Can you please just release the music?
Stop with the colored vinyl. And the variants.
Stop with the tip-on jackets.
Stop with the numbered editions.
Stop with the 8-page booklets telling me what wine I should drink while listening to the New York Dolls.
Stop with the 180g vinyl. Or 150. Or 140. No one buying records gives a shit about weights and numbers. We want music, not math.
Are
you catering to the youngsters? They're three $75 color variants away
from tossing their shitty Crosley turntables and pathetic record collections into their parents garages and flying to Ft. Lauderdale to get drunk and laid.
Reissue
good music on black vinyl with jackets that inner sleeves can actually
fit into.
And charge an inoffensive price.
$36 for a vinyl edition of
Robin Zander's sons first solo album is a colossal fuck you.
$49 for a Beastie Boys reissue because it comes with lithograph is a scam.
$160 for a Peter Frampton box that includes just three of his first four records, and not even the first three, but the first, second and fourth, is a very unfunny IN-joke.
I used to be on your side. But you're ruining it for everybody.
24 comments:
Hear hear!
i think the only time i was excited by colored vinyl was the first edition of Dave Mason's "Alone Together." really became a thing in the 80's, leading to Poison Idea naming their second ep "Record Collectors are Pretentious Assholes."
While I haven't purchased vinyl in a long time, you make a very strong case here Sal.
That being said, what wine do you recommend drinking while listening to the Dolls?
Kevin,
A nice Ripple, of course.
I'm still searching for that peach and chartreuse-colored McCartney III.
Randy
I have some Kevin Gray cut records that sound wonderful and cost a bucket full of dollars. I have some original LPs from the 70s that also sound wonderful that I got on Discogs (many from Sal) at reasonable prices. Of course, a few of the original LPs that were mastered/engineered poorly sound dreadful (The Youngbloods' first LP comes to mind).
The Steely Dan vinyl reissues seem to be reasonably priced (although they do have a digital link).
Ok here is my point. Give us reissues or new vinyl on reasonable quality vinyl, no extra bells or whistles, good quality control in the $20-25 range and I would buy a ton on them. The Little Feat reissues are an example of the type of excess that will limit sales. I did spring for Sailin' Shoes, but have decided to pass on Dixie Chicken and will hunt out a reasonable priced original record on the used LP market.
Phew, got that off my chest...
@ Joe,
I'll continue to buy anything associated with Kevin Gray because the quality is always worth the cost. But I agree with everything you said, and I did exactly the same thing regarding Little Feat.
The ECM reissues sound amazing. The problem, the inserts DO NOT fit into the jacket! I ended up buying both Little Feat reissues. Mainly for the live stuff; which is very good
Vinyl shouldn't have gone away in the first place. That said, maybe if they didn't make so many variations they wouldn't have to charge so much to cover what doesn't sell.
Wardo,
That's exactly right.
I understand how Swifties "need" every color or cover variation. It would be silly for the label not to cater to those rabid fans. But a label like Cleopatra, whose youngest roster member is 66 years old, is releasing three to five color variations on Todd Rundgren live albums. Who is this for? The most recent release happens to be a fantastic show with a stellar setlist over 3 LPs. Tell me who, other than me and few dozen more, are buying this thing? $60 for "coke-bottle green?" $60 for "silver?" It's ludicrous. I don't understand the practice.
I recall having similar wishes back in the 80's when I worked in a record store. I'm not surprised that nothing has changed. I'll add in two more:
Provide inner sleeves that don't disintegrate after two plays.
Provide inner sleeves that don't damage the vinyl.
- Paul in DK
I haven't been as pissed about a release as I have been about the Frampton box. The only people who would buy a Frampton box are true fans and those first four albums before 'Frampton Comes Alive' were great. I can't imagine a fan buying this collection with the 3rd album missing. I've been a fan of Intervention records but this gets my knickers in a twist.
Although I still buy a very occasional vinyl record I think CD's sound better when done correctly.
Also It's much more difficult to scratch them which is very important to the human vinyl scratch maker Captain Al.
Having said that I'm in total agreement with your comments. All the unnecessary collectable variations of vinyl albums are the equivalent of variant covers in the collectable comic book hobby. Nice but totally unnecessary and just created to suck up your disposable income. I doubt the vast majority of record collectors would be able to truly monetize their collections should they decide to dispose of them. That should be left up to the experts like you.
Captain Al
Can I get an "amen"?
I'm not a fan of albums (new or reissue) on ridiculously heavy gram vinyl that only allows for 2-3 songs per side, and takes what should be a single disc and makes it a double or triple album. Adds a stupid amount of cost and breaks up the flow of the listening experience.
What do you expect from the record industry?
We can't be too far away from CDs coming back in fashion so they can make music lovers buy their record collection all over again for the fourth time.
I thought it was just me
Nice Friday point of view; the record manufacturers are seriously taking the piss with the prices they are now charging for a new release in a ‚never before puke green splatter‘. And don‘t get me started on quality…ok, I‘ll start; I have returned more new records in the last two years than the previous 50 years due to pressing defects or similar. That includes top of the range Audiophile pressings too. I‘ll say it here for posterity; the CD revolution has begun. If I understand correctly vinyl outsells CDs in the USA but not here in Germany or Europe and I think there is a reason for that partly the extra premium paid here for USA releases. There is so much music out there being released on CD only - off the top of my head the great curated box-sets from Cherry Red UK with 75 songs over 3 CDs plus box plus a book for the price of one LP. A no brainer for me. Or the awesome Jane Birkin box-set not available on vinyl. The RTR Turntable is in daily use - but, the CD player and the 20,000 song library with no duds isn‘t going anywhere. Have a nice weekend. Dave - RTR, Berlin
If the record company sell at reasonable price, they will shift more.
As for trying to sell a reissue with differet version, I've already got the album just sell me the different version tracks.
I miss vinyl as the inserts were easier to read than a cd but as Allan says Cd's are not easier to scratch.
You forget Picture disc or the funny shapes disc.
Bring back the cassette
They're just seeing what the market will bear. I don't get much new vinyl anymore for a lot of reasons, not necessarily related to price. I liked colored, splattered vinyl when the bootleggers were doing it. But this shit with 3 or more variations is silly. Hope this trend falls on its face like the late 1970's so-called picture disc craze. But as long as there is a market why should they quit. There are a lot of anal retentive completist douchebags out there. Collecting is great, but one can cross the line into neurosis. It's a fine line.
But I sure dig my colored vinyl promo copies of Something/Anything? Maybe not so rare but definitely desirable. And precious to me. The newer stuff I download from off-shore sites for 10 cents a song. Yeah, I miss having the object, the artwork and liner notes, but one can usually find images of such online. Plus, I can fit my entire MASSIVE record collection on one 18TB external hard drive and take it with me wherever I go.
I was an original pressing/white label promo mono & stereo collector. I had a good connection with a couple of people who worked at Monarch. Also, the two local Top 40 radio stations (KMEN & KFXM) didn't mind in-studio company. Fuck, KMEN was in the middle of a goddamned cow pasture. They got promos of LP's as well as 45's. I got most of the LP's I wanted for free. They were mostly mono WLP's. I was big into Atlantic stuff. In addition, the San Bernardino 29K watt FM station KOLA got sent every record in the pop-rock-r&b field. They never played any of the records because it was an automated format which they called "DARRELL". They rolled tape on two-track Revox machines and a technician would make sure that "DARRELL" and the CART machine were working properly. The owner, Fred, liked me showing an interest and let me into this huge room full of records 45's & LP's. He wanted to make room and told me I could take as many records as I wanted. KOLA was doing Album Rock at the time but in the past had been top 40. I took a brief glance at some of the stuff and had to contain myself. He had multiple copies of the Beatles Vee Jay WLP singles, rare Elvis stuff from the 50's. A brief glance at the LP's and I saw Otis Redding titles mono WLP; all the Cream titles in mono WLP, the first four Zeps mono WLP; Love, the Doors in mono WLP, Rascals, Springfield and on and on. It was amazing. I made an appointment to come back the next day with a bigger vehicle and some muscle.
He took me to lunch at the Mission Inn, which is where the station was located, and introduced me to his wife, Jane, who worked at KOLA as a receptionist. She was way out of his league. A ten. It had to be about the money. The guy had the worst toupee I'd ever seen in my life and was not a looker: ). I ended up making multiple trips with one of my boyfriends who had a tuff '67 Ford Econoline with Cragars.
I stayed in touch with Fred over the years and cleared his shelves of new promo stuff and radio shows periodically. He even turned me on to a couple of Revox 2-track machines that they were upgrading. At some point, his unfaithful, foxy wife left him and took up with another man. She was also fucking some of the guys who worked the station. Fred paid one of his station employees $5,000 dollars to kill his wife’s new boyfriend. The murder happened and the murderer got arrested. He he copped a plea to in exchange for turning Fred in. Fred’s doing life in Lancaster and his wife sold the station for a huge amount of money. Sad but true. Fred was the last guy in the world I would have figured would do that. I guess you never know about people.
VR
"I have returned more new records in the last two years than the previous 50 years due to pressing defects or similar. That includes top of the range Audiophile pressings too."
It's astonishing. Records come out of the seal covered in filth. The worst is when the shavings stay in the sleeve. You carefully pull the record out and your brand new $35 LP has a 1/2" scratch.
@ Dave and Sal, you just jogged my memory--when King of America came out, it came out as an import a couple of weeks before the US release. Of course I had to buy it right away, so I paid extra for the import. I picked it up at a great independent record store that I used to spend quite a bit of money at back in the day. The owner--who was there pretty much every day--was a pretty cool young guy who had great taste in music and always had lots of cool stuff. He could also be a little salty at times, depending on the day and the weather and the traffic and who know what else.
Anyway, I took the record home and there was a skip on the first song. It wasn't just a scratch, but a bump in the vinyl that was not going to be fixed. Reluctantly, I had to take it back for an exchange. I was a little bit fearful to face the wrath, because the store only had a couple of copies of the import. When I told the owner about the skip, his eyes had a unique look of fury and disappointment. There goes the money out the door! I felt bad, but I couldn't keep the record. He reluctantly made the exchange and I slunk out of the store. I think it was a number of weeks before I went back.
Bill
Thank You!!!!!
Agreed
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