Fast forward to this Saturday (April 18): In honor of Record Store Day, you head to your neighborhood vinyl shop: as your fingers flip through the new releases, your ears are elated by what the clerk just put on. You reach for the limited edition Flaming Lips LP, but another hand grabs it -- belonging to a cute someone you don't know, but want to know. The two of you start gabbing about the new Lips musical, their crazy blood vial thing. Your chemistry is obvious. Scenes flash by in your mind: a few months dating, an excited move-in, a long-awaited ring. You're in love, thanks to Record Store Day.

Extend your gratitude to Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton, who have organized Record Store Day since 2008. And so, on every April's third Saturday, store owners, labels, DJs, artists and fans come together to celebrate indie music's natural habitat, the brick-and-mortar independent record store. According to Kurtz, more than 300 limited edition LPs and 7-inches are released and $4 to $5 million worth of records purchased for the holiday -- it's become a bit of a movement.

Each years brings a bevy of collector heavies, and the 2012 crop is especially awesome: the Flaming Lips have literally given their blood with Ke$ha and Bon IverFeist and Mastodon have covered one another for a single split 7" and Animal Collective offer up a Guggenheim sound collage. Below we've picked a dozen of our favorites from this year's offerings. Head to your nearest record store to pick up these discs or any of the other limited edition Record Store Day 2012 releases -- because nobody ever fell in love over iTunes.

 

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