If, as is argued in some quarters, Record Store Day is just a Hallmark festival, then so be it. Good on those who participate, from the thousands of independent record shops in every continent who take part, to the hundreds of thousands of punters, giddy like children on Christmas Eve, queuing at the crack of dawn to get their hands on that Bowie picture disc of The Man Who Sold The World, or The Doors' Live At The Aquarius Theatre Vol. 1 on blue vinyl, two of the many rarities and special editions on offer at this year's Record Store Day.
RSD isn't just about selling records on the pretext of a promotional event, it's a celebration of what makes buying, collecting, browsing, touching, debating, obsessing and, yes, listening to music part of a collective cultural experience the world over. And if the world's beleaguered independent record shops - the churches I worshipped in as a teenager, who introduced me to the enjoyment of music curation - can get a helping hand by staging special RSD events, with live music and face painting for the kids, then more power to them. Picking up a Top 10 album while you're out doing the weekly shop in Sainsbury's may be convenient, but it's no substitute for the Saturday afternoon I know I still love to spend in a proper record shop flicking through the racks, drooling over lavish box sets, holding up the album artwork and declaring excitedly, "oh yes!".
Anything that gets people into actual record shops, buying music in its physical form and adding to that row of spines, be they CDs or vinyl, is fine. And in the end, it doesn't matter whether today you buy something or nothing, one, ten or fifty, it's all about getting involved.
Now, I know what you're thinking: isn't this all a bit flogging a dead horse? Last week the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported that revenues from digital music exceeded physical formats for the first time, accounting for 45% of the total in 2015. There is no escaping the fact that physical music sales are falling: just like kids preferring the PlayStation and Xbox to Airfix models and Hornby trains, buying records and CDs music is a declining business, impacted by other trends.
I'm as guilty as anyone: I will buy albums on iTunes for the convenience of immediately listening to them on the morning they come out. It's the same impatience that would have me scampering to New Malden's MJM Records as a teen on the day that a vital album came out. I'm sure there's a psychological explanation for it.
At least now, with new releases coming out on Fridays, I can curb my loins for a day and descend upon my current emporium of choic, the palace of the recorded disc that is Gibert Joseph here in Paris's Boulevard Saint-Michel. And at least I'm paying for my music. I'm one of those contrarians who actually think artists should get paid the right amount for what they do. It's their talent, their artistic endeavor, so why should they get paid the bare minimum for letting us access it?
Buying music has sustained me in the way others collect books or embrace cinema. It got me through teenage, it got me my first job, and it has taken me thusfar to my fifth decade as the one constant in my life. It is true, then, as one particularly curmudgeonly music journalist tweeted today, that we won't need a special day once a year to go out and buy records. But if it creates some fun and drives a bit of passion about music, then what's the harm? If it creates curiosity amongst the current generation of teenagers - as, thankfully, I know it does, then more power to it.
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