Taylor Swift Is the First Global Record Store Day Ambassador
Taylor Swift, who has long supported independent music shops and vinyl culture, will serve as Record Store Day Ambassador for this year’s event, set to take place on April 23. The artist is the event’s first global ambassador.
Over the years, the singer-songwriter has put out special releases for both RSD and RSD’s Black Friday events, and RSD organizers say that Swift’s Folklore, Evermore, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), and Red (Taylor’s Version) are consistently on indie store charts because of her commitment to putting out her albums on CD and LP formats.
“I’m very proud to be this year’s Global Ambassador for Record Store Day,” Swift said in a statement. “The places where we go to browse and explore and discover music new and old have always been sacred to me. Record stores are so important because they help to perpetuate and foster music-loving as a passion.
“They create settings for live events,” she continued. “They employ people who adore music thoroughly and purely. Those people and shops have had a rough few years and we need to support these small businesses more now than ever to make sure they can stay alive, stay eccentric, and stay individual. It’s been a true joy for me to watch vinyl sales grow in the past few years and we, the artists, have the fans to thank for this pleasant surprise. Happy Record Store Day, everyone! Stay safe out there.”
Swift quietly showed her commitment to independent retail in 2020, when pandemic lockdowns were endangering the futures of small businesses, by sending out signed copies of her albums to specific stores. She also threw financial support behind the scenes at the Nashville outpost Grimey’s New & Preloved Music, where she covered three months’ worth of health care costs for each employee.
“We’re thrilled to learn that Taylor Swift is our 2022 Record Store Day Ambassador!” Grimey’s Anna Lundy and Doyle Davis said. “Swift has shown her love and support for independent record stores by not only supporting our shop specifically during the dark, early days of the pandemic, when she directly donated to help us support our staff, but also by steering her eager, excited, and dedicated fans to independent record stores, places that many of them visited for the first time while in search of her signed CDs. As Swift has grown as an artist, we’ve watched her fans grow with her and have been delighted to see her taking control of her recordings and working with musicians like Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, artists whose music has resonated in shops like ours for years. We can’t think of a better choice for RSD Ambassador for 2022!”
“The role of RSD Ambassador is, of course, something we take seriously in the sense that it helps us do our job of shining a light on these special places,” RSD co-founder Carrie Colliton said. “We’re pretty picky about the people we invite to ‘wear the sash,’ and we always want to make sure those Ambassadors genuinely love record stores and are creative about ways to celebrate them. But mostly it’s a title we want people to have fun with, and we know that our RSD 2022 Ambassador loves having fun, loves music, and loves record stores. For our 15th Record Store Day, we’re teaming up with a woman who does all that and just happens to be one of the biggest artists on the planet.”
Previous Record Store Day ambassadors include Ozzy Osbourne, Brandi Carlile, Iggy Pop, Jack White, Chuck D, Dave Grohl, Metallica, St. Vincent, Run the Jewels, and Pearl Jam, among others.
