Do you love music? If so, then National Vinyl Record Day is for you! Keep reading to observe the role that vinyl records play in music history.
National Vinyl Record Day is a day dedicated to celebrating the history of vinyl records, and music in general! There are many fun ways to honor the day!
National days of the year are a great way to celebrate odd and unusual foods, animals and items that you come into contact with. Be sure to check out this national day’s guide for more unusual days to celebrate.
What is National Vinyl Record Day?
National Vinyl Record Day falls annually on August 12. Vinyl records are an important part of music history, and they deserve to have a special day dedicated to them!
Gary Freiberg of Los Osos, California founded National Vinyl Record Day.
He chose to celebrate National Vinyl Record Day on August 12th to pay homage to Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph, which was invented on August 12, 1877.
Fun facts about vinyl records
Brush up on your knowledge of the history of vinyl records with these fun facts.
- Even though the first record was made in the 1800s, records are still being created today!
- Records were not always made of vinyl! Until about 1960, records were made of shellac, a thicker, more brittle material.
- Vinyl records come in every color, including multi-colored marbled records. There are even records with pictures on them, called picture discs.
- While there are several record sizes, 12″ records are the size of record you’re most likely to run into today. They hold more music than the smaller sizes, so they’re more popular.
- Records play at different speeds. 331⁄3 rpm, 45 rpm and 78 rpm are the most common.
How to celebrate National Vinyl Record Day
Would you like to celebrate National Vinyl Record Day in a special way? Try one of these ideas.
- Take a trip back in time to learn more about the history of vinyl records.
- Go to a record store and take a look around. Many stores carry not only records, but DVDs and CDs too!
- Don’t forget to check out the discounted records at your local record shop (some stores have records for only a dollar!). Pick a few bands you’ve never heard of and bring the vinyl home! It will be a fun experience to listen to something new – you might even find a new band you like!
- Use the website Discogs to document your own record collection. You can make a list of your own records and a wish list for items you want to add to your collection!
- See if any quirky country music song titles are available on vinyl records.
- Invest in some items to preserve your records if you don’t have them already. Great items to help keep your records fresh are a record cleaning system, inner and outer record sleeves, and an anti static record brush.
- Do the word search puzzle for August to see if you can find Vinyl Record Day in it.
- Invite some friends over and spin some vinyl! Tell them to bring their favorite record with them if they’re also into collecting!
- Order a record from your wish list. Today is a great day to support vinyl, and treat yourself to a new record!
- Spread the word on social media using the hashtag #NationalVinylRecordDay. Here is a tweet to get you started:
What is a national day?
National days of the year are a fun way to celebrate odd and unusual foods, animals and items that you come into contact with.
There are close to 2000 national days in the year and over 150 of them are celebrated in August. To see them all, have a look at this post to discover more about the national days in August.
If you’re a foodie you’ll be excited to know that each day of the month has a food or drink associated with it. Some foods even have their own monthly observance. You’ll find all the August food holidays here.
Be sure to also check out these other unusual national days:
- National VCR Day
- National Landline Telephone Day
- Get Out Your Guitar Day
- National Disc Jockey Day
- National Old Stuff Day
Pin this post on National Vinyl Record Day for later
Would you like a reminder of this post for National Vinyl Record Day? Just pin this image to one of your trivia boards on Pinterest so that you can easily find it later.
Watch our YouTube video to learn about more August national days.
About the author
Since graduating from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Jess has been living and working in Los Angeles, CA. She is a freelance writer, specializing in content related to fashion, food and drink and film industry topics. Find out more about Jess here.