Vinyl-seeking shoppers will find two definitely divergent takes on Record Store Day — the annual international celebration of record collecting culture and the steadfast shops that support it — in downtown Winslow this year, as both Backstreet Beat and Sound City Records are set to be awash with specials and a treasure trove of eclectic, rare pressings.

Record Store Day (Saturday, April 21) was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of record store owners as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1,400 independently-owned record stores in the U.S. and thousands of similar stores internationally. The first Record Store Day took place on April 19, 2008.

Today, there are Record Store Day participating stores on every continent except Antarctica. Special vinyl and CD releases, and various promotional products, are made exclusively for the day each year, and some shops take things further still with festivities that include performances, refreshments, parades, DJs spinning records, and more.

On Bainbridge, Winslow’s two shops are both set to celebrate the industry’s biggest day with similar spirit but very different style.

Backstreet Beat

Backstreet Beat (265 Winslow Way East, Suite 102, down the ivy-adorned alley between Danger and Bainbridge Diamonds & Jewelry), a vintage book, CD and record shop, is an outlier, eschewing the official trappings of the wider Record Store Day event in favor of a more personally-curated spectrum of specials, including a 20 percent discount on every item — CDs and books, too.

“I don’t like to discriminate against the readers,” owner Raymond Gendreau said. “I don’t buy into the package that you have to get if you’re a member of Record Store Day. I’m small and I’m pretty independent. Since I curate everything, I’m kind of curating Record Store Day.”

This year marks Gendreau’s third Record Store Day since opening Backstreet Beat. It has historically been the biggest business day of the year, and he expects 2018 to be no different.

“First year I did it, I just basically had a 20 percent off sale,” he said. “The second year, I brought out some collectible stuff I’d been holding on to for a long time and they sold. This year, the big guns are coming out. I’m going to pull out probably 15 or 20 pretty rare items and see what happens.”

Backstreet Beat will open early (at 10 a.m.) in honor of the big day. Visit www.facebook.com/Backstreet-Beat for updates, including previews of Record Store Day specials. Gendreau said he will post photos and descriptions of select titles in the days immediately before Record Store Day.

“A lot of the things I have will be first pressings or pretty rare things that you don’t see all the time,” Gendreau said, adding he has special collectible titles from Tom Waits, Taj Mahal and David Bowie on tap, among others.

Also in the offering, some vinyl from closer to home.

“I have five records of Bainbridge Island artists,” Gendreau said. “I have a lot of local stuff, a lot of indie stuff.”

Sound City Records

Sound City Records (130 Winslow Way East, up the stairs beside Millstream, next to Plum), boasting new and secondhand vinyl, toys, collectibles and SubPop merch, has embraced the Record Store Day phenomenon, complete with a slated stock of special, limited pressings and store-wide sales on many new and used records alike.

“We’ve got tons of new records, stuff already out, tons of stuff coming out,” owner Erik Clineschmidt said. “We have all sorts of titles that are already showing up, stuff we ordered for Record Store Day.”

Some day-specific specials Clineschmidt is especially excited about are Sun Ra’s “Pine Street Theatre, October 28th, 1988” double LP, complete with poster, and the first-ever vinyl release of Arcade Fire’s debut studio album, “Funeral.”

“We took people’s feedback about what they might want and we tried to order accordingly,” Clineschmidt said. “But when the doors open, it’s first come, first served. That’s also part of the thing with Record Store Day; there’s no holds, no pre-order.”

Many new records, Clineschmidt said, come with digital download access as well, thus giving listeners access to their music in both a physical and digital form.

“It really makes it very appealing to everybody,” he said.

This will be Clineschmidt’s first Record Store Day in business, having opened just a bit too late for it last year. Having recently expanded both the shop itself and business hours, he is expecting a solid turnout — and prepping accordingly.

“We’ve certainly stocked up, both of Record Store Day titles and just everything in general,” he said. “I just put out 60 new records … I’ve got two more boxes back here with probably another 30 records in them. We’ve got other shipments on the way and then we recently bought over a thousand classic jazz records, and those are going out.”

Sound City Records will also be open early (at 7 a.m.) on Record Store Day. Visit www.soundcityrecords.net to learn more and view upcoming specials.

For a complete list of participating record stores and special releases, visit www.record storeday.com.