'Record Store Day' 2017 Saturday in Manassas

MANASSAS, VA — For those of a certain age, do you remember when 8-track tapes, then cassette tapes and then compact discs were deemed to be the future of quality music and that traditional vinyl records were doomed to go the way of, say, the car bag phone?

Yeah, well, a lot of folks will tell you there's nothing quite like the rich and deep sound of vinyl records, and a lot of those same folks happen to own or work in still-standing record stores and are ready to celebrate "Record Store Day" Saturday.

Manassas will have a shop in the mix for National Record Day. It's Records and Rarities, 8300 Sudley Road at Manassas Mall. And on its website, it has a pretty cool message for would-be customers:

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"We often hear people comment that vinyl is making a comeback. In our view, it never left. We love CDs and MP3s as well, but there is a special place in our hearts for vinyl!"

Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a way to "celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1,400 independently owned record stores in the United States and thousands of similar stores internationally."

Newsweek had a great piece a couple of years ago with the headline: "Why Vinyl Has Made a Comeback." And the New York Times had a good read about record-pressing machines "coming back to life."

Click here for a list of stores throughout the nation (and the world) taking part in Record Store Day.

Image via Record Store Day