Record Pleasures of Limited-Supply Nostalgia

Today is Record Store Day, with events in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the U.S., all celebrating the tactile pleasures of picking up and placing a vinyl disk onto a turntable after having purchased the disk at an independent music shop.
     During the first Record Store Day five years ago, about 30,000 disks were sold. USA Today estimates that 7,000,000 will be sold this time around, many as gifts for devotees of classic rock music tracks.
     There’s a hint of desperation—or maybe only strong determination—in the Record Store Day promotion. Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan warns, “Buy real records in real shops or I’ll come round your house and scream at your mother.”
     However, the threatening is probably unnecessary. The appeal of nostalgia may wax and wane, but it’s always in vogue as at least a niche market. Australian entertainer Peter Allen thought enough of the saying “Everything old is new again” to coauthor a song by that title. Merchants are accommodating nostalgia fans who want the cutting edge by offering items like antique toasters sold as accent pieces, music tracks from old LP records reissued as MP3 downloads, and traditional house calls augmented with internet ordering.
     Among consumer psychologists, there’s a sense that the nostalgia appeal in recent shopping seasons has been due to feelings of social uncertainty from the economic downturn. Researchers from Arizona State University and Erasmus University in the Netherlands concluded that when people are feeling lonely, they become interested in nostalgia. If made to feel socially uncertain by the experimental manipulation, consumers became more likely to prefer automobile makes, food brands, TV shows, movies, and even shower soaps which reminded them of their personal history.
     You’ll get more sales from the nostalgia if you also point out the scarcity of the items. The Record Store Day site warns, “ALL STORES MAY NOT GET EVERYTHING THEY ORDER. Record Store Day titles are limited….” A couple of years ago, Heinz Ketchup brought back the eight-sided glass bottle from the 1990s, but announced it was there for only a matter of months. Prior to the talk of Twinkies perhaps disappearing forever because of the financial problems of the manufacturer, some Hostess Cakes snack brands reappeared with retro packaging, and Twinkies cupcakes took the inside track with the same style banana filling of old. But the Brigadoon-flavor appearance was for only one month.

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