a meaningful change from 2022 when the major-label exclusives were the queue items.

The collector age curve

The collector demographic at Spank in 2026 is bimodal in a way it was not five years ago. We get the over-fifties who have been buying vinyl since they were teenagers and never stopped. And we get the under-thirties who started buying records in the streaming era because vinyl was the only way to actually own the thing. The middle is thin. Forty-somethings who came back to vinyl during COVID and then stopped buying are most of that gap.

The implication for what we stock is interesting. Both ends of the curve are buying catalogue. New releases on vinyl are mostly the under-thirties. Reissues and second-hand are evenly split. Test pressings, audiophile reissues, half-speed remasters — that is the over-fifties.

The Spank position on RSD

I have been more critical of RSD in years past than I should have been. The 2026 lineup actually felt like the spirit of the thing. Smaller, more catalogue, less flipper-bait. If they hold this direction the day still has a future.

For the records we did not sell out of, come down this week. Whitechapel Road. Saturdays, 11 to 6.