National Vinyl Record Day Date in the current year: August 12, 2024

A record is an analog medium for sound storage and reproduction in the form of a flat disc with a spiral groove. Records have existed since the late 19th century, but the name “vinyl record” was first used in the late 1940s, when records made from polyvinyl chloride became common; before that, records were made from shellac.

The earliest known device for recording sound was Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s phonautograph patented in 1857. However, it wasn’t until two decades later that Thomas Edison invented a device capable of both recording and reproducing sound. He named his invention the phonograph.

Early phonographs used a cylinder wrapped in tinfoil or covered in a layer of wax as a recording medium. A transition from phonograph cylinder to grooved discs was initiated by Emile Berliner, a German-American inventor who began experimenting with the disc format in the mid-1880s and patented the gramophone in 1887.

Gramophone discs fully replaced cylinders in the early 20th century. The new era in the development of disc records began in the late 1948, when commercially produced vinyl records became widely available and replaced the old shellac records just like shellac records had replaced phonograph cylinders before them.

Vinyl records remained the primary medium used for the reproduction of music until 1991, when they gave way to compact discs as the main physical medium for music. But they are still manufactured and sold, although on a much smaller scale.

Vinyl records are still used by DJs; they are also popular among some audiophiles who prize them for their high-quality reproduction of analog recordings. Record collecting is a popular hobby that can be lucrative or costly, depending on which end of the deal you find yourself: rare vinyl records can be worth tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

National Vinyl Record Day was created by Gary Freiberg, a music enthusiast from Los Osos, California. The main goal of the holiday is to preserve the cultural influence of vinyl records as well as celebrate the art of music and the hobby of record collecting. Freiberg chose the date of August 12 for the celebration to commemorate the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877.

How to observe National Vinyl Record Day? Check out your local record store and browse through its selection, reminiscing about the good old days and the iconic music of your lifetime. If you have a vinyl record collection, share photos of some of your most prized possessions on social media with the hashtags #NationalVinylRecordDay and #VinylRecordDay to raise awareness of the holiday and celebrate vinyl records and their cultural impact. And, of course, listen to your favorite vinyl records because they are meant to be played and not just gather dust on the shelves.