Record Store Day - January 27, 2020

Record Store Day

By, Michael Earnshaw

January 27, 2020

Tuesday was always my favorite day of the week. Once I hit my college career I did everything in my power to ensure that if any of my courses had to be taken on a Tuesday I chose the ones that were in the later morning, afternoon, or evening. This wasn’t because many of the local establishments ran Monday evening specials where we could get pitchers of Killian’s for $3 and hang out throwing darts until the “Loser Lights” came on. No. Tuesdays were always the day I would set an alarm to be up no later than 8:30 regardless of what nightly hour my foggy head soldered with my bag of feathers. When you’re in your early 20’s, celebrating late summer nights with friends, early wake-ups would typically be around noon. Not on Tuesdays. 

Tuesday had something special that no other day of the week could ever touch. Tuesday was record release day! Music has always been a major part of my life, getting me through good times and bad. Music is the glue that has held so many strong friendships and memories together all these years.

Ever since I graduated high school in ‘98, there wasn’t a Tuesday that I wasn’t eagerly waiting at the stickered up door of my local independent record store minutes before they unlocked. I couldn’t wait to cross through their majestic threshold and get my hands, and ears, on all of the newest releases that would transcend me to a much better place. Music was my drug and I was picking up new soundtracks for my life that contained tunes that would serve as the backdrop for many memories with dear friends that I still treasure today. 

The days following Tuesday were special as well. These were the days I spent learning and studying all of the lyrics to the newest CD’s blaring through my Pioneer CD player in my Pontiac Grand Am. I analyzed the stories and messages my favorite punk bands were screaming about, drawing connections to earlier lessons they delivered on previous records, and tying it to the current state of our world. I admired the passion and love of what they had put out for me as much as the memories I made with my friends discussing the beauty of the music. 

Why am I sharing my love of picking up new music on a Tuesday and then spending the remaining days of the week studying and analyzing these messages? Because this is exactly what we should strive to have our classrooms resemble. My love for picking up new music weekly, and then understanding everything I could behind it, is how our lessons should be designed for our students. 

There’s so much talk of creating experiences in our classrooms, engaging our students in a love of learning, bringing our passions to them through our lessons. This is exactly how my weeks were structured with my love of music. Some weeks only one great record was dropped, others I was picking up three to four. Our classrooms are the same. We can’t expect teachers to have out of the box lessons every day of the week. But they can bring at least one every week. One lesson so strong, so different, so engaging, rigorous, and out of the box that will have their students salivating for the next gem the following week. 

Once we become comfortable creating these experiences for our students, the juices are flowing. Like anything, the more we practice the better we become. That’s when you’ll seem to be dropping more than one record a week for your students. Some will be bigger, like a full length LP, while others may just be a short little burst, like when a band releases an EP of 4 or so songs to build anticipation before their next proper release. 

We’ve now come to a day and age where CD sales have dropped significantly. Many of the independent record stores I loved have closed their doors for the last time. Music is still a huge part of my life, and I still look forward to new releases every week. Instead of getting in my car and driving to those stores I long for, I now pick up my phone first thing every Friday morning and go to my Spotify app to see what is new and start studying. 

Times have changed, the process has changed, but my excitement for new music, which is now Friday, and my love for studying the lessons and messages hasn’t. 

How often are you releasing new records for our students? The day of the week doesn’t matter anymore, but new releases must drop regularly.