Another Awesome Record Store Day Coming to NJ Shops

I love Record Store Day, it takes me back to when I would visit my favorite record stores about once a week. Wait, I still do! Maybe not once a week but I’ll go digging for a find, especially on Record Store Day.

The next Record Store Day is happening on Black Friday, November 29^th, and, as always, there are a lot of fabulous artists participating. They include everything from The Beatles, Teddy Swims, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell, Phil Collins, Stevie Nicks, U2, Grateful Dead, Billie Eilish, and lots more making it worth the trip to the record shop.

I love the excitement of getting there early, and at least at my town’s little record shop, getting a number, waiting in line, and anticipating my turn to go in a shop. (It has everything, but it’s small so there’s a limit to how many people can enter at the same time)

Along with some re-releases, this year’s Record Store Day offerings also include a Whitney Houston 12” single of an unreleased track called “Love Is.” It’s taken from “The Concert for a New South Africa” movie which hits theatres October 23^rd and October 27^th only. It’s from her performance in Durban, South Africa in 1994. The record includes the studio version, a remix version, a live rehearsal recording, one that’s acapella, and three more tracks.

One of the more sought-after record store day releases is Stevie Nicks' 7” single of “The Lighthouse.” It’s pressed on white vinyl, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

In November of 1969, The Rolling Stones recorded, “Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out” at Madison Square Garden in NYC. The record store day version is on candy cane swirl vinyl like the hat Charlie Watts wears on the album cover.

The Beatles will have a few things available including a 3” vinyl version of “All My Loving” which comes with a carrying case.

New Jersey record stores planning to participate include Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton, The Record Collector in Bordentown, Blue Raven Records in Frenchtown, and Randy Now's Man Cave in Hightstown,

For the full list of all the participating stores and unique releases which also includes stuff from The Ramones, The Doors, Olivia Rodrigo, One Republic, and Bebe Rexha go to RecordStoreDay.com

I’ll be standing in line for the Stevie Nicks, The Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix.

Over the weekend, Kendrick Lamar announced that he is playing the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show. Kendrick Lamar played the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2022 in 2022, as part of a performance that was led by Dr. Dre and also featured Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent. He performed a medley of his songs "M.a.a.D. City" and "Alright."

It seems likely that Kendrick will have guests join him at his headlining performance. Not that he needs the help: Lamar is a 17-time Grammy Award winner who knocks out classic album after classic album. 2012’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly and 2017’s DAMN. are some of hip-hop’s greatest LPs. He’s won a lot of other awards as well, including the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music: he’s the first musician outside of classical and jazz to be so honored. 

Lamar doesn’t rely on collaborators: some of his best songs are true solo efforts, like “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” “Swimming Pools (Drank),” “King Kunta,” “i,” “DNA,” “HUMBLE,” and of course, “Alright.” And then, there’s his Drake diss track, which was one of the biggest jams of the summer, “Not Like Us.” 

But he’s also a great collaborator, having teamed up with some of the biggest names in hip-hop and in popular music in general, including Beyonce, Taylor Swift, U2, the Weeknd and Jay Z. 

He’s great at bringing people together, as he proved at his one-off concert, “The Pop-Out: Ken & Friends” that was held at the KIA Forum in Inglewood, California on June 19, aka Juneteenth. The show featured Ty Dolla $ign, Tyler, The Creator, Roddy Ricch, YG, Schoolboy Q, and Dr. Dre, among others. Beyond that, he united Bloods and Crips on the stage as well. (Ice-T posted, "A Potential Gang Truce in LA is like a Cure for Cancer for us…. Extreme Respect to @kendricklamar.")

While most of those guests (other than maybe Dr. Dre) are unlikely Halftime show collaborators, we thought that it would be fun to speculate on who, if anyone, Kendrick might invite to the stage. 

This is an obvious choice. Kendrick and SZA’s collaboration, “All The Stars,” from 2018’s Black Panther film, is one of his most well-known songs. It also feels like a perfect opening to a Halftime show. SZA is also one of the most exciting artists of the past decade: it wouldn’t be a shock to see her headline Halftime in a few years.

Dre had Kendrick with him at the Super Bowl in 2022 and now Kendrick can return the favor for “The Recipe.” “The Recipe” was Kendrick’s first commercial single. Of course, Kendrick is signed to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label, so it was no surprise to see Dre on the track: however, he's been a bit less invovled with Kendrick than he was with his other protegees Eminem and Snoop Dogg. Kendrick and Dre could also do “Compton,” but that would seem a weird choice: that song would have made more sense in 2022.

Even though Rihanna didn’t have any guests at her Super Bowl Halftime show, that doesn’t mean that she can’t be a guest at someone else’s. (And hey, every guest would have been overshadowed by her pregnancy reveal during her performance.) A performance of “Loyalty” by Kendrick and Rihanna would be a huge moment.

Beyonce headlined in 2013 – one of the greatest halftime shows ever – and guested with Coldplay when they headlined in 2016, where she actually debuted a new song, "Formation," from her forthcoming Lemonade. A Kendrick/Beyonce performance would just about break the internet. “Freedom,” also from Bey’s 2016 Lemonade, has become a huge anthem. Alternatively, they could do Beyonce’s “America Has A Problem” remix, which featured Kendrick. That seems a bit confrontational for the NFL. But then again, "Formation" was pretty political too.

OK, yeah, it sounds crazy, given how heated their battle got this year. By all accounts, Kendrick was the decisive winner of that battle. And many hip-hop fans felt that Kendrick was baiting Drake in the video used to announce that he was playing the Halftime Show. When he said, “You know there’s only one opportunity to win a championship. No round twos,” it felt like he was declaring victory over his opponent. But the Super Bowl comes just weeks after the Presidential inauguration, and no matter who wins that contest, half the country will be upset. Kendrick and Drake could make a moment that’s bigger than both of them by officially ending their beef, and moving on. Sure, it sound unlikely, but no one ever thought that Jay-Z and Nas would come to terms, and they did. A Kendrick/Drake truce at the Super Bowl would not only be a great moment in music and sports history, but would also set an example for former adversaries to move past their conflicts. And that’s a lesson the whole world could benefit from today.