Long Island music stores offering album release parties, where fans gather for a record's debut

She could have listened to it dozens of times from the comfort of her own home starting at midnight. But Kasey Geiger waited until 7 p.m. the next day on a recent Friday night to hear Sabrina Carpenter’s new album for the first time at the crowded Looney Tunes Record Store.

Geiger, 15, of Amityville, joined around 80 or so Carpenter fans at the West Babylon record shop, one of the more than 300 independent music stores across nearly all 50 states that hosted a release party for the Carpenter’s "Man's Best Friend" on Aug. 29, the day it hit shelves and streaming platforms.

Over the past couple of years, a handful of mom-and-pop shops on Long Island have hosted these free events, drawing dozens or even hundreds of potential customers looking to score free posters and other goodies, courtesy of their favorite artist’s record label, and mingle with fellow die-hard fans as they would at a much-more-costly concert.

"It’s an experience to meet people who share the same interests as you," Geiger said after hearing "Man's Best Friend" from start to finish. "I like seeing the community of the artists I love. And if it means I can get free merch, then of course I’m going to go."

The surge of listening parties coincides with the rise in both vinyl and CD sales, especially among Generation Z, and the desire for a "third place" away from home and work in the more isolated digital era, said Carrie Colliton, who organizes the events on behalf of Record Store Day, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based initiative she cofounded to bolster mom-and-pop shops, including through its twice-yearly namesake events that fill indie shops with exclusive releases.

"I think after the [COVID-19] pandemic, people are really looking for community in a bunch of places they never would have thought about before," Colliton said. "People want to have these places where they can go and do things that aren't necessarily sitting and drinking in a bar."

Connecting through communal listening

The Aug. 29 release party attendees — mostly 20-somethings and teenagers, some of whom were accompanied by parents — formed a line that wrapped around Looney Tunes’ aisles to grab free giveaways, including bumper stickers of Carpenter hitchhiking — a nod to her new album’s first music video, "Manchild" — with the phrase "HONK IF YOU’RE STUPID!"

As the store's speakers cranked out the album, fans — who were not required to purchase a copy of the album, although many did — talked not only about what they were hearing, but about the artists they’ve seen live and interesting finds among the record racks.

When the night began, Geiger walked into Looney Tunes alongside her friend Mia Kahn and ran into Emma Fitzgerald, a friend she first met online a few years ago. She also made a new friend.

"She was wearing a Lady Gaga shirt and I just went to The Mayhem Ball," Geiger said, referring to the artist’s latest tour. "I was like ‘oh my gosh, I love your shirt.’"

A week before Carpenter’s album dropped, Deftones fans across multiple generations heard the heavy guitar riffs of the band’s new album blast throughout independent record shops across the nation. Metal fans nabbed a wide array of "merch," which included free posters for all attendees and grander prizes for those who purchased the album, like T-shirts and even test pressings.

With only a few weeks left of their summer vacation from Patchogue-Medford High School, Matias Salazar and a half dozen teenage friends got rides or walked to Record Stop in downtown Patchogue and headed straight to the Deftones setup in the back. While Salazar was happy to snag a poster, a lanyard and — appropriately for the new album, "Private Music" — a "do not disturb" doorknob hanger, he was "really excited ... to spend time with my friends."

"I think it’s cooler to listen to it like this than just sitting alone in my room," Salazar, 15, of Patchogue, added. "I like to listen to stuff with people."

Other Deftones fans gathered in Record Stop agreed.

"I think it’s cool trying to get people away from their computers and in person, together," Allison Gorman, 44, of Patchogue, said. "Whatever gets people exposed to good music, I’m all for it."

CD-era comeback

Early listening parties — a CD-era trend that gave select stores’ lucky customers the chance to hear new music before anyone else — have historically drawn the biggest crowds of any type of listening event, according to Looney Tunes owner Karl Groeger Jr.

"I remember we did one for Limp Bizkit, and we had like 400 ... people show up just to listen to the new record, no giveaways, no nothing," Groeger recalled of an early listening event for nu-metal band's 1999 album "Significant Other," which included the hit "Break Stuff."

"This was before, people could record stuff on their phone and steal it," he added. "It's always been about social interaction for us. We want like-minded fans to have a place where they can go and make new friends."

While these early listenings still take place — Looney Tunes invited customers to hear Twenty One Pilots’ "Breach" six days before it dropped on Sept. 12 — these events have become more rare in the digital age, as "security" concerns that an album could "leak" are much higher, said Christina Meloche, the vice president of revenue at Interscope Capitol, a Santa Monica, California-based record label that represents Super Bowl LIX and LVI halftime performer Kendrick Lamar, pop-punk legends Blink-182 and K-pop superstars BTS among others.

Labels and record stores round up listeners the day or the weekend an album drops nowadays not to hear new music early, but to conjure the same feeling Meloche felt when new albums hit the shelves in the pre-streaming age, when she and her fellow fanatics had to race to their local record store to grab a copy.

She said release parties also replace another long lost meeting ground most release partygoers never experienced: the box office line for concert tickets.

"You'd sleep outside, it's 20 degrees, you're in line and you don't know [anything] about these people," Meloche recalled. "You don't know who they vote for or what they eat ... but damn it, you know that they are in line for those Bon Jovi tickets ... You exchange phone numbers and then you see them at the concert, and you’re like, ‘oh my God, these are my people.’"

While Looney Tunes, Record Stop and Newbury Comics in Smith Haven Mall have been hosting listening parties, most record shops on Long Island do not. Sometimes labels can only send freebies to the first few hundred independent record stores of the 1,500 or so nationwide who sign up for release parties, Colliton said. Each shop has their own business model and clientele, so some of them, including High Fidelity Records & CDs in Amityville, do not vie for a limited spot.

"The main thing is vintage here," High Fidelity owner Marc Sendik said. "I focus a lot of my energy and funds on used presses."

For some record buyers, heading to a shop for a release party is only worth it for select artists they enjoy. But sisters Angela and Victoria Earvolino, of Sayville, started going to multiple record release parties near New Paltz, where they studied, and said they regret not attending even more. They now go to similar gatherings on Long Island, most recently Looney Tunes’ release parties for Conan Gray and Carpenter.

"It just gives you a reason to come into a record store, look around and then leave with something you didn’t think you were going to buy, which is what happened to me last time," Victoria Earvolino, 22, said.

"While you’re browsing you can just talk to someone about the album, or anything really," Angela Earvolino, 23, added. "You all have something in common because you’re all here for the same reason."