Poughkeepsie, NY Record Store Finally Participating in the Taylor Swift Craze

Shake off the old version! Taylor Swift's album 1989 (Taylor's Version) re-release is about to hit shelves in October.

Fans have been going nuts since 1989 (Taylor's Version) was announced back in August, rushing to Taylor Swift's website to pre-order every and all editions of 1989 she's releasing. That might seem like a silly statement, but Swift has released 8 limited edition versions of her album 1989.

Now, 42 days after the original announcement, a local Hudson Valley record story is able to get in on the Swiftie fun.

Poughkeepsie, NY Record Store Gets in on The Swifty Fun

With that being said, local independent record store Darkside Records in Poughkeepsie, NY has finally been given the 'OK' to participate in the sale of Taylor Swift 1989 (Taylor's Version)  On Instagram, they wrote:

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y! Taylor’s version of 1989 will be released on October 27th, exactly 9 years to the day since the original was released. We’ll have it on Crystal Skies Blue vinyl, CD, and cassette

And they added:

We know many of you have already preordered this, along with other versions, from Taylor’s site. That’s cool, and we totally get it- we wish we had been able to have a seat at the table back when this was announced (43 days ago). And that’s what we want to talk about in the rest of this post.

Darkside Records vs. Universal Music Group

Darkside Records has a bone to pick with Universal Music Group. Within the Taylor Swift post on Instagram, Darkside Records calls out Universal Music Group (the largest music distributor in the world, which is also in charge of distributing Swift's albums) stating that UMG "doesn’t treat independent retailers equally."

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The Poughkeepsie record store continues "We’re held to a different set of rules than even the other big box retailers (Target, Amazon, etc). We won’t be able to sell these versions at the same price as on her site, because the cost to us is about the same as what they’re being sold for there." According to the post, Darkside Records won't have the albums in time for a midnight sale, or on the album's actual release day on 10/27/23. They explain:

Why? Because they feel independent retailers can’t be trusted to hold things until they come out. And the other big one- not giving us any information until now about what versions we’ll have, what they cost, and when we’re allowed to try to serve our loyal and dedicated customers who support us all year round.

At the end of the day, Darkside says "All it comes down to is, we want to be treated equally and be given a chance to serve our customers, instead of shrugging our shoulders and saying, “we don’t know.” @universalmusicgroup could do better to keep us all healthy, but I’m not holding my breath."

Support your local independent record stores!