Record Store Day 2019: Ten of the best releases

Ever wanted to own Baby Shark as a 7-inch picture disc? Or Shakespears Sister's fourth album on red vinyl?

Well, the long wait is finally over - with both those gems being released for Record Store Day on Saturday 13 April.

More than 550 records will hit the shelves of independent stores around the UK, with exclusives from Aretha Franklin, Robyn, Pink Floyd and Idles.

Courtney Barnett, The Flaming Lips and The Beloved are also releasing brand new material to mark the occasion.

You can even get a Mickey Mouse disco album, if that's your sort of thing.

Now in its 12th year, Record Store Day is hugely important for local, independent stores.

More than 90,000 albums and singles were bought at last year's event - making it the biggest sales day outside Christmas for many shop owners.

This year's list of releases even includes an ode to record stores by Sheffield rock band Bang Bang Romeo.

"It was in your arms where I found The Smiths and The Flaming Lips," sings Anastasia Walker on Cemetery. "Hours never wasted, always got my kicks."

Her sentiments are echoed by Iggy Pop - whose 72nd birthday happens to fall on Record Store Day.

"In my life, music has been a balm for loneliness," he said. "It was in the cheap-ass little record store that I found a way to connect with other people.

"Everywhere on earth I go, there are freaks minding a record store. It's a good hang - daylight vs dimly lit, clear-eyed vs stoned, and social vs savage. So that's why I like 'em."

The full, exhaustive list of Record Store Day releases has just been published - but here are 10 of the highlights.

Various Artists - Mickey Mouse Disco

"Mouse trap / Uh huh / He grabs the cheese and away he flees."

A sought-after curio from 1979, Mickey Mouse Disco was Disney's belated attempt to cash in on the disco craze; mixing original songs with club versions of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and Chim Chim Cher-ee.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you hear Macho Macho Duck - a tribute to Donald Fauntleroy Duck in the style of the Village People's hit Macho Macho Man - which features the lyric: "Ladies love to touch his uniform".

I swear I'm not making this up.

Long out of print, the album is being pressed onto black vinyl for Record Store Day.

Otis Redding - Just Do It One More Time! (Live at Monterey)

"I'm pretty sure I'd just seen God on stage," said The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, after watching Otis Redding at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967.

"Otis looked to be 12 or 14 feet tall, stalking the lip of the stage like a caged tiger, just shooting lighting and sparks. He was amazing."

Redding's scorching five-song set has been cleaned up and remastered for this release - featuring Shake, Respect ("a song that a girl took away from me"), I've Been Loving You Too Long, Satisfaction, and Try a Little Tenderness,

The marbled vinyl LP also includes opening performances by Booker T and the MGs, and the Mar-Key Horns.

Prince - The Versace Experience

The Versace Experience is the most expensive cassette ever sold at the online music marketplace Discogs, fetching $4,087 (£3,075) back in 2016.

A rare, one-off release, it was originally given away to guests at Versace's Paris Fashion Week show in the summer of 1995.

It features edits and remixes of tracks from Prince's Gold Experience album including P Control, Gold and Shhh, some of which never released anywhere else, alongside material from side-projects like the New Power Generation and jazz-fusion band Madhouse.

Like the original, this release is only being issued on cassette.

Trembling Bells - I Am The King

Psychedelic Glaswegian folk band Trembling Bells are using Record Store Day to announce their split, issuing one final EP as their swan song.

"After 10 years of being in a band which has felt more like a family, these are the final two statements from Trembling Bells," said drummer and founder member Alex Neilson.

The band's final two songs are I Am The King and Medusas "which sounds like it's a Greek myth but is actually about jelly fish".

On the b-side are two songs Neilson recorded under his solo pseudonym Alex Rex, in tribute to his younger brother, Alastair, who died in his sleep last year.

"I dream about him regularly," said the singer. "In one of my dreams we sang the Night Visiting Song [originally by Luke Kelly] together as a way of saying goodbye and to induce his passage into the world beyond."

Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks (Original New York Test Pressing)

It's easy to forget that, when Blood On The Tracks was released in early 1975, Bob Dylan's career had been on the slide for almost a decade.

Maybe that's why, months before it was released, the star pressed up a test-run of the album to play to friends and family.

As legend has it, his brother David Zimmerman wasn't keen on the album, and convinced Dylan to re-record five of the songs - Tangled Up in Blue; You're a Big Girl; Idiot Wind; Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts; and If You See Her, Say Hello - in order to brighten up the stark, confessional album.

The advice paid off: Blood On The Tracks is widely considered to be Dylan's best work.

Only five copies of that test pressing survived... but it's now getting a full vinyl re-release for Record Store Day, duplicated from the original disc.

Bananarama - Remixed

Just to prove Record Store Day isn't just for depressed managers having a mid-life crisis, here's Bananarama, with the first in a forthcoming series of remix albums.

This volume contains a strobing disco mix of the band's debut single Aie A Mwana, Tom Moulton's classic eight-minute reconstruction of Cruel Summer; and two brand-new versions of their smash hit Venus.

The Nanas are also putting out their 2000s albums Drama and Viva on vinyl for the first time.

Nichelle Nichols - Know What I Mean / Why Don't You Do Right?

Nichelle Nichols was a singer long before she became Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura, touring with both Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington in the 1950s.

Her first single for Epic Records, Know What I Mean, was released in 1967 and although it wasn't a commercial success, it's become a collector's item for Northern Soul fans, with original copies changing hands for £250.

Written by Floyd 'Everybody Wants To Be A Cat' Huddleston, it's a cheeky soul stomper that features the unforgettable line: "I ain't about to part with all my home-made fudge."

Bingo Hand Job - Live at Borderline

REM never toured in support of their multi-million-selling album Out Of Time - but they did play two secret shows at London's Borderline Club the week it came out, under the name Bingo Hand Job ("sanitised for your protection," read a sign outside the venue).

Tapes of the show were bootleg gold throughout the 1990s, but now a recording of the second night is being officially released for the first time.

The two-disc album will include live versions of Losing My Religion, The One I Love, Half A World Away and Radio Song, alongside covers of Tom's Diner, Love Is All Around and Moon River.

Sadly, Stinky (Michael Stipe), Raoul (Peter Buck), Ophelia (Mike Mills) and The Doc (Bill Berry) had already disowned Shiny Happy People, so it gets left off the setlist. 😞

The Mighty Boosh - Complete Radio Series

"The Mighty Boosh are a million miles from Radio 4," said the BBC's commissioners when Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt first proposed their fantastical, anarchic series in 1999.

Thankfully they persevered, and the nation was introduced to the zoo-based antics of Howard Moon and Vince Noir.

Most of the episodes were reworked for the duo's subsequent TV show, but there's a subtle thrill to hearing these early, embryonic versions - on a three-disc, paint-spattered album, for some reason.

Duran Duran - As The Lights Go Down

In 1984, at the height of their fame, Duran Duran played to 150,000 people over three nights at California's Oakland Coliseum.

The concerts were filmed for TV specials that aired around the globe, but were never officially released... until now.

The 11-track record includes live versions of Girls On Film, Is There Something I Should Know and Save A Prayer - which Simon Le Bon dedicated to Marvin Gaye, who had been shot dead days earlier.

"I rarely look back over my shoulder but listening to the mastered version of this album, it motivated us to recently play the song The Seventh Stranger for the first time since 1984," said keyboard player Nick Rhodes.

"Things only got stranger because when we rehearsed it sounded the same as when we wrote it and when we last performed it… I think this record captures the spirit of who Duran Duran were then and still reflects who we are now."

Further listening

Al Green and Aretha Franklin are releasing box sets of their classic 1960s singles.

Courtney Barnett will treat fans to an exclusive new song, Everybody Here Hates You.

The first anniversary of Mark E Smith's death will be marked with five previously-unreleased live albums by The Fall.

The sci-fi soundtrack to Black Mirror's USS Callister episode is being released in a limited run of 1,000 LPs.

Pop star Robyn releases a white vinyl EP collecting songs from her Body Talk trilogy, including a previously-unreleased acoustic version of Stars 4-Ever.

Bastille issue volume four of their Other People's Heartache EP on vinyl.

The Wedding Present's "lost" 1988 single Davni Chasy finally sees the light of day, ahead of the 30 year anniversary re-release of The Complete Ukrainian John Peel Sessions.

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