RSD

Record Store Day Black Friday 2025 preview: Electronic & soundtracks

Ned Lannamann, Robert Ham

18 Nov 2025 — 11 min read

Welcome back to our ongoing series of previews for Record Store Day’s upcoming Black Friday event, taking place on Friday, November 28. We’re getting near the end, folks, and unfortunately that means today’s pickings are on the slim side. With a dollop of interesting electronic releases to kick things off, we’ve then got a batch of soundtrack reissues that don’t contain a whole lot that excites us. Still, you may be able to find some tiny little gold flakes in them thar hills.

Next week, prepare yourself for a giant rundown of all the Record Store Day releases we’ve actually had a chance to listen to. Yes, we’ve gotten our mitts on a frankly ridiculous amount of vinyl, and we’re currently going through this giant stack and giving everything a listen. So we’ll be able to give you the actual lowdown on what is and isn’t worth bringing home from the record store. Look for that on Monday or Tuesday.

And if you’ve missed any of our previous Black Friday coverage, you can check all of it out right here.

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ELECTRONIC

Ladytron: Nightlife [Nettwerk]

British post-punk outfit Ladytron has graced the world with some of the chilliest, sexiest music around for a little over a quarter of a century. And due to the electronic foundation of their sound, their songs have lent themselves easily to the hands of producers like Soulwax, ADULT., and Josh Wink, who have all remixed the band’s work over the years. This RSD First collection gathers up the best of those reworkings and edits in one handy, easily DJable double-LP set. RH

Tangerine Dream: Live at Place des Arts, Montreal [Culture Factory]

This concert comes from the North American tour that yielded the marvelous Encore double album from 1977, and the recording is a radio broadcast by CHOM-FM in Montreal. Starting with “Cherokee Lane” and “Monolight,” the band then embarked on an hour-plus-long series of improvisations that were master classes in atmosphere. There are some good-sounding boots of the show already in circulation, and I’m skeptical of Culture Factory’s ability to improve upon any of them, but this is such a good performance that I’m tempted to overlook my dislike of this label and pick this one up. But I would be remiss not to mention that Culture Factory are responsible for some of the worst Record Store Day vinyl I’ve ever purchased, and while they’re not doing zoetropes for this one (as they have for past Tangerine Dream live discs), they couldn’t resist a stupid colored-vinyl gimmick: One disc is red, one disc is marbled red and white, and one disc is red with white splatter. With so many variables, at least one of the discs is bound to sound like junk. NL

Thievery Corporation: Radio Retaliation [Thievery Corporation]

With original copies of the previous vinyl releases of their fifth studio album commanding huge sums on the secondary market, DC downtempo legends Thievery Corporation are kindly putting 2008’s Radio Retaliation back in print as an RSD Black Friday exclusive. And not a moment too soon, as this deeply political work was then pitched as a musical bulwark against the rising tide of right-wing bullshit, complete with a cover photo of Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos. Guests on this fabulous album include Brazilian artist Seu Jorge, Afrobeat scion Femi Kuti, sitarist Anoushka Shankar, and the go-go legend Chuck Brown. RH

Various Artists: Metal Machine Music: Power to Consume [Legacy Recordings]

This is the kind of vinyl release that makes it feel like RSD Black Friday is worth it after all. To help honor the 50th anniversary of Lou Reed’s unholy terror of an album, Metal Machine Music, Legacy Recordings has called on a handful of experimental artists to channel the spirit of that noise manifesto in original pieces. Seeing Thurston Moore’s name taking up one side of this double-LP set is no surprise, but I was pleasantly shaken to find similarly daring sonic explorers like Aaron Dilloway, Pharmakon, and the Rita filling out the rest of the tracklist. RH

SOUNDTRACKS

John Debney: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 10th anniversary edition [Varèse Sarabande]

The goofball animated series made a second leap to the big screen in 2015 with The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. If that sentence hits any of your joy receptors, you'll be thrilled to know that composer John Debney’s score for the film is getting pressed to vinyl for the first time as an RSD exclusive picture disc in a run of 2,000. And if all of this blurb means next to nothing to you, congrats on being childless or having kids old enough to avoid being subjected to this shit. RH

Doctor Who: The Last Voyage [Demon]

An ongoing part of the Extended Doctor Who Universe has been the creation of one-off stories presented as audio plays—sometimes broadcast on radio and other times released on vinyl, cassette, and CD. One such tale, The Last Voyage, focuses on the 10th incarnation of the good Doctor, played famously by David Tennant. Released as a double-CD set in 2010, the two-and-a-half hour story is being squeezed onto four vinyl sides for this RSD Black Friday exclusive that will vanish off the racks in the UK but linger threateningly in indie shops around the US like a Weeping Angel. RH

Danny Elfman: Big Top Pee-Wee [Legacy Recordings]

Big Top Pee-Wee is hardly beloved and Danny Elfman’s score for the 1988 film is hardly one of his more memorable. But with the release of a great documentary about Pee-Wee’s creator Paul Reubens earlier this year and a Record Store Day docket to be filled, why not press up a bunch of picture discs of said score? Here’s a whimsical, nostalgic RSD exclusive that won't sell many of its 4,000 copies or get much turntable time by those folks that do pick it up. RH

Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas [Craft Recordings]

Congratulations on your very first visit to the record store! Conveniently, here is a fun little Charlie Brown record that you simply must take home with you. It’s the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, with that lovable piano music you can Snoopy-dance to. It’s jazz, but it’s not jazz, y’know? Ahh, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas without some heavily marketed and manufactured nostalgia, like this album, which has sold more than five million copies, most of them long after the death of composer Vince Guaraldi. This one comes in a sleeve that you open up—we call it a “gatefold.” And inside the gatefold is a neat little pop-up scene—just like that Jethro Tull album! Oh wait, you haven’t made it to Jethro Tull yet. That’s right, you’re new at this. No, no, don’t talk to the old bearded guy over in the Zappa section... Here, take this Charlie Brown record, and grab a used copy of the Grease soundtrack while you’re at it—and I’m afraid we simply cannot let you leave the premises without purchasing a copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Have you seen our selection of zoetrope picture discs yet? NL

Doug Katsaros: The Tick original soundtrack [Terror Vision]

Before it was a live-action TV show, and before it was a second live-action TV show, The Tick was an animated program that aired on Fox during the 1990s. Based on the comic created by a teenage Ben Edlund for a chain of Boston-area comic book stores, it’s a spoof of superheroes and comic-book tropes writ large. And now the soundtrack for the ’90s cartoon, composed by Doug Katsaros, is making its appearance on vinyl. You’ll remember Katsaros, of course, for his appearance on the 1978 Paul Stanley solo album and his work on Dee Snider’s 2012 opus Dee Does Broadway. Katsaros krew, unite! Your moment is at hand. NL

Koh Nakagawa: Tokyo Gore Police [Recently Deceased]

Tokyo Gore Police is as awesome as its title. The 2008 Japanese sci-fi/horror hybrid follows a furious, katana-wielding police officer tasked with slicing up hordes of mutated humans bearing cybernetic weapons from various orifices in their bodies. Koh Nakagawa’s score meets each moment of this blood-soaked epic with a buzzing blend of synthetic and electric sounds that are skin-crawlingly intense or maniacally over-the-top. The full score is getting a 3-LP release for RSD Black Friday in a limited run of only 1,000 copies worldwide. With those numbers, you might need your own samurai sword or cybernetic weapon to ensure you get a hold of one. RH

Robbie Robertson: Filmworks: Insomnia [Omnivore]

This new collection of Robbie Robertson’s film score work follows the golden rule of album jackets: If you can put Martin Scorsese on your front cover, you damn well do it. The album’s a tie-in to the late Robertson’s posthumous memoir, Insomnia, which recollects his working relationship with Scorsese, from 1978’s The Last Waltz to 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon. This album collects music from The Last Waltz, 1980’s Scorsese-directed Raging Bull, and the 1980 curio Carny, which Scorsese didn’t work on but which Robertson co-wrote and co-starred in alongside Gary Busey and Jodie Foster. An RSD First release. NL

Alan Silvestri: The Back to the Future Trilogy [Varèse Sarabande]

Cherry-picking from all three Back to the Future movies, this compilation features Alan Silvestri’s well-known score work from the trilogy, unsurprisingly leaning heavily on the first installment. Somewhat oddly, the RSD blurb for this release touts that the music specifically from Back to the Future III is from the original film score recordings, suggesting that the other two are from re-recordings. Also shrug-worthy is the fact that it’s pressed on “Doc Brown” vinyl, which I assume is… brown? NL

Various Artists: Watchmen (Music from the Motion Picture) [Rhino]

For when you want to listen to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” while gazing at a rotating image of a giant blue man with a giant blue hog (it’s not visible on the picture disc, but you know it’s there). NL

Jeremy Zuckerman: Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book 1: Water (Music from the Animated Series) [Republic]

Composer Jeremy Zuckerman’s career has zigged and zagged into all kinds of fascinating territory, from being chief collaborator on David Lee Roth’s 2003 album Diamond Dave to scoring the TV version of the horror series Scream. But what he is best remembered for is the award-winning work he has done writing the music for the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuckerman’s score is appropriately intense and ruminative depending on the scene and also makes respectful use of traditional Chinese instrumentation throughout. Released on vinyl once before in 2023, this new pressing of 5,000 copies exclusive to RSD Black Friday promises baby blue wax and a lenticular cover. RH