Taylor Swift has been tapped as the first-ever global ambassador for Record Store Day, with the singer stepping up to help mark the 15th anniversary of the annual celebration. In an announcement, the RSD braintrust wrote, “RSD AMBASSADOR (Taylor’s Version,” a nod to the singer’s recent re-recordings of her classic Fearless and Red albums.
“Thanks to @taylorswift for putting on the sash and serving as the first ever GLOBAL RECORD STORE DAY AMBASSADOR, helping us celebrate the culture of the independent record store around the world.” This year’s RSD will take place on April 23, with the official list of this year’s RSD releases coming soon.
“I’m very proud to be this year’s 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. 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.”
The announcement noted that during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 Swift “took her support a step further, directing fans to record stores around the country where they could find autographed CDs, bringing much needed traffic and attention at a time of business uncertainty. She also then made a quiet, thoughtful gesture to a store she knows well, Grimey’s New and Pre-loved Music in Nashville.”
“We’re thrilled to learn that Taylor Swift is our 2022 Record Store Day Ambassador!,” said Anna Lundy and Doyle Davis of Grimey’s in a statement. “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!”
Swift has supported RSD a number of times in the past, offering up special versions of her albums 1989 and Speak Now and a 7″ vinyl single version of Haim’s single, “Gasoline.”
“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,” said RSD co-founder Carrie Colliton in a statement. “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.”
Check out the announcement below.