List Announced on December 3 – New, Vinyl Exclusives Available to Buy & Pre-Order instore & Online on December 5

#loverecordstores, the campaign launched earlier this year to raise awareness of the challenges faced by record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic is launching a new initiative;  the inaugural ‘independent Albums of the Year’ list.

This new campaign is aimed primarily  at the UK’s wider independent music sector, including artists and record labels,   in time for the last quarter of 2020, a crucial time in the run up to the all-important Christmas period. 

The #loverecordstores ‘Independent Albums of the Year’ list is 2020’s favourite releases from independent labels voted for by a cross section of notable independent record stores including  Drift, Resident, Rough Trade, Normans, Piccadilly, Bear Tree, Assai, Banquet, Stranger Than Paradise, Bleep and Monorail among many others. 

The full list will be unveiled on Thursday 3rd of December. 

To celebrate the launch, independent record stores across the UK  will be making exclusive vinyl pressings of albums included in the list available to buy and pre-order from 6pm on Saturday the 5th of December. 

#loverecordstores started life as a social media campaign with a huge range of artists including Elton John, Paul Weller and Kae Tempest to name only a few and the wider music community uniting under the hashtag to encourage music fans to continue shopping online while stores were shuttered during the lockdown. 

The #loverecordstores campaign culminated in a hugely successful, day-long event on 20^th June featuring over 130 independent record stores, which saw dozens of new and re-issued vinyl releases from the likes of Oasis, Radiohead and Arctic Monkeys among many others being made available to music fans and over £1m in revenue generated. 

To complement the day, which had Tim Burgess as its Ambassador, #loverecordstores also organised the world’s biggest online instore event featuring  live performances, DJ sets, interviews, readings and more from a wide range of artists such as Fontaines DC, Craig David, Circa Waves, John Grant,  Black Pumas and many more, curated by a number of the world’s best-known independent labels including Play It Again Sam, Rough Trade, Partisan Records, Secretly Group, Domino, Ninja Tune, XL Recordings, 4AD, Warp,Heavenly Recordings, Transgressive, Mute, and Bella Union among others.

The #loverecordstores campaign has shone a spotlight on the work of the wider independent community of record shops, labels & fans who have supported each other and their artists at a time when so many of their traditional marketing and engagement opportunities such as live shows have not been possible.

Jason Rackham, UK Managing Director of [PIAS] and co-founder of #loverecordstores said, “As we head into the winter months it is clear that record stores face a challenging end to the year. We hope and believe that this celebration of the year’s best independent music will help to support the record stores and remind people to continue to support this vital sector of our industry.”

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Twitter @LoveRecsStores

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Please visit www.loverecordstores.com for more information.