Record Store Day, the annual celebration of the UK’s independent record stores, is excited to announce Noel Gallagher as the official ambassador of this year’s celebrations.

With his long history of supporting indie record stores and already 5 Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Record Store Day releaseswhich have been amongst the event’s best selling vinyl, Noel Gallagher is undeniably the perfect artist to take on this year’s ambassador role.

Upon being enlisted as the ambassador for 2021’s event, Noel said:
“Record shops were really important when I was growing up. It’s something that’s in my DNA. I think if we can keep record shops open for as long as possible, we owe it to the young people of this country. For this year’s Record Store Day I’ll be getting involved. I’ve got something unique coming out. Hopefully the fans will like it and they’ll keep the flame burning for your local record shop.”

Watch Noel’s special video message to record shops here

As announced last Thursday, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds are set to release “Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2011-2021) on 11th June – a definitive Best Of package and a timely reminder of the breadth and depth of classic songs from the first decade of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

And as part of his official role as Record Store Day’s ambassador, there will also be a special limited edition, numbered, hand-pressed, coloured double LP version with an exclusive art print created for indie record stores and released on first Drop on 12th June.

This year’s Record Store Day event is set to take place across two Drops on the 12th June and 17th July. Hundreds of artists are releasing special and exclusive vinyl records to support the 250 shops who have faced enforced closures for more than 3 months this year alone. This means that the success of this year’s Record Store Day event will be more important to retailers than ever before.

Every year Record Store Day enlists one record store loving ambassador to fly the flag on behalf of record shops up and down the country. In previous years the role has been taken on by the likes of The Big Moon, The Mighty Boosh, Rag n Bone Man, Sir Elton John, Kae Tempest and Izzy Bizu among many others. The ambassador works in tandem with Record Store Day to encourage music lovers to support their local record store and discover the joys of vinyl.

Noel Gallagher, who joins the star-studded roster of previous ambassadors, was the principal songwriter, guitarist and occasional lead vocalist of Oasis - one of the biggest bands ever to emerge from UK. Noel has an unprecedented 10 consecutive chart-topping studio albums in the UK so far in his career, with three consecutive Number 1’s and over 2.4 million album sales globally for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Record Store Day is widely regarded as the catalyst behind the phenomenal resurgence in vinyl as sales topped more than 5m units in the UK in 2020 - this is compared to just 205k in 2008 when Record Store Day began. Though there is a still a long way to go, the success of the event has sparked a huge turnaround in fortunes for the nation’s independent record stores who have weathered the coronavirus pandemic with unwavering resilience and ingenuity.