A Shared Affinity

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Believe it or not, we are closing in on a bit of an international holiday in just a couple of weeks. Since today is April Fools day, you might be thinking that the holiday I am referring to is Easter. That's actually not correct. You are close, but just about a week too late for the actual holiday I am thinking of. April 12th, 2025 is Record Store Day and it's honestly one of my favorite holidays of the year.

I've written about Record Store Day on several occasions. They actually celebrate it twice a year if you want to get really technical. The original one happens right around this time each year. The second one is actually an extension of the Black Friday sales that you see the day after Thanksgiving and it piggybacks off the hype of that holiday to offer enthusiasts special releases and editions of vinyl.

This past Black Friday one of my nieces just happened to be in town who shares my love and affinity for vinyl records. I got the chance to take her out to one of the local stores and have her participate in her first ever Record Store Day. She picked up a couple exclusive releases from that day.

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One of the cool things about Record Store Day(RSD) is the fact that they list all of the things that are being released on their website before the actual event. That doesn't mean your local store is going to be able to get their hands on any copies of them, but there is always a chance. For example, stores all over the world participate in RSD and sometimes only 500 copies of a particular album are released. That means not every store will get that release and even if they do, it might only be one or two copies.

As you might imagine, albums like that go pretty fast depending on what they are. Stores are also not allowed to hold items for customers or sell anything for RSD before they open on the actual day. In this case April 12th. I have stood in line at 4 in the morning to get my ticket for entry to the store. I have also seen people spend the night outside the store to preserve their place in line.

I was on the RSD site the other day looking at all of the special release albums that are being offered this year. I noticed a few that would be cool to have, but nothing that I absolutely needed to have in my collection. I honestly prefer to buy pre-owned albums that I can pick up for $5 or less compared to some of the special RSD albums that can sell for over $100 a pop. As long as it plays well, I don't care. I also like that those used albums have a bit of history to them.

Anyway, I was looking through the albums and I didn't see much that caught my eye, but I did see an album that I thought my niece might be interested in. It's a RSD pre-release which means that they sell a couple thousand copies of the album during RSD and then at some later date they will sell it to the masses.

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The album was from a band called Wallows and no, the theme of this #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze actually has very little to do with Record Store Day. It's just a coincidence that this band is releasing something on that particular day. Instead, this post is about music that I was introduced to because of my niece. I think I have done a post like this in the past, but since her and I have a shared affinity for music and more specifically vinyl music, I will likely be doing more of these posts in the future.

I honestly don't remember how her and I got talking about Wallows, but I remember that she likes them and that her close friend really likes them. In fact, her friend has seen them in concert. Actually, as much as I like to see bands live, her friend has probably seen more shows than me even though she is 30 years younger. I credit her parents for having exceptional taste and leading her down such a wonderful path of appreciation.

"Hide It Away" is just the first song I picked from Wallows. It holds no special meaning for me, but it gives you a good idea of what their sound is like. If you want to find out more about the band you can check their Wiki out here. They've actually been around for quite some time (2011) which is another indication that my niece and her friend aren't just into the latest teen craze.

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Every now and then either I will text my niece asking her if she has heard of a specific singer or band, or she will text me asking the same thing. That was the case a few weeks ago when she asked me if I had ever heard of Clairo. The name kind of sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place where I had heard it before.

I spent the next few days taking a deep dive into Clairo so I could talk about my favorite songs of hers with my niece and in return my niece would tell me the tracks that really speak to her. "Add Up My Love" is my nieces favorite song of hers right now.

Personally, she kind of reminds me of a cross between Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo with maybe a little less of the angst you might expect. Personally, my favorite songs are "Slow Dance" and "Harbor", so if you decide to dive into Clairo, listen to at least those three songs. Here is her Wiki page

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Finally, I am going to leave you with an artist that didn't come from my niece, but it was inspired by my niece. After I finished listening to all of Clairo's stuff, Spotify decided to start playing some other similar stuff that it thought I might like. The Marias was one of those artists. Again, no particular reason why I am sharing "No One Noticed" with you, I just wanted to give you a taste of this new artist. I reached out to my niece and asked if she had ever heard of them, but she had not. I have a feeling she has probably done her due diligence now and given them a listen. She was just on Spring Break with that same friend I talked about earlier, so there is a good chance she mentioned them to her as well. I wouldn't be shocked if her friend knew exactly who they were.

@thebighigg actually might want to check this band out as well as the folks who speak Spanish as they are known to perform in both languages.

That's all I've got this week. I hope you find at least one song you enjoy!

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Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced