Vinyl records make a return

brown is the new white

They've been running stories like this for a couple of years now. I don't doubt the numbers but at a time when I'm trying to get *rid* of things in bulk seeing the rush for this is a bit head-shaking.

What about the seldom mentioned cassette revival?

what's the vegas over/under on how many more years we'll keep reading this same story over and over: 4? 5?

ORG Records?

Olson's doorbell is chiming more frequently these days. Since starting vinyl-only label ORG in December 2006 in Olson's kitchen, the label is bursting at the seams. "By the end of the year, we will have gone from making zero money to projecting that we will gross over $1 million," said Olson, who nevertheless has kept his day job as senior vice president of A&R at Universal Music Publishing Group.

The label, which primarily licenses material from Universal Music Group, ....

yeah, funny that!

(A traditional LP is pressed on 120-gram weight vinyl, whereas many labels produce special packages using 180-gram vinyl, which gives a fuller, richer sound.)

I was talking to some guys the other day and posed the question: which would you rather have, heavier vinyl or deeper grooves? Everyone seemed to agree that weight of vinyl by itself doesn't guarantee better sound, quite a bit can be dependent on mastering etc. Let's blah blah blah blahlhhh

This summer, ORG will release a four-vinyl-LP, 10th-anniversary edition of Beck's "Odelay." The original CD booklet will be re-created for the 180-gram special package, which will carry a suggested retail list price of $60.

Any takers?

I wouldn't even steal it

I was talking to some guys the other day and posed the question: which would you rather have, heavier vinyl or deeper grooves? Everyone seemed to agree that weight of vinyl by itself doesn't guarantee better sound, quite a bit can be dependent on mastering etc

it depends how much music is on there. the shorter the tracks, the deeper the grooves, the higher the fidelity. heavier vinyl allows for deeper grooves, but everything depends on how much actual music you're trying to cram on a given side of vinyl.

Didn't Odelay come out 12 years ago?

i <3 deep grooves hav u guys ever heard jamiroquai

re: Odelay, forget the date, why on earth is it four LPs?

in order to accomodate the grooves

The resurgence is having a snowball effect. At Record Technology Inc., a once-beleaguered pressing plant in Camarillo, owner Don MacInnis said that "business is the best it's been in 20 years."

When vinyl started its rebirth, RTI operated on banker's hours -- five days a week, eight hours a day. Now, "we're running 16 hours a day, six days a week," MacInnis said. And he's turning away clients. RTI's average pressing per title over the last few years has doubled to 3,000 units, with orders frequently topping 10,000 copies.

this is good news no matter how many crappy major label records get the vinyl reissue treatment.

^this

RTI does that matador HQ vinyl stuff right? they press GREAT vinyl.

Don't worry, Vinyl Surplus, us ugglos still come in too.

Amoeba Music in Hollywood sells about 2,000 vinyl LPs a day

I wonder how many of those are used. 50% or more, I'd bet.

probably more like 75 i bet

also yeah ugly ppl have kept vinyl in business. don't diss your core audience.

amoeba records makes way more $$$ on used than new vinyl so they're probably very ok with that.

<S>amoeba records</S>most record stores makes way more $$$ on used than new vinyl so they're probably very ok with that.

-- Steve Shasta, Monday, 18 August 2008 18:30 (4 hours ago) Link

^^^ fixed. it's a simple matter of mark-up; newbury comics makes way more money on used CDs than they do on new CDs, by the same token.

The very real possibility that vinyl will outlive CD - T or F?

Yeah, the author here seems a bit clueless re: the real economics behind record stores ... but so do the Major Labels:

Next month, Capitol/EMI will launch "From the Capitol Vaults," with the release of 13 titles on vinyl, including Radiohead's "OK Computer" and Steve Miller Band's "Greatest Hits 1974-1978."

Yeah, I wonder how long it will take major labels to realize that the way to exploit the vinyl market is NOT with high priced "collectors items" but with desirable catalog titles that command high prices in the aftermarket.

They would respond but they are two busy with the burnt orange colored vinyl for the Gavin Rossdale solo album.

Daily Swarm today:

Best Buy 'considering devoting eight square feet of merchandising space in all of its 1,020 stores solely to vinyl'...
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04272009/business/best_buy_turning_the_tables_with_vinyl_166384.htm

Three New Vinyl Shops Open in Los Angeles...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-vinyl26-2009apr26,0,1957135,full.story

As a CD-buyer for 18 years, I'm having a collector nerd crisis whether I should jump on this trend or not

ditto what Whiney said

i don't buy too many records and haven't bought a new record in a long while. it's mainly old jazz/blues comps that I end up purchasing. But if every new record came with a download coupon and I invested in a decent turntable (mine is kinda crappy) I can see buying the record instead of the CD.

eventually, i want to sell some new vinyl at my soon-to-open store. i'm scared of the money involved though. i'll start small. i was thinking of being genre specific. JUST selling psych reissues or something...

i'll have to see what people are into around here. lotsa freekfolkers in western mass though. and not a lot of competition for new vinyl. so the psych thing might work.

every record does have a download coupon, it's called "(artist name) + (album name) + mediafire or megaupload or sharebee etc"

Especially since record companies are sending less physical copies of records in the mail every year. I've been going to the record store and picking up CDs I really like (I didn't get physical promos for Springsteen, Bat For Lashes or Doom)...

--But should I be getting vinyl copies of these albums instead?
--Is the ease of 320k or 192k rips ANY TIME I NEED THEM for all eternity better or worse than having something that looks better and (hypothetically) sounds better?
--Should I take into consideration how easy it it to scratch/warp/fuck up a piece of vinyl, ruining it forever, as opposed to a CD that pretty much will play as long as you don't put them in your backpack without a case like a see kids do on the subway?
--What about my CD shelves when I have four spines of a group, but then have to go to my record collection for the fifth record?

omar, living on downloads alone is essentially saying "I don't care about data backup"

from that l.a. link, origami records is "okay". they just have run of the mill mainstream indie vinyl right now, i hope they expand into used lps and other genres. vacation is pretty dope, lots of metal, experimental, and psych.

more interested in this astonishing-sounding place, tbh:

http://www.foodgps.com/more-info-on-territory-bbq-and-records/

oh i never live on downloads, i usually DL just to see if i want to get something in a physical copy. or if it's something that is long out of print.

CDs are the new vinyl. Scored 10 amazing CDs for $5.
This sealed Chris Gaines CD will pay for the whole lot in five years I reckon, so it's like I got them for free.
Haven't seen vinyl go for such firesale prices since a few years back getting the Rush back catalog for 10cents an album.

Yeah, I've been getting crazy CDs off Amazon. You can pretty much have any Madonna record released after 1988 for a penny.

CDs are the new vinyl. Scored 10 amazing CDs for $5

So been having fun with this at Amoeba's clearance section as well.

dollar dvds at thrift stores too. i love that. you can't give the stuff away.

i think my favorite thing about the whole vinyl market right now is that it makes my goal of someday releasing an album and actually pressing it on vinyl seem like way less of an unfeasible pipedream

any Madonna record released after 1988 for a penny.

Well, a penny plus postage, right? Which always seems to nullify the deal for me, but maybe I'll come around. Do need to start hunting around for used CDs in stores more, though.

yeah, so like $3. Which is still cheaper than the $7.99 at a used CD store.

scott ur in western MA right? where is your store?

"Haven't seen vinyl go for such firesale prices since a few years back getting the Rush back catalog for 10cents an album.

― Philip Nunez"

you got ripped off.

my store will be located on main street in greenfield. right next to tofu a go go.

we had problems with the original space we rented (um, pee pee water dripping down onto our space from the aprtmenent above.) otherwise, we would have been open by now. but i've been having fun making money on ebay and drinking and hanging out with my kids.

x-post

im still interested in hearing about which records you guys got from john storm roberts's collection!

yeah i def buy a lot of vinyl but always have, but i echo other sentiments about CDs! great deals now all over the place...

seriously you can get like every great jazz record ever made on some fancy pants new great sounding remastered CD issue for like peanuts!

buying dollars cd's is the new buying dollar records

cool scott i'm in northampton so i'll definitely pay your store a visit when it's open

my sister-in-law lucia lives in northampton. she's a peddle person.

I wonder if that Chris Gaines CD is any good. Seems like an important period piece.

CD sales in Norway increased by 30-40 per cent from the first three months of 2008, so it seems it isn't only vinyl that makes a return.

i've been buying up used House albums and mix CDs, shit like the Metro Area album (which i already have doubles of on wax ;) for $2.50. you cant really argue with that. Dimitri from Paris mix CDs are for suckers @ $16, decent value for $1.

CD sales in Norway increased by 30-40 per cent from the first three months of 2008

^ Geir got his tax return, bought three or four CDs

For no good reason, I associate the decline and return of the LP with the rise and fall of American conservatives. The Clinton years even coincide nicely with the Incredibly Strange Music crate digging years.

So what kind of mastering job can I expect if I buy one of the major label vinyl reissues/new releases? Do they compress it all to hell just like it was a CD? Do they even bother mastering it differently for the vinyl release, counting on the fact that most people will buy it as a fetish object and never actually listen to it?

Good question - haven't heard a new major label LP in a while. I will say that most indie 7"s are mastered very badly. They don't send back test pressings b/c they aren't up to snuff as often as they used to, it seems.

i think the last major label vinyl i bought was the robert plant/alison krauss album and it sounds great.

Bought a batch of punk rock 7" lately that do not sound as good as the versions on their respective myspaces.

last Al Green LP sounded nice on wax.

New albums sound better on CD than vinyl in most cases.

i thought that post was going to be by Geir

I bought the Neil & Crazy Horse at the fillmore LP and it sounds great! But it's a fancy schmancy audiophile deal (Quiex!) and probably not representative. complaining about the fidelity of punk singles, btw, seems like a losing battle.

One thing I noticed while DJ-ing a couple years ago, mixing occasional recent indie 45s into lots of old 45s and LPs, is that the newer vinyl seemed to be mastered noticeably quieter, and thinner sounding, in comparison -- it really drove me crazy during segues. Not sure if that's improved during the vinyl quasi-boom of the past couple years since or not. (Of course, the 45s I was playing weren't necessarily representative of recent vinyl in general -- they may well have been exceptions to the rule, though I did notice a trend.) And something that became clear when Ed Christman reported his long return-of-vinyl cover story that I edited for Billboard the year before last is that, even if people are buying incrementally more vinyl than they were in the early '00s, that doesn't mean the vinyl pressing plants can afford to stay open -- lots of them have shuttered. And even for the ones that do stay open, replacement parts for the machines aren't being manufactured like they used to be, and the people who used to be trained to run those machines are getting older and retiring or dying. It's not a job young people tend to seek out anymore. So sometimes I wonder if the skill set and materials just aren't there anymore to make quality vinyl. And either way, I'm skeptical that the format could come back full force without those workers and machines. (And right, heavy-gram audiophile vinyl would obviously fit the "quality" requirement, but that seems even more a specialty market than vinyl in general. Those records are real expensive.)

i agree about most new stuff sounding better on cd. most are made digitally FOR cd. so, most new vinyl is just a vinyl copy of a cd. so, unless you are a dj or a collector it seems silly to buy, like, new electronic albums on vinyl.

I's also guess that the costs of decent fidelity are rather prohibitive if you're dealing in such small quantities of records, compared to the old days when vinyl was the only way you could put a record out.

Chuck, I know you left NYC, but within the last year a new pressing plant has opened AND Hitbound re-opened. Now along with Brooklyn Phono, there are three in Brooklyn alone. TBH Hitbound and the other place (dudes name is Will, forget the name of the business proper) don't do as good a job as Brooklyn Phono who produce EXCELLENT vinyl LPs. They do all of the Locust titles, fer instance.

xpxp That's why a lot of small run LPs now cost upwards of $20 and people will still pay it without a second thought.

The companies who press vinyl these days suck because any album that's longer than 45 minutes is made into a 2-record set, which makes no sense at all.. There were plenty of records pressed before 1990 that had 25 minutes per side..

The only example I can think of right now is not a very good one.. OK Computer is a record I wouldn't own on vinyl anyway because it's just one of those albums that's supposed to be heard digitally.. (For this reason, it does seem weird to me that Radiohead is currently one of the highest selling vinyl artists..) But there's really no reason why Capitol couldn't fit 6 songs per side. It's a 55 minute album.. is it really that difficult?

Also the 180 gram thing is overrated.. I notice no difference at all on my turntable between thick records and thin ones.

The loss in fidelity when you make the grooves smaller can be pretty serious. Ideally 20-25 minutes a side, any more than that and you're really pushing it. Also, the single LP/double LP divide can have a lot to do with the lengths of individual tracks.

Also the 180 gram thing is overrated.. I notice no difference at all on my turntable between thick records and thin ones.

― billstevejim, Wednesday, April 29, 2009 10:41 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i thought the thicker vinyl was supposed to be more durable.

I have no idea.. if there's an actual purpose for making it thicker, than I guess that's cool with me..

MacArthur grant for Howie Weinberg, to teach the children.

thicker vinyl = deeper grooves = richer sound, more durable/long-lasting medium

right?

you're probably right.. maybe i'm just ignorant..

From that article on best buy... : Compared with a CD, vinyl costs more to make and retails for a higher price -- $22.95 vs. around $13.99 for a CD -- but has lower margins.

I thought vinyl was inexpensive to press years ago.. Is it possible that all these extra "audiophile" elements to the record-making process, which seemed not all that present before the 90's, are now increasing the cost?

i think it's more that the scale of production has gone down, so the price has gone up.

I notice a difference in sound with thicker records, but I think it depends on the record. All this stuff is relative. Your turntable/receiver set up makes a difference, your needle...analog playback varies a lot more from stereo to stereo.

I heard that the difference between digital data and analog data is the digital can be deleted but analog must be destroyed.

cost prices of new vinyl..u make about 2 or 3 dollars after retail markup


RESTOCKS
Ben Harper Shimmer & Shine (10'') Virgin Records 95014 $3.19
Bloody Beetroots WARP (feat. Steve Aoki) 12'' Downtown/Dim Mak DM133 $5.19
Chingy Fly Like Me (Featuring Amerie) Def Jam B001058711 $3.99
DJ Felli Fel Feel It (feat. T-Pain, Sean Paul, Flo Rida, Pitbull) (12'') Def Jam B001270911 $3.99
Jamie Foxx Blame It (feat. T-Pain) 12'' J Records 88697462661 $4.69
Soulja Boy Tell'em Soulja Girl (Feat. I-15) Interscope B001021711 $3.99
Terror Squad Lean Back Universal B000270411 $3.99
Weird Science Haus Of Cards 12'' Downtown/Dim Mak DM125 $4.99
Slayer Psychopathy Red (Red Vinyl) (7'' w/ Picture Sleeve) Columbia 886975070671 $5.19
Sublime Superstar Punani / April 29, 1992 (Leary) (7'' w/ Picture Sleeve) Geffen/Gasoline Alley/Skunk Records 602527017792 $4.59
Bob Dylan Together Through Life [2 LP] (180 Gram Vinyl + CD of entire album) Columbia 88697438931 $17.36
Charles Spearin (of Broken Social Scene) Happiness Project [LP] (with Braille cover) Arts & Crafts 3900 $12.49
Common Resurrection [LP] Relativity Cat 12081 $5.77
DJ Rob Cartoon Breaks And Sound Effects Volume 1 [LP] Yosumi Records YSJ008 $8.89
Ida Maria Fortress Round My Heart [LP] Upper 11 B001282801 $8.39
J Dilla Donuts [2 LP] Stones Throw Records STH2126 $14.49
M.I.A. Kala [2 LP] Interscope B000971501 $10.77
Portishead Third [2 LP] (includes full album MP3 download card) Island B001114201 $10.77
Public Enemy Rebirth of a Nation [2LP] Guerrilla Funk GFK31021LP $11.29
Ray LaMontagne Gossip In The Grain [2LP] (w/full cd insert) RCA 88697326701 $17.40
Smif-N-Wessun Dah Shinin [2 LP] Nervous Records NRV 020051 $10.06
Tori Amos American Doll Posse [2 LP] [180 Gram Vinyl in Gatefold Sleeve] Epic 86140 $14.89
Van Morrison Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl [2 LP] Manhattan 93423 $15.59

If you look at the stuff that Scorpio distributes, you are paying 11.99 retail for a "regular" vinyl reissue and 13.99 for the 180 gram ones, and that shit sounds amazing. There is a crappy cd/video game/dvd shop in my town that sells Scorpio catalog reissues almost exclusively and I am always very happy with the product.

Danbunny dropping knowledge.

One thing about LPs that wont come back, but I miss, is the inner sleeve advertising the label's other offerings. Like pulling out the first Led Zep, and seeing these

http://www.kalamu.com/bol/wp-content/content/images/roberta%20quiet%20fire%20cover.jpg
http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm181/karl_ktarn/1-39.jpg

brklynphono

sumone else do th math pleez

PRICING

Mastering per side (side under 20 minutes)

$165.00

Mastering per side (side over 20 minutes)

$200.00



Plating per side (1 step and replacements)

$85.00

Plating per side (2 step)

$135.00



Labels printing:


_1 color

$165.00

_2 color

$215.00

_3 color

$300.00

_4 color

$400.00



Sleeves

$0.00



Jackets (stock black or white, with or without hole)

$0.35



Press set up charges

$150.00



Test pressing (5)

$25.00



140 gram record (black vinyl)

$1.25

(color vinyl is also available - ask for pricing)




Shrink-wrap (per record)

$0.15



Stickering and inserting (per item/per record)

$0.05

orig deep groove mono black label riverside

Once again... M.I.A.'s Kala is 47 minutes and it's a 2-disc set. I'm not into that idea.

the place you really lose money with new vinyl is with singles. to turn a profit a single has to be wholesaled for a minimum of $3.50-$4.25, so in store then this shit is costing like $6+. for a single! xp

One thing about LPs that wont come back, but I miss, is the inner sleeve advertising the label's other offerings. Like pulling out the first Led Zep, and seeing these

I was amazed looking at one of these that Redd Foxx has an album called "You Forgot To Wash Your Ass" or something to that extent.. I was 8 or 9 years old at the time, so naturally I laughed at this for several minutes.

Elvis Costello Complicated Shadows b/w Dirty Rotten Shame (exclusive track) (7'' w/ Picture Sleeve) Hear Music ELVISC7 $1.59
Menahan Street Band The Wolf b/w Bushwick Lullaby (7'') Daptone Records / Dunham Records DAP-1045 $3.99
Champion Jack Dupree Blues From The Gutter [LP] Doxy DOYLP 614 $20.39
Charles Mingus Trio (180 Gram Vinyl) [LP] Doxy DOXLP 815 $20.39
Charlie Feathers Liaison Field (180 Gram Vinyl) [LP] Doxy DOYLP 615 $20.39


FIRST TIME
Archies vs BP vs Effcee Satisfaction/Sugar Sugar Cleopatra CLP-SI-1369 $4.29
Black Flag Six Pack [12'' EP] SST Records Inc. SST 5 $5.39
BP vs Effcee vs A Flock Of Seagulls I Ran (So Far Away)/New Year's Day Cleopatra CLP-SI-1378 $4.29
A Flock Of Seagulls I Ran (So Far Away) Space Age Love Song Cleopatra CLP-SS-1938 $5.89
Black Flag Louie Louie / Damaged 7'' SST Records Inc. SST 175 $3.39
Black Flag Nervous Breakdown 7'' SST Records Inc. SST 1 $3.39
Black Flag Six Pack [10'' EP] SST Records Inc. SST 920 $6.59
Black Flag Six Pack 7'' SST Records Inc. SST 5 $3.39
Black Flag TV Party 7'' (non-LP version) SST Records Inc. SST 12 $3.39
Johnny Thunders Glam Punk & Junk - Chinese Rocks / London Boys [7''] Cleopatra CLP-SS-1933 $5.89
Leif Garrett I Was Made For Dancin' Cleopatra CLP-SS-1947 $5.89
Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens What Have You Done? (7'') Daptone Records DAP-1036 $3.99
Sharon Jones How Long Do I Have To Wait For You ? (Ticklah Remix) (7'') Daptone Records DAP-1040 $3.99
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings 100 Days, 100 Nights / Settling In (7'') Daptone Records DAP-1037 $3.99
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings I'm Not Gonna Cry / Money Don't Make The Man (7'') Daptone Records DAP-1031 $3.99
Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings / Dap-Kings, The Got A Thing On My Mind (7'') Daptone Records DAP-1001 $3.99
Daptone Records Slipmats (Glow-In-The-Dark - pair) (includes Daptone sticker) Daptone Records G379 $12.99
Black Flag Damaged [LP] SST Records Inc. SST 7 $8.09
Bob & Gene If This World Were Mine...[LP] Daptone Records DAP-010 $10.99
Che Guevara The Voice Of The Revolution [LP] Cleopatra CLP-LP-2430 $14.99
Daktaris Soul Explosion [LP] Daptone Records DAP-009 $10.99
Larry Levan Paradise Garage [2 LP] Salsoul SSL-LP-1018 $16.59
Poets Of Rhythm Practice What You Preach [LP] Daptone Records DAP-007 $10.99
Sid Vicious F#@K Off You C#%T [LP] Anarchy Music ARY-LP-8089 $14.09
Various Artists Como Now: The Voices Of Panola Co., Mississippi [LP] Daptone Records DAP-014 $10.99
Various Artists Punk As Fuck [LP] Cleopatra CLP-LP-2725 $14.99
Various Artists Under The Sun Soundtrack [2LP] Ubiquity UBR11238-1 $16.49


RESTOCKS
50 Cent I Get Money Interscope B000980811 $3.99
Betty Padgett vs. Artur Foy Sugar Daddy / Get Up And Dance 12'' Luv N Haight Records LHR 100571 $5.39
Black Eyed Peas Pump It Interscope B000630611 $3.99
Black Flag TV Party 12'' (non-LP version) SST Records Inc. SST 12 $5.39
Bloody Beetroots WARP (feat. Steve Aoki) 12'' Downtown/Dim Mak DM133 $5.19
Chingy Fly Like Me (Featuring Amerie) Def Jam B001058711 $3.99
Daddy Yankee Gangsta Zone (Machete Remix) Interscope B000702611 $3.99
DJ Felli Fel Feel It (feat. T-Pain, Sean Paul, Flo Rida, Pitbull) (12'') Def Jam B001270911 $3.99
Elvis Presley That's All Right Mama (Elvis vs 13 Cats Remix) 12'' Cleopatra CLP-SI-1377 $4.99
Eminem Encore (feat. Dr. Dre & 50 Cent) 12'' Aftermath B000383611 $3.99
Estelle American Boy (Feat. Kanye West) Atlantic 422972 $4.25
Estelle Wait A Minute (Just A Touch) Atlantic 405948 $4.25
Game Game's Pain (feat. Keyshia Cole) Aftermath B001156211 $3.99
Jay-Z Anything / Big Pimpin' Def Jam 3145626701 $3.99
Jay-Z/Linkin Park Numb/Encore ADA/Warner Bros. Records WBR 427730 $4.39
Juvenile Back That Azz Up Universal 0121564821 $3.99
Lady GaGa Just Dance (feat. Colby O'Donis) [Remix] Interscope B001129811 $3.99
Lil Wayne Got Money (ft. T-Pain) Universal Motown B001160211 $3.99
LL Cool J Baby (ft. The-Dream) / Rockin' With The G.O.A.T. Def Jam B001165911 $3.99
Ludacris Stand Up (Feat. Shawnna) Def Jam B000118311 $3.99
Mariah Carey I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time b/w Remix feat. T.I. Island B001177511 $3.99
Memphis Bleek Like That Def Jam B000377611 $3.99
Nas Hero (feat. Keri Hilson) Def Jam B001166011 $3.99
Ne-Yo Because Of You Def Jam B000867811 $3.99
Ne-Yo Closer Def Jam B001122211 $3.99
Ne-Yo Sexy Love Def Jam B000734211 $3.99
Ne-Yo So Sick Def Jam B000619011 $3.99
Plies Bust It Baby Part II (feat. Ne-Yo) b/w Who Hotter Than Me Atlantic 506620 $4.25
Shiny Toy Guns Le Disko (Remixes) Universal Motown B000829911 $3.99
Shiny Toy Guns You Are The One (Remixes) Universal Motown B000980911 $6.79
Simian Mobile Disco Hustler Interscope B001052911 $3.99
Weird Science Haus Of Cards 12'' Downtown/Dim Mak DM125 $4.99
Yuksek Tonight (includes new remixes) 12'' CherryTree/Interscope B001288411 $4.49
Yung Joc Bottle Poppin' (Feat. Gorilla Zoe)/Play Your Cards Bad Boy 334460 $4.25
Johnny Thunders Disappointed In You 7'' Cleopatra CLP-SS-3298 $5.89
Ramones I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend b/w Judy Is A Punk 7'' Norton NR 65 $5.69
U2 Vertigo [7''] Interscope Records B0003580-21 $3.99
Ultimate Breaks & Beats I Believe In Miracles Street Beat SBR774-7 $5.99
Vibrators Troops Of Tomorrow 7'' Cleopatra CLP-SS-3308 $5.89
I (turntable) Vinyl T-Shirt (Large) Warner Brothers MH-63804 $12.99
I (turntable) Vinyl T-Shirt (X-Large) Warner Brothers MH-63805 $12.99
Amy Winehouse Frank [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl Import) Island (Import) 1776241 $19.79
Black Flag Everything Went Black [2 LP] SST Records Inc. SST 15 $10.29
Bob Dylan Another Side Of Bob Dylan (180 Gram Vinyl) [LP] Sundazed Music SUN-LP-5121 $14.09
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan [LP] [MONO EDITION] Sundazed Music SUN-LP-5120 $14.09
Bob Marley & The Wailers Gold Collection 1970-71 Vol.1 (Picture Disc) [LP] Erika ER2002 28 $14.19
Bob Marley & The Wailers Gold Collection 1970-71 Vol.2 (Picture Disc) [LP] Erika ER2002 29 $14.19
Brian Wilson Smile Rhino Records RHI 765821 $20.59
Budos Band The Budos Band [LP] Daptone Records DAP-005 $10.99
Budos Band The Budos Band II [LP] Daptone Records DAP-011 $10.99
Common Be [2 LP] Geffen B000467001 $10.77
Daft Punk Homework [2 LP] (Import) EMI Canada MB 42609 $31.29
Dan Deacon Bromst [2 LP] Carpark Records CPK 700481 $11.79
Duffy Rockferry [LP] Mercury B001082201 $10.77
Erykah Badu New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) / [2 LP] Universal Motown B001080001 $10.77
Erykah Badu Worldwide Underground [LP] Motown B000073901 $6.19
Game Doctors Advocate Geffen B000793301 $10.77
Game LAX [2 LP] Geffen B001146501 $10.76
Jay-Z American Gangster Acappella / [2 LP] Def Jam B001052201 $10.77
Kanye West College Dropout Def Jam B000203001 $10.77
Killers Day & Age [2 LP] (180g + mp3 download card with photo + poster) Island B001219701 $13.39
Kinks Muswell Hillbillies [LP] Velvel Records VEL-LP-79823 $15.79
M.I.A. Arular Interscope B000484401 $10.77
Mariah Carey E=MC2 / [2 LP] Island B001027201 $10.77
Miles Davis Isle Of Wight Concert (200 Gram) [LP] (DMM) Vinyl Passion VP 80001 $15.49
Neil Young Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House [2 LP] (200 Gram Japanese HQ Vinyl) Reprise A-512563 $53.39
Rihanna Good Girl Gone Bad [2 LP] Def Jam B000896801 $10.77
Shiny Toy Guns Season Of Poison [2 LP] Universal Motown B001220901 $10.79
Shiny Toy Guns We Are Pilots Universal Motown B000761501 $10.77
Snoop Doggy Dogg Doggystyle (Explicit Version) [2 LP] Death Row DRR-LP-63002 $13.29
The-Dream Love Vs. Money [2LP] Def Jam B001257901 $10.79
Timbaland Timbaland Presents Shock Value [2 LP] Interscope B000859401 $10.77
Various Artists Ultimate Breaks & Beats v.10 Street Beat SBR510-LP $11.79
Various Artists Ultimate Breaks & Beats v.11 Street Beat SBR511-LP $11.79
Various Artists Ultimate Breaks & Beats v.8 Street Beat SBR508-LP $11.79
Weezer Weezer [LP] (Blue Album) Geffen 424629 $26.69

Well if they're going to keep stretching 47 minute albums into a 2-record set at least they could throw on some bonus tracks or something..

I think a lot of artists could benefit from a 40-minute ceiling for their records.

we're doing double vinyl for our new album but that's cuz its about an hour long

One thing about LPs that wont come back, but I miss, is the inner sleeve advertising the label's other offerings. Like pulling out the first Led Zep, and seeing these

Ha, I got a copy of Tangerine Dream's Rubycon the other day - the sleeve has ads for Acker Bilk 'Sheer Magic' and a Songs Of Praise tie-in record among others. Wonder how much crossover there was?

With prices like those, either the majors are gouging or they don't know shit about efficiency. (Or both, I suppose.) Break-even for small electronic labels is around 300-500 pieces of vinyl, as I understand it (and these are records that are retailing for between 8 and 10 euros; I think the wholesale is around 4 or 5). Granted, these may be bedroom operations with virtually no overhead, promotional budget, etc. But the cost of actually pressing vinyl, even with color sleeves, are not exorbitant, even in tiny runs.

please ban bendy for posting mann hair. rightous flack do can't even cancel that shit out.

(on my copy of push push someone wrote the name CHICO right on herb's belly. also a german pressing. sounds phenomenal.)

Hey cxuxk, is that return-of-vinyl Billboard piece you mentioned available online?

"Once again... M.I.A.'s Kala is 47 minutes and it's a 2-disc set. I'm not into that idea."

i never even made it through the last couple of wu tang albums. we are talkin' like 8 sides there. i can't be expected to get out of my chair THAT much.

xp Maybe with a billboard.biz password, though navigating the website search tool isn't always easy. I'll try poking around and see if I find it.

i prefer multivinyl sets. the loudness of the record is dictated by how long the material on each side is. the more sides you have, the louder your pressing can be. it's that simple.

i'm in the process of making a record right now, you can read about it on my blog where i discuss each step of the process. i'll be able to break even at a very very small number of records sold.

http://991.com/newGallery/Led-Zeppelin-45rpm-Box-Set-358028.jpg

if you like lots of sides, you need this.

i never even made it through the last couple of wu tang albums. we are talkin' like 8 sides there. i can't be expected to get out of my chair THAT much.

Whatever label pressed my copy of 36 chambers did it the right way.. 58 minute album, 1 LP. The order of tracks is not consistant with the CD, but somehow I totally do not mind at all.

Once again... M.I.A.'s Kala is 47 minutes and it's a 2-disc set. I'm not into that idea.

the idea of bass?

yeah more than 20 minutes a side is really asking for trouble. unless you don't care about the last track on each side

The thing is, sometimes doubles happen w/albums where the sides couldn't possibly be more than 20 minutes

Case In Point:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41mNN3mIp-L._SS400_.jpg

Total time: 34:33 for 11 songs, resulting in a double w/two and three short songs per side.

i never even made it through the last couple of wu tang albums. we are talkin' like 8 sides there. i can't be expected to get out of my chair THAT much.

Whatever label pressed my copy of 36 chambers did it the right way.. 58 minute album, 1 LP. The order of tracks is not consistant with the CD, but somehow I totally do not mind at all.

― billstevejim, Thursday, April 30, 2009 4:37 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

those old loud pressings don't really sound very good though

i just don't think i have the energy to take every album on a case-by-case basis, doing internet consumer report testing on whether cd or vinyl sounds better

Esp. since indie-rock bloggers are mad gung ho about it right now, and somehow got the idea that records like Merriweather Post Pavillion and Veckatimest were "Made for vinyl"

And they're welcome to it.

back in the day (mid-90s) i bought vinyl -- new and old -- because it was cheaper for my teenage budget. I could get, say, the new pavement album for $8.99 on LP, rather than $15.99 on CD. Now i go to record stores and they're trying to sell stuff like that REM album posted above for $27 ...

yeah i mean i dunno we've had zillions of arguments about it, but honestly it also depends a lot on your turntable, needle, cartridge too...it's not like if you're playing it on some hashed old table with a worn out needle it's going to sound good...the difference in hardware is a lot more apparent with vinyl IMO than with CD

back in the day (mid-90s) i bought vinyl -- new and old -- because it was cheaper for my teenage budget. I could get, say, the new pavement album for $8.99 on LP, rather than $15.99 on CD.

so true - for a long time I was buying vinyl both cuz it was a better product, sounded nicer, and was cheaper.

you can still buy plenty of new LPs for $10-15, which doesn't seem like too much money imho.

a lot of it depends on who the label is aiming the product at (aging REM fams developing a hip audiophilia vs. punx) and how they manage their costs.

yeah, i suppose you can still find cheap indie vinyl, as opposed to like REM/Radiohead collector gouging.

re: Radiohead, like I said earlier (xpost) they create digital music, so listening to it on an analog medium does not make sense to me.

yeah it depends...sometimes i don't mind. like the capital reissues of roxy music and the band have been really nice sounding....or anything pressed at RTI like the astral weeks reissue..if it's a total classic record i don't really mind cuz i know i will always want to have it...but yeah a lot of newer punk stuff is still around the 12-13 price range...or like deerhunter cryptograms was about 16 i think? and that had the flourescent gray EP on it too

re: Radiohead, like I said earlier (xpost) they create digital music, so listening to it on an analog medium does not make sense to me.

― billstevejim, Thursday, April 30, 2009 4:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's a lot more than digital vs analog. like i've said before you can get a pretty sensitive great record player for not too much, the equivalent CD player would be way more expensive.

plus a lot of the ways in which vinyl sands off the harsh edges of stuff can really help to make newer records more listenable, they aren't compressed as much in mastering, etc

like i've said before you can get a pretty sensitive great record player for not too much, the equivalent CD player would be way more expensive.

Well, I dunno about that. Rather depends on what you mean by "equivalent". I mean, if you accept that there is no real equivalence because the two formats have different strengths, then I don't know at what point you can say that any given turntable is as good as any given CD player.

You can get close to state-of-the-art 16/44.1k playback from a $300 Sony - the same can't really be said wrt vinyl replay of a $300 Thorens or MusicHall (that's what they called ProJect in the US, right?). It'll sound good - indeed, if that's the sound you prefer, it'll sound better than maybe any CD player. But I'm not sure you can really say "this old belt-drive Dual beats any sub-£1000 CD player" cos I don't think it works like that.

I'll sell my Copland before I sell my Michell, though...

Whatever label pressed my copy of 36 chambers did it the right way.. 58 minute album, 1 LP. The order of tracks is not consistant with the CD, but somehow I totally do not mind at all.

― billstevejim

that wu tang lp sounded so horrible audio-wise i sold it back after a week, it was mixed so low : /

interesting that m@tt's said that the newer vinyl's mastered different from the cd, i'd been wondering abt that

that wu tang lp sounded so horrible audio-wise i sold it back after a week, it was mixed so low : /

I don't mind it at all.. My stereo has a volume knob. As far as I can tell, all the music is there.

I bet if they made less expensive special editions of these records that were 1-LP instead of 2, the 1-LP editions would sell better.. which is exactly what they should do if they want to increase sales.

Yeah, 36 Chambers doesn't sound great but it's not horrible and somehow this album just wouldn't WORK as a double - I mean, too few songs per side, too many flips, but also the whole out-of-the-underground speed and raggedness of the whole presentation is hard to sustain with a double-LP 180 gram prestige package, you know? (Hence the impact and swagger of Wu-Tang Forever being a double CD, this time around they'd conquered all - I mean the lead single was "Triumph" for pete's sake.)

I buy vinyl exclusively; I won't rehash the reasons because there's tons of threads like that - but as far as supply and demand goes, I will say that I would buy a LOT more new vinyl if major reissues could get priced at the point of, I dunno, new releases on Kill Rock Stars. I hear what people are saying about economies of scale and shit, and I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure if KRS can put out a $12 record Sony should be able to. The REM cited above is a case in point, actually all their vinyl post-New Adventures has been one continuous gouge. WTF, guys?

plus a lot of the ways in which vinyl sands off the harsh edges of stuff can really help to make newer records more listenable, they aren't compressed as much in mastering, etc

But the problem here is the way current CDs are being compressed, not that CD sounds that way in the first place. Today's music isn't being mastered for CD, it is being mastered for iPods and mobile phones. And that is the main problem about it.

yesterday i got my first new vinyl album in many many years.

http://www.recordstore.co.uk/images/covers09/02.2009/madness_200.jpg

its a object of desire, as i doubt i'll ever play it (the package also includes the cd .. ), but it does look good.

Top Selling Jazz Vinyl-April 2009


Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um [1 LP] 180 Gram Vinyl
Yusef Lateef - Eastern Sounds
Diana Krall - Quiet Nights [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Jorge Ben - Forca Bruta [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Roy Hargrove & The Rh Factor - Strength [Ep]
Bobby Hutcherson - Solo / Quartet
Bill Evans Trio - How My Heart Sings
Norah Jones - Live From Austin Texas [2 LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
John Coltrane - Blue Train [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Cassandra Wilson - Loverly [LP]
Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby [LP]
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me [LP] (200 Gram Vinyl)
Cannonball Adderley - Somethin Else [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Art Blakey & Jazz Messengers - Moanin' [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Lee Morgan - Sidewinder [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew [2 LP] (180 Gram)
Miles Davis - Bags' Groove (w/ Modern Jazz Giants) [LP]
Miles Davis - Sketches Of Spain [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Bill Evans - Time Remembered
Miles Davis - The New Miles Davis Quintet [LP]
Miles Davis Quintet - Relaxin' With The Miles Davis Quintet [LP]
Miles Davis - Nefertiti [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Milt Jackson / Ray Brown / Mickey Roker / Joe Pass - The Ellington Album - 'All Too Soon'
Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus
Various Artists - Droppin Science: Greatest Samples from the Blue Note Lab [2 LP]
Pyramids, The - King of Kings [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Gil Scott-Heron - Pieces Of A Man (180 Gram Vinyl)
Miles Davis Quintet - Workin' With The Miles Davis Quintet [LP]
Thelonious Monk - With John Coltrane [LP]
Gal Costa - Gal Costa [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
John Coltrane - Soultrane [LP]
Pyramids, The - Lalibela [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Pyramids, The - Birth/Speed/Merging 1976 [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
Art Blakey - Kyoto [LP]
Norah Jones - Feels Like Home
Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition [LP] (180 Gram BLUE Vinyl plus 2 CD's / 1 DVD / Book / Poster i
Herbie Hancock - Blow-Up (Soundtrack) (180 Gram Vinyl) (feats. the Yardbirds with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page)
Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Diana Krall - Live In Paris [2 LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Hank Jones - Just For Fun
Medeski Martin & Wood - End Of The World Party [2 LP]
Diana Krall - The Look Of Love [2 LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Hank Mobley - Soul Station [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Joe Henderson - Page One [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Kenny Dorham - Quiet Kenny
Milt Jackson - Milt Jackson And Strings - Feelings
Sonny Rollins - Way Out West [LP]
Dexter Gordon - Go! [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
John Coltrane - Ballads [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Bill Evans - Everybody Digs Bill Evans [LP]
Sonny Rollins - Sonny Rollins & The Contemporary Leaders
Miles Davis - In A Silent Way [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
McCoy Tyner - Real McCoy [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis - Straight Ahead
Cal Tjader Sextet - A Night At The Blackhawk [LP]
Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard [LP]
Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue [LP] (200 Gram Classic Quiex SV - Super Vinyl)
Norah Jones - Feels Like Home [LP] (200 Gram)
Weather Report - Heavy Weather [LP] [180 Gram Vinyl]
Billie Holiday - God Bless The Child [LP]
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - Up In Duke's Workshop
Norah Jones - Not Too Late (200 Gram)
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Horace Silver Quintet - Song For My Father [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
Gene Ammons - Boss Tenor
John Coltrane - The Last Trane [LP]
Joe Bataan - Riot!
Eric Dolphy - Out There [LP]
Bob Scobey - The Scobey Story Vol. 1 [LP]
Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil [LP] (120 Gram Vinyl plus CD)
John Coltrane - Giant Steps [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Red Garland Trio with Paul Chambers & Art Taylor - Groovy [LP]
Ray Barretto - Acid
Eric Dolphy - Outward Bound [LP]
Charles Mingus - Mingus At The Bohemia (with special guest Max Roach) [LP]
Wes Montgomery - Incredible Jazz Guitar [LP]
John Coltrane - Inch Worm
Nina Simone - The Amazing Nina Simone [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
John Coltrane - Live At The Village Vanguard Again [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
John Coltrane - Crescent
Don Ellis Quintet - New Ideas
Lucky Thompson Quartet - Lucky Strikes [LP]
Herbie Hancock - Thrust [LP] (180 Gram Vinyl)
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream & Other Delights [LP] (PICTURE DISC) (includes Poster)
Cedar Walton - Plays Cedar Walton
Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis - Montreux '77
Milt Jackson Quartet - Milt Jackson Quartet [LP]
Ray Barretto - Barretto - Power
Miles Davis - Birth Of The Cool [LP] (180 Gram - Mono)
Ray Barretto - Hard Hands

those pyramids records are pretty dope imho.

re: Radiohead, like I said earlier (xpost) they create digital music, so listening to it on an analog medium does not make sense to me.

― billstevejim, Thursday, April 30, 2009 4:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

instinctively I would agree with this and it probably holds generally. I have In Rainbows on vinyl and it seems to sound just a lot lovelier in that format than on CD. I think of it as their most analogue-y record at least since The Bends, and most of the time it sounds more warm and natural even than that. The exception is 15 Step. Surprisingly I felt like it made more sense with the vinyl sound, with the digital noise at the beginning being a bit too jumbly and distorted in digital versions

so are any of you finding that new cds are really cheap? i've been to about 4 or 5 record stores in the past week and have found tons of new cds that are like $8 or $10. major label stuff, even, anything from byrds/stones/dylan to newer hip-hop stuff that came out in the past 5 years.

like 6 years ago all these wouldve been like $15. anyone know the reason for this? are record companies actually bringing down the prices of cds? thought it'd be the opposite but i don't know

I haven't bought a new CD in a long time but a price drop makes sense according to economics 101 - drop in demand > drop in price.

Then again, drop in demand for NYT has led to an increase in price, so what do I know. I guess it all depends on profit margins per unit sold.

Forca Bruta is a jazz album?

target end caps have been doing the 8$ new CDS for like "hot new artists" for a while...i remember buying the strokes for that reason cuz it was so cheap

^^^you still got ripped off

nah bro i like that record

The Bends is 48:37 on 1 LP.
Kid A is 49:57 on 2 LPs.

I just don't get it. Does a minute & 20 seconds really make that much difference? Also additionally frustrating because I always thought "Treefingers" would be a great Side A closer.

kid A is on a 10" lp iirc

you can def get more on a record (prefab sprout's jordan the comeback, for example, is 64 minutes long and was issued as a single lp). there are quality concerns, i guess, the more you fit on one side. i guess the people who buy records now are willing to spend more, so you have all these 180 gram high quality pressings, and a lot of double albums. personally i like albums to be on one lp whenever possible.

i think the "over 20 minutes" crowd are being a little hypersensitive. it's only at 25+ minutes that sound quality starts to be an issue for me. that said, the double 12" 45 format, with like 10-15 minutes of music per side, sounds fantastic. southern lord and relapse do this a lot, and as long as they keep costs semi-reasonable, i approve.

crowd is/crowds are

Yeah, I'm on the fence b/c I really hate slogging through double albums. But I just bought a new pressing of The Boy With The Arab Strap and the sound is bad on the last song and a half on either side. I dunno if that's just a badly-done record or just a fundamental problem cramming too much on one disc.

wait, nm, i just checked and it's only 45:18, so fuck those guys

The less on a disc the loud you can make the pressing as the grooves are wider, and also cut things like bass louder/have more complex waveforms without the needle jumping out of the groove etc. Something probably not much an issue with The Bends.

the *louder*

A buddy told me about a four disc single sided 45 RPM edition of Big Star's Radio City, but I haven't seen anything about that anywhere.
There's also something similar for Led Zeppelin, I guess. I dunno.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/25/antidote-to-capitalism-33-revolutions-minute

Anecdotal evidence suggests the consumers responsible are not just hard-bitten types – men, usually – of a certain age, but much younger people.

I reach for a record, and take 40 minutes or so to give it my undivided attention. So as to be kept in its original condition, it must be carefully played as its creators intended, and also divided by the lovely pause for reflection in between sides one and two

The sound quality is way better than anything digital

when the iPod era ended with the arrival of the streaming service Spotify, the infinite jukebox of millions of dreams was made real. Here, though, is the problem: as I distractedly jump from song to song, am I actually listening, or merely hearing?

modern pop has little time for delayed gratification, so intros must be quickened, choruses brought forward, and the most banal buttons pushed.

sorry, would go on but i just shat in my own mouth

Dreadful, dreadful article. I love vinyl, but sound quality better than anything digital? Please.

Good thing no one told him that the overwhelming majority of vinyl reissues (including the Beatles box) are mastered from digital sources.

You what format rules? SACD!

I love vinyl, but honestly vinyl ppl don't need any uh ”help” from guys like this

but vinyl does sound better than mp3, mp3 is going to be regarded as such a joke in 20 years, just an 8 track transitional format

But yeah SACD is like the good things about vinyl and the good things about digital

I've heard 24bit/194 files too at a friends house, you can get them online now, wow, they sound great

Just can't wait for bandwidth & broadband to get to the point where this stuff is mainstream, because it's stilly to think something as niche as the vinyl fad is going to save sound quality, or shaming ppl about convenience

People will always choose convenience, why wouldn't they, it's a perfectly rational equation

But it does suck that so many ppl listen to music at such poor fidelity, I work in video games so it's weird to see fidelity go down from generation to generation, especially when it doesn't seem like it's necessary

People will always choose convenience, why wouldn't they, it's a perfectly rational equation

That's definitely part of it, but I think cost plays a larger part. I mean, decent headphones can dramatically improve ipod listening (depending on the bitrate of the files, a variable almost never addressed in articles like this), but who wants to spend an additional $50-$100 after spending $100-$250 for an iPod?

I'll sell my Copland before I sell my Michell, though...

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 30 April 2009 17:24 (3 years ago)

Nope, the Michell went the week before the Copland. But that's because I had to re-list the Copland...

People will always choose convenience, why wouldn't they, it's a perfectly rational equation

That's definitely part of it, but I think cost plays a larger part. I mean, decent headphones can dramatically improve ipod listening (depending on the bitrate of the files, a variablealmostnever addressed in articles like this), but who wants to spend an additional $50-$100 after spending $100-$250 for an iPod?

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Wednesday, December 26, 2012 8:32 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

monoprice headphones are 20 bucks and supposedly sound great

Also I know tons of ppl that own, like, ipads and won't spring for semi decent headphones

But hell I grew up on walkman & cassette

I was talking to someone yesterday about music and ipods, we have similar size record collections and he'd just got a new 32 gb nano and was having trouble filling it up, and I was saying I could fill my 160 gb classic twice over. I then asked him what bit rate he ripped his cds at - "Oh, 128 kbps" he replied. I said I had all mine at 320 kbps and nothing less. "But it sounds alright at 128" he said, adding "And the Apple earphones that came with it sound great". It was at that point I gave up the argument. Some people care and some people don't.

there must be several john harris threads, including (iirc) 'rip john harris', please use them

I was surprised to see new vinyl 45's of like Hendrix & other iconic bands at a Target store over the weekend. They were packaged in a gift box with a t-shirt, but still, vinyl records @ a target!

I was talking to someone yesterday about music and ipods, we have similar size record collections and he'd just got a new 32 gb nano and was having trouble filling it up, and I was saying I could fill my 160 gb classic twice over. I then asked him what bit rate he ripped his cds at - "Oh, 128 kbps" he replied. I said I had all mine at 320 kbps and nothing less. "But it sounds alright at 128" he said, adding "And the Apple earphones that came with it sound great". It was at that point I gave up the argument. Some people care and some people don't.

― Rob M Revisited, Wednesday, December 26, 2012 7:06 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you have to reach out and give some love to these people, sit them down for a side-by-side comparison of their favorite song on cd and mp3, maybe get them a little stoned beforehand, make some popcorn.

these... imaginary people. these... irl socks.

As Skot and others have noted, an article on the subject actually WORTH it.

http://thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/collateral-damage_numero-group-on-the-vinyl-bubble

Good piece, and timely; I've been having a twitter chat with a handful of vinyl-head friends of mine about the increasing occurrence of bad pressings this year; anecdotally it seems as if quality control has gone down - "Savages, Vampire Weekend, Suede, Lubomyr Melnyk have all required three copies this year. Several needed two" - was one comment.

Vinyl's been marketed in such a way that people assume it's a premium product from the off, but, whilst demand has increased, I doubt the infrastructure is any better than it was 3-5 years ago, so it seems as if corners may be being cut in manufacture. I also understand that the gimmicky packaging foibles outlined in that Wire piece - coloured vinyl, decorated vinyl, weird speeds, etc - are usually more tricky to manufacture and no good for sound quality, which is part of the promise vinyl is being sold on.

yup, I stopped buying new vinyl a couple years ago after figuring out that pretty much every LP I bought sounded like crap. Why pay extra for a product with sibilance on every S?

hmm I almost just ordered the Vampire Weekend vinyl yesterday... altho tbf I buy mostly old vinyl. or reissues. new stuff I tend to purchase digitally.

Half of the ridiculous format gimmicks cited were at the hand of Jack White alone. The point stands but it's not like liquid filled records are as common as clear vinyl for instance.

Otherwise the article is a bit too true.

It's hard to not get caught up in the guilt associated with not owning the limited pressing of a new or reissued record. So many releases come in at least 2-3 versions and the practice is so interwoven that it kind of trains buyers, and many times I fall victim admittedly, to desire to own a copy over the desire to actually play it.

― Evan, Tuesday, June 11, 2013 11:56 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Trying to fight that mindset- it's particularly tough because as a kid I LOVED to collect cards... so that compulsion just kind of carried over and applied itself to my music collecting.

― Evan, Tuesday, June 11, 2013 11:58 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xpost from other thread...

yup, I stopped buying new vinyl a couple years ago after figuring out that pretty much every LP I bought sounded like crap. Why pay extra for a product with sibilance on every S?

― skip, Tuesday, June 11, 2013 11:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Last two records I bought new on vinyl were Dylan's Tempest and Iris DeMent's Sing the Delta. Tempest had sibilant S's on some songs. Delta had inner-groove distortion. Both were on heavy-ass vinyl, but I never had those problems with older (or thinner) records.

i think the pressing plants are just at maximum overload. reading how the big plant down south is running 24 hours a day 7 days a week there are gonna be fuck ups. until people actually start opening new ones. and how likely is that? plus, the equipment is old. and the people who really knew how to make records are old too or retired or dead.

so much vinyl being churned out in eastern europe on soviet-era machines.

Yeah, the 180g thing is snake oil.

one good thing about new 180g is that its less likely to be warped. i see a LOT of newer regular weight vinyl that is warped. again, i think that's because of plants rushing to fill orders.

like if you are gonna pick up any of the Scorpio cheapo sun ra reissues, always go with the 180g. the regular versions are almost guaranteed to be warped.

was speaking with some people who run labels recently and they say the issues with the pressing machines are that demand is so high that one of the european pressing plants actually retrieved a machine they'd gifted to a museum so they could keep up with their output, but the profit margins aren't high enough to produce any further pressing machines - that the tools to build these pressing machines themselves no longer exist.

^^I read somewhere that part of how the plant in Texas is still going is the owner purchased gear from plants as they closed, and they use that stuff for parts on their machines.

That article is mostly OTM, but this bit seems far-fetched to me:

The vinyl marketplace is probably permanently contracted, but rather than over-serving the superfan, it should pivot toward super-serving the casual fan. Anyone should be able to walk into any record store in the world and buy a standard vinyl copy of Nevermind for a reasonable price, rather than confronting the 180 gram pressing or the deluxe quadruple LP that fishes for their cash from a lofty wall display.

Vinyl players cost extra money, vinyls are a hassle to use compared to digital formats, plus they require more storage room... I'd say the vinyl market hasn't had chance of attracting casual fans ever since CDs became popular. Why would someone who's not a music geek buy vinyl, when he can get the same music in in a more convenient and easy-to-use format? The supposed idea that "vinyl sounds better" is not something casual fans notice or care about either.

The Daft Punk album, after all the audiophile hype, doesn't sound that much better on LP than on CD.

Thinking that vinyl objectively “sounds better” is wrong anyway, different? yes, and I love it for that, but lossless digital formats will usually technically be better - probably 90% of the albums you buy have been digital at some point before the pressing stage.

(To pick a figure out of thin air)

Jonesy has dropped science on other threads (one about minidisc for instance) in the past about how digital objectively sounds better than vinyl. Some people just prefer vinyl sound.

i guess vinyl could sound better, but i'm betting the entry-level price for a record player that would make vinyl sound better would be much higher than a similarly serviceable CD player or ipod dock etc. personally, i'm no audiophile, i just love the ritual of putting it on and the big sleeve and the smell and all that.

you can get a nice older turntable for 200+ that will make records sound very nice.

here's one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dual-506-Vintage-Turntable-with-Ortofon-TKS-55E-Cartridge-/330939973368?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item4d0d8f3ef8

nice too:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PHILIPS-ELECTRONIC-212-TURNTABLE-Belt-Drive-/221240112432?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item3382f03530

oh there are loads of nice turntables for sale that won't kill your wallet. most people are lazy though. and don't want to be bothered. there's no actual law that says you have to care about good or great sound reproduction though. or care about analog sound. but for people who are into it its not a big deal. i've been listening to records for 44 years and its never been a big deal or a hassle. its one of the easier hobbies to have. there are records everywhere. and the more you learn and know the more fun it can be.

the profit margins aren't high enough to produce any further pressing machines - the tools to build these pressing machines themselves no longer exist.

― data halls and oate (stevie), Friday, June 14, 2013 3:15 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They're called "machinists". Look into them, record companies.

Duals are the shit. My dad replaced his speakers and amplifier a few years ago, but kept his Dual turntable which is approaching 40 years old and still sounding amazing. Never had to have it repaired, either.

There's also this guy in Iowa: http://fixmydual.com

most people are lazy though. and don't want to be bothered.

I'll cop to this. But for me it's less about getting up and flipping the record over, or cleaning the record, or cleaning the needle; and more about worrying about shit like weight and tracking force and whatever the fuck is causing the inner-groove distortion on my Iris DeMent record.

xp - My first turntable was a Dual 1229. That illuminated strobe dial thing looked mad cool.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7157/6768086793_04a03b5011_z.jpg

probably just a crappy new pressing! i listened to my iris dement tape for years. never had a problem. must have played My Life 500 times.

x-post

for me it's less about getting up and flipping the record over, or cleaning the record, or cleaning the needle; and more about worrying about shit like weight and tracking force and whatever the fuck is causing the inner-groove distortion on my Iris DeMent record.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Friday, June 14, 2013 3:42 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

get an '80s Technics with a P-mount cartridge and you won't have to deal with either.

Thanks for the suggestion; I may look into that.

And I think you're right, Scott, as I don't have that problem on any other record. Fortunately, it came with a download card, but I didn't buy the vinyl to listen to a download.

P-mounts really easy to install too - no need to adjust alignment or anything. Apparently some other manufacturers besides Technics adopted them too. The SL-1200 doesn't use it, but their cheaper mainstream turntables did.

http://www.vinylengine.com/images/forum/p-mount.gif

i love records. have i ever mentioned that on here?

don't think you have. Ever thought about owning your own record store? would be v cool

Tuomas is 100% otm though, for the casual music fan vinyl is more trouble than it's worth.

I think I said this before once, but since I loooove my stereo, one of my great pleasures now is helping friends pick up nice gear. AR and Pioneer tables, Klipsch speakers, Pioneer and Marantz receivers, etc.
love this guy: https://www.facebook.com/BrooklynVintageAudio?fref=ts

Fortunately, it came with a download card, but I didn't buy the vinyl to listen to a download.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Friday, June 14, 2013 3:53 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Many people do essentially, so they feel like their money went towards something tangible and hip.

i'm being so enlightened about consumption rn

I wonder how many people download illegally or listen on spotify and then buy the vinyl and never redeem the download code or listen to the record?

my technics sl-q300 is p-mount

Fortunately, it came with a download card, but I didn't buy the vinyl to listen to a download.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Friday, June 14, 2013 3:53 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Many people do essentially, so they feel like their money went towards something tangible and hip.

― Evan, Friday, June 14, 2013 3:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my SO's former roommate had a few cartons on vinyl records that she never listened to. she had one of those incredibly shitty USB record players and I'm not sure she even opened the box when she moved in. she just downloaded everything on iTunes and bought the vinyl for... i dunno actually. i guess it supports the artists so good on her.

cartons OF vinyl records

should say crates instead of cartons though

It's no fun to buy downloads especially when most people have the wrong mindset that everything downloadable should be free. The fact that there is no sense of ownership when it comes to files. And similarly many people consider buying CDs a thing only their parents would do. So what's left to not feel guilty about doing? Buying hip vinyl to mine free downloads.

Q: Vinyl sales are steadily increasing in the past few years. Why in your opinion people are going back to vinyl?

A: Well, my vinyl sales aren’t increasing, they’re decreasing – and markedly. People who buy vinyl because they just bought some crappy portable turntable in Urban Outfitters and want to have some 180 gram deluxe reissue of the Velvet Underground and Nico’s album sitting on their coffee table because it looks cool might be temporarily driving some portion of the market up, but I can safely say, from vantage point, that it’s harder and harder to sell the same amount of records, year after year. And most of my peers are in the same boat.

Eothen ‘Egon’ Alapatt interview.
http://www.dustandgrooves.com/eothen-egon-alapatt-los-angeles-ca/

People who buy vinyl because they just bought some crappy portable turntable in Urban Outfitters and want to have some 180 gram deluxe reissue of the Velvet Underground and Nico’s album sitting on their coffee table because it looks cool

amazing to think lester bangs made this exact same grumble about posers about 40 years ago

well minus the UO and reissue bits

People who buy vinyl because they just bought some crappy portable turntable in Urban Outfitters and want to have some 180 gram deluxe reissue of the Velvet Underground and Nico’s album

Kids don't know how good they have it. My first VU was this, which was the only thing I could find by them on CD at Best Buy in the mid-90s:

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/28630743/The+Best+of+The+Velvet+Underground+Words+and+Music+Folder.jpg

I don't know ... I think it would be kind of awesome to own only one record and have it be a 180 gram edition of Velvet Underground and Nico and only listen to it on a shitty portable with built-in speakers.

damn, that guy has some awesome records. I guess he probably paid serious money for all of that though. funny because I sort of snobbily don't consider that serious cratedigging, but whatever.

i don't really think there's a way in which Egon can't be considered a serious crate-digger. read the notes to stones throw's sixteen corners compilation, for starters.

yeah, I didn't read the whole thing. at first it sounded like dealers just bring him records they know he'll like but now I see I misread.

Nostalgia-->audiophilia--->received nostalgia.

its hard to avoid SOME level of nostalgia if you are looking at and using something that is 50 or 60 years old. or even 40 or 30 years old. but for me, the thrill is playing that old thing and hearing new sounds in the present. its very much a now thing for me. some people definitely try and evoke the past and that's their primary relationship with old things. or they want to be reminded of the past. their own or an earlier past. there are always going to be people who prize things based on age. and who will insist, sometimes ignorantly, that the old or the new is the best. we should just avoid those people altogether. my own bias toward analog and tape and records and older recording techniques, older microphones(!), older studios, and older mixing boards is based on the variety of religious experience i have witnessed over the years. i can play 50 records (or a hundred or a thousand) and they can all sound wildly different! how they were recorded, how they were pressed, when and where they were recorded, what the room was like, what gear was used, what mics, etc, etc, and on and on forever all play a part in why they sound so different. granted, i've got history on my side. over a hundred years of recordings. but out of every 100 CDs i play, i might hear one or two that are genuinely striking. sound-wise. and they are usually the ones that were worked on endlessly and hundreds of hours of time and effort went in to making them. whereas some of the greatest records i've ever heard, again sonically, were made in a couple of hours on the cheap. there is a digital uniformity that my chaotic brain rebels against. actual noises that you hear in real life are not free of distortion or separated from other ambient noises/sounds. you don't hear things in a vacuum. and i guess i've never really understood people who wanted to divorce musical sounds from the ambient hum that is all around us. one of the great joys of listening to old records for me is actually hearing the room that the music is being played in. the reverberations. the echo. 78s and 50's-era records are good for this. old jazz. it increases my feeling of intimacy with the music and makes me feel closer to the people playing it. and its a different feeling completely than the feeling i get listening to the clear reallyreallyclose fidelity of a digital recording. which can often be lysergic in its closeness. you can hear someone's uvula flapping in the breeze. i can see why people dig that though. tech-wise. geek-wise. that ultrahuman clearness. like HD or blu-ray. i appreciate it more when i'm listening to sound artists or electro-acoustic music. very trippy. can be a little jarring if its just some acoustic folk record and i'm sitting inside someone's guitar or throat. i appreciate a little distancing. and that's what i think people mean by warmness when they talk about records. voices have more glow on tape? i dunno. its certainly possible to make a pretty accurate recording of the human voice on tape. maybe its like the difference between old tube televisions and new flat screens. when everyone had tubes, you would walk down the street at night and little electric fireplaces beamed out of windows. the windows would actually glow. you could see what people were watching. you could hear the sound outside a window loud and clear. with flatscreens the flatness is supreme. you don't get the glow. you can walk by a hundred of them and never have your eye drawn to the picture. they are easy to ignore and hide. same with digital muzak and radio. very easy to tune out. the uniform levels don't engage the ear. nothing leaps out. having said all that, i absolutely LOVE the possibilities within the world of electronic/dance/rap and digital sound. and that, to me, is the greatest stuff to listen to on cd. that tooclose and ultra-clear vocal sound you can get with a computer is stunning when applied to rap. talk about hard to ignore and jarring and visceral. when i take off a record and put on a rap cd its like a bomb has gone off. and that's a good thing. and i've already talked a lot about my undying love for those Kompakt CDs that ILM made me buy years ago. they IMMEDIATELY draw you in. they are definitely a gold standard for me. no doubt anyone here could name a dozen other labels who have achieved similar results and created amazing sound over the last 20 years. warp, mego, etc. whoever. i've also mentioned that when i put a kompakt cd on in the store almost everyone without exception who walks in the store asks me what i'm playing. they quickly become addicted. because it sounds so undeniably good! and cool! and it IS sound that leaps out at you and is 3D in an amazing textural way. so the uses (and sci-fi potential) for digi sound are endless. and i'm gonna guess that in 20 years we won't know what hit us. binaural blu-ray friggin' death ray ridiculousness, i'm guessing. but whatever comes will always be - it can't help but be - DIFFERENT from magnetic tape and all manner of electrical recordings of the distant past. there's something for everyone. my own nostalgic defense is this: bad digital recordings are often just that, bad. and sometimes, to me, unlistenable. bad analog recordings, or cheap or amateurish recordings, often have SOME sort of charming or idiosyncratic quality that can make them either endearing in their badness (muffed use of fx or just dementedly poor placement of microphones) or even addictively listenable from a sound collector/lover perspective (nasty guitar distortion, epic echo abuse, etc.). and when analog recordings on vinyl are great - and arguably they reached their height all the way back in the 1950's - i think they rival any art or art form that the 20th century had to offer.

blood hell.
thats a lot of words.

I'm looking forward to reading that post

Speaking Of Old Vinyl Records, Here's My Father's Day Playlist For Tomorrow

Right on, Scott. My theory about why I can't listen to the Magic Transistor site for more than an hour at a time: it's all direct from vinyl. Yes, I'm a vinyl wuss. Such rich, aromatic, twilight tides So far I'm hooked on the far left channel: early 60s-to-early 70s, European and American r&b and related (incl Northern Soul and garageness) with some rock (Love's or Arthur Lee's "Everybody's Gotta Live"["because everybody's gotta die"]). Anyway that's the orientation when I've approached. Elsewhere on there, we get Krautrock, UK L.Cohen rivals, lots more from them days.

i'm not saying you can't go too far though...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/942564_10151663506842165_922860171_n.jpg

i don't have a link to the article, but a friend mentioned that the queens album that hit #1 last week had something like 20% of its sales through vinyl, which seems like a large portion.

Yeah, but these days you only need to sell like 75 records to hit #1.

i was working at their label for two weeks when the queens of the stone age record shipped and can verify shipping TONS of vinyl. also note, however, that there are THREE DIFFERENT VINYL FORMATS, and many people bought at least two of them. i don't have any numbers in front of me. but if there had been only one format and no reason to buy two or three copies, i imagine the percentage would be, i dunno, more like 15%?

(ballpark estimate there.)

yeah, was gonna say, they went some lengths to make the vinyl for that desirable.

lol
Is It Ok to Buy Records at Urban Outfitters?

an Instagram contest where users submitted pictures of Sub Pop-themed temporary tattoos.

local t.v. news guy came in and said he wanted to do a story in my store about turntables and vinyl. i told him to go away.

Did you explain to him why at all?

not really. i did say that i wasn't ready. but that was just off the top of my head. but not far from the truth. i'm tired and i look like crap and my store - in my eyes anyway - looks terrible. probably looks fine to other people. he really didn't want to leave. he kept saying i'd be doing him a big favor. what i wanted to say and didn't say was that he would have done me a big favor by calling a day or two beforehand and letting me get ready and then maybe i would have. but i'm just cranky really. and i hate t.v. news.

plus he was just a doofus with one of those haircuts. i wanted him out.

"One local proprietor refused to speak with us, and angrily told us to leave his store."

he asked if he could film the OUTSIDE of the store and i said he could do whatever he wanted on the street. haha! i'm easing into my old crank role quite nicely on main street in greenfield.

don't tell maria about this though. she'd kill me. but she's out of town. otherwise i would have let her do it. she's a camera hog.

ppl with cameras who think they can do whatever they want whenever they want = pet peeve

was he just on the street for another story that fell through and looking for a replacement bit? so weird they didn't call first.

having dealt with obnoxious tv news anchors in the past, I feel yr pain scott

i told him to go to northampton or amherst and he said it had to be in this county for some reason. a real locavore. that's why i need maria here. she's my buffer. she talks to the people who don't want to buy records. and sometimes they outnumber the people who want to buy records in a day.

she talks to all the incredulous baby boomers. i put my FAQ up by the door so that i don't have to talk to them, but they never read it.

New Protomartyr and Heliotropes albums both seem to be available only digitally and on vinyl.

I love that FAQ!

Did he say what the angle of the story was? Was it the usual "Remember these? Kids're buyin' 'em!" thing?

thanks. i tried to be clear and concise and kinda funny but not rude or anything with the FAQ. i wasn't rude to the t.v. guy either. i said no thank you like 50 times.

no, no angle. just mentioned turntables and vinyl. i think someone just sent him out to get a story on it. he was young.

Darn, I'd love to see the FAQ!

pretty sure that FAQ has been posted here before - seem to recall having several chuckles about it.

http://skotrok.blogspot.com/2012/05/john-doe-jr-used-records-books-faq.html

"New Protomartyr and Heliotropes albums both seem to be available only digitally and on vinyl."

I wanted to do this with my album but was talked into doing CDs by the label. But I have a feeling that own't be the case for the next one. We are doing 250 vinyl copies though. It was expensive but it was worth it judging by the test pressings.

"New Protomartyr and Heliotropes albums both seem to be available only digitally and on vinyl."

dance music to thread

http://www.reddit.com/r/Vinyl

How does this place make you feel?

Some thread titles:

- Picked up a new record [Youth Lagoon] this past weekend. What do you guys think?

- every day i wake up and ask myself why isn't the mario 64 soundtrack pressed onto vinyl

- Vinyl Is a Music Choice: The Right One (http://www.thestreet.com/story/12543788/1/vinyl-is-a-music-choice-the-right-one.html)

- Anyone else pumped for record store day?

what's the vegas over/under on how many more years we'll keep reading this same story over and over: 4? 5?

― M@tt He1ges0n, Monday, August 18, 2008 8:27 AM (5 years ago)

Responding to that article?

tbf, vinyl is making an extraordinarily incremental and prolonged comeback

nah just though it was appropriate xp

like it's not just like vinyl is "back" again every few years, it's a little bit more "back" every few years.

agreed.

when I was buying records at a newer all-vinyl store in VA last week the owner told me that somebody comes in at least once a day asking where they can buy turntables. Two people did exactly that in the 30 minutes I was browsing.

I heard Bed Bath Beyond has a pretty rad one for like 40 bucks.

Picked up the Lorde album on vinyl at a vvv suburban megamall this week, admittedly only other vinyl they had ws that superdeluxe new Blue Lines, but still

reading about DACs and "computer audio" last weekend almost made me want to chuck it all and go 100% vinyl/cassette

it's all comes down to personal preference, of course, but to me this digital brittle brutalism is like buffing metal with metal

2 new vinyl only record stores opened in St. Paul last week

i bought a used john renbourne record recently. but i'm no hero, just a guy doing my bit.

oh no ..
this links up to my current dilemma re a laptop based output vs laptop + dac
too many variables.
never going back to cassette though .. those fuckers were evil.
and as for vinyl ?
well for all the hipster love, those buggers are nasty to look after and you need to flip'em every 20 mins.
sod that.

Oh and tapes're making a comeback, that's been going a while so I guess it's been discussed, I guess I didn't expect THAT

sh@kedown dudes like you are the true heroes etc etc

yeah, i know re new found cassette love ..

does this mean my boxes full of the lo-fi bastards in the attic have now become £££ ?

Are they limited edition things? Maybe, anyway. The vast majority of mine're mixtapes so worth nothing, nothing but bittersweet memories

some of my tapes are limited edition (ztt cassingles etc), but on the whole nah .. just your normal chart loving crap of the 80s.

All of the music subreddits I've visited are very dire places.

I would be into tapes but unfortunately the last half dozen tape players I have owned have all stopped working or (gasp) eaten tapes, and after one too many good tapes lost, I packed them all into a trunk and put it away for now. When you play a record on a turntable you are never in danger of it destroying your record. When you play a CD in a CD player, there's not a significant chance it will accidentally slice through your disc with a laser. Eff tapes imo.

yet one tape is more useful than your entire ilx corpus

2 new vinyl only record stores opened in St. Paul last week

― Little Nicky Pizza loved that rascal Rust (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

Have you been to either of them? I moved here last autumn and I'm already impressed with the amount of record shops there are here. I go to Cheapo as much as I can and Hymies every so often too. It's ridiculous how much vinyl I've bought here in the last six months.

Yeah I live in Auckland NZ and a specialist vinyl store opened here abt I dunno, two years ago? Haven't actually been in bc no money bt a friend's working their extended (Sun/Mon) days, so I'll see what it's like sometime

I traveled around Australia and New Zealand last year. Ended spending a lot of my time in Auckland. Real Groovy was the only place I was aware of to vinyl. It has a decent selection but can be a bit on the pricey side.

Yeah, v much so. Thing is I used to work in the vinyl dept and they know fuckall abt anything that isn't p much straight rock/country/jazz type stuff, so you can find lots of v rare/great postpunk/electronic etc stuff for supercheap

I did find the odd bargain there but can't remember much of what I ended up coming back with now. Last Exit by Junior Boys and the first Hidden Cameras album were a couple I got quite cheap on vinyl. I'd spend a lot of time going through those vinyl bargain sections as there were often some gems in there. When did you work there?

Abt five years ago. Did Last Exit have anything written on the inner cover? It might've been mine

I was actually in New Zealand six/five years ago too. This might make me sound a little crazy (revealing I now live in Minnesota in a previous post) but a lot of my records are back home in the UK at my parents house so I can't check that out, really want to know if it is your copy now. I bought it almost exactly a year ago if that narrows it down.

Might be right, could be a bit too late. Sorry if this is going to bug you! It'll have "ART" on the inner cover if it ws mine

Don't worry about it. I can ask a family member to check and let me know. Would be kind of cool if it was. I was really surprised to find a copy there.

i mention this on every vinyl thread but vinyl is getting to be a fucking ripoff, especially new vinyl, don't know why all these people are getting duped into spending $25, $30, $45 on a single album, fuck that shit. and tapes are a complete joke

there are still obviously places where you can find cheap used vinyl, but i feel like they are getting rarer

the "vinyl is back!" thing has definitely pushed up prices in the past year - and every clown with a yard sale checks ebay now and puts $20 on his fucking Captain Fantastic record. You have to really dig deep to find old 45's for under $5 or even $10 at stores these days - stuff that was a 25 cents to a dollar for years and years

2 new vinyl only record stores opened in St. Paul last week

― Little Nicky Pizza loved that rascal Rust (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

Have you been to either of them? I moved here last autumn and I'm already impressed with the amount of record shops there are here. I go to Cheapo as much as I can and Hymies every so often too. It's ridiculous how much vinyl I've bought here in the last six months.

― Kitchen Person, Thursday, March 27, 2014 7:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haven't had a chance, don't get over to st.paul that much...my usual spot is Roadrunner Records in South Mpls, small but nice stock and I feel the most fair pricing in town. Hymie's is really nice since they moved out of the original gross building to this new place....

Electric Fetus can actually have some really good priced stuff and they get a lot of new stuff they end up clearancing

from a buyers perspective, the "death of vinyl" era was really a golden age - thrift stores and yard sales were full of full collections being just dumped. feel like there's much less of that now - and people have an inflated view of what things are worth

Oh man it so was, I decided to go for vinyl around then and picked up so much for so little

from a buyers perspective, the "death of vinyl" era was really a golden age - thrift stores and yard sales were full of full collections being just dumped. feel like there's much less of that now - and people have an inflated view of what things are worth

― brio, Friday, March 28, 2014 9:48 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jah, if i would have spent the 90s buying weird private press folk records and obscure prog for $1 i'd be retired by now ;_;

there's a death of cd thing going on right now, lots of good stuff available for ~$5 or less. not as abundant as i would have liked or expected but still there is lots to be found.

the bulk of my classic rock and blues and jazz vinyl was bought up years ago, even when I was a student I could afford some pretty sweet shiz. Now it's kind of ridiculous. I think in L.A. for example that market was killed by amoeba, who had higher prices but a bigger selection and knocked out the second generation of LP stores where you might find bargains. The third wave of stores that came with the vinyl resurgence are good but their prices are similarly jacked up. there's are also those horrible stores that will put crappy mid period rod Stewart LPs at twenty bucks because they have a promo sticker.

otm

and an xp to marcos - yeah, I was picking up those sweet Can remastered CDs on clearance for like six bucks each last year

yeah i've bought a lot of great CDs lately

Discogs is a pretty good place for stuff, the fact you can see all the available albums for sale i think helps keeps pricing down, or prevents eBay type gouging....

those horrible stores that will put crappy mid period rod Stewart LPs at twenty bucks because they have a promo sticker.

They'll do this because they see one international sold listing from months ago on ebay and then hope that same very specific and unrealistic buyer (that was using the internet to seek out something very particular in a WORLD WIDE market) will waltz into their store in their random town.

xpost
yeah i've had a much better time buying things on discogs than ebay, there's a lot of over-pricing going on but there are other folks on there who seem to be selling off whole warehouses of stuff cheap. but online buying is way less fun - and people sell really beat-up records. Took me awhile to realize "VG - very good" means "not very good".

by jove he's got a copy of tonight i'm yours. and the sticker remains affixed.

Literally saw a copy of Saturday Night Fever with one record missing priced $20 because it was an "Import" last weekend.

I think a lot of these eBay guys just trade records like a commodity, it could be literally any widget...you overprice tons of stuff, like just thousands of items and you sell a few and every once in a while some crazy person actually pays $250 for some lutheran college church choir record....it's basically market manipulation...like browse this piece of shit (he used to have a store in mpls):

http://stores.ebay.com/Shuga-Records

dude was famous for going to local shows, buying up records from local bands, then selling them as out of print for double the price, like local records that had just come out

I was in a beach town in Delaware last summer and found a crate of LPs in the back of a store that otherwise sold knick-knacky things. Sticker price for a US Capitol Rubber Soul (late 70s pressing) in VG condition? $40. The sad part is, I could totally see a tourist snapping it up; "It's the rare, original vinyl!"

arrgghgj'jtkh;dj to all these overpricing stories

Literally saw a copy of Saturday Night Fever with one record missing priced $20 because it was an "Import" last weekend.

― brio, Friday, March 28, 2014 11:14 AM (2 minutes ago)

I do a lot of loling in stores when I see stuff like this and then fantasize about lecturing delusional shop owners

haha me too

my 1st encounter with this, I thin, was seeing a beat up copy of Joni Mitchell's Blue for $25 in a store around 2008.

I could totally see a tourist snapping it up; "It's the rare, original vinyl!"

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat)

This is kind of why I linked that reddit/r/vinyl page... many of them are these exact people.

i'm actually starting to hit estate sales - living in a big city you're just not going to find weird cool weird old stuff cheap in stores these days unless you really luck out. I used to check craigslist a lot, but now there's just so much RARE STYX - $18.95 it's not worth it

sleeve - overpriced???? hardly....i mean i wouldn't take a penny less for this "rare disco" SPINACH POWER record

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPINACH-POWER-popeye-sailorman-LP-VG-SKS-S-48-Japan-Hard-Boogie-Disco-Funk-MP3-/310782738430?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item485c183ffe

the good thing is a lot of those people will price any recognizable (and therefore probably not rare) record at crazy prices and sell their weird stuff for nothing

Also whenever you see "WOW" in the description on ebay you know it'll be a really stupid listing.

xpost - ha obv not referring to that SPINACH POWER seller

You're all suckers to market forces. Fuck vinyl.

You're funny

i mention this on every vinyl thread but vinyl is getting to be a fucking ripoff, especially new vinyl, don't know why all these people are getting duped into spending $25, $30, $45 on a single album, fuck that shit. and tapes are a complete joke

― marcos, Friday, March 28, 2014 10:16 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ this, not least because pressing/cutting can be kind of a crapshoot with new stuff.

But if the point of listening to vinyl is to get closer to the analog source, wouldn't something like this make more sense?

http://www.tapeproject.com/

(speaking of overpriced)

it all depends...some stuff like Light in the Attic? woah...shit sounds amazing, fuck the original pressings

also lol to listen to music on pure organic ipods, computers, ipads, and iphones...so far from the icky market forces of capitalism

i don't have any cds or vinyl, but i like books so i guess it's not too weird to me that someone might still want physical media <-- insight

LitA is pretty much my favorite label right now

i actually think there is something interesting going on with regard to value/markets/commodification etc with regard to rare albums

Like many other aged record jerks, I DJ at my local from time to time and sometimes I have to laugh at myself - playing all (relatively) rare vinyl 45's that I spent time and money acquiring for people who would, for the most part, actually be happier listening to current hits on an ipod

There's actually a direct inverse relationship to how much you paid for a record to how much most people will enjoy it. The rare expensive stuff goes over like a lead balloon or gets a "hey, that's neat!". The cheap sixties hits go over great. Free downloaded MP3's would go over even better.

Unless you've really worked to get like-minded folks out, that's how it's going to be in a typical bar room. I know there are the Keb Darges and Jonathan Toubins and Liam Larges of the world who have built up big followings and do amazing stuff discovering rare records - but that's all in a very specialized world...

It would be cool and insanely trendy to start doing tape stuff on VHS tapes. Has anyone done that yet? You can buy VHS tapes for SUPER cheap and get a VCR with stereo inputs on it and be golden.

Like many other aged record jerks, I DJ at my local from time to time and sometimes I have to laugh at myself - playing all (relatively) rare vinyl 45's that I spent time and money acquiring for people who would, for the most part, actually be happier listening to current hits on an ipod

Yup I know that feeling

my friend used to like super long hours long mixtapes on a good VCR hooked into his stereo

also lol to listen to music on pure organic ipods, computers, ipads, and iphones...so far from the icky market forces of capitalism

― Little Nicky Pizza loved that rascal Rust (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, March 28, 2014 12:05 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not quite sure what you're talking about here but at least for me my knock against exorbitant vinyl pricing is not necessarily a knock against capitalism, i just think it's a ripoff. i can't afford it. for me it's a waste of money. i love music but i don't have cash to spend $25 or more on an new lp.

fwiw i don't have an iphone also because of the extra money i'd have to pay on my phone bill. i've got a son and my wife works very part time to take care of him so we're mostly a single-income household

there's a death of cd thing going on right now, lots of good stuff available for ~$5 or less.

fucking loving it ..

never bought so many cds in local charity shops as in the last few months

cds = cheaper than a legal download.

xp I think that was directed at our resident vinyl hater Mr. Mouthy

Yep

ah ok sorry, lol

i was a little eager there wasn't i

Loads of great cheap records on discogs for pennies. Even records that get overpriced often come back down to regularish prices once people have forgotten about them again

i don't have any cds or vinyl, but i like books so i guess it's not too weird to me that someone might still want physical media <-- insight

― markers, Friday, March 28, 2014 11:05 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are you under 20 years old?

Literally saw a copy of Saturday Night Fever with one record missing priced $20 because it was an "Import" last weekend.

― brio, Friday, March 28, 2014 11:14 AM (2 minutes ago)

I do a lot of loling in stores when I see stuff like this and then fantasize about lecturing delusional shop owners

― Evan, Friday, March 28, 2014 10:19 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha me too

― sleeve, Friday, March 28, 2014 10:19 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too, except around here it's the "half-price books" etc. outlets that do this, and i don't feel like lecturing some wage slave who couldn't give half a shit.

but yeah, every elvis or beatles album, with seams split, vinyl that looks like a dog ate it then shat it out for $25+... a whole bunch of beat-up dadrock... and one LP of cage's piano sonatas for $4.99. well, it happened once. in general i no longer go into stores like this because life is too short and it's depressing.

on a similar note...

a beloved (but a bit distant) elderly relative of mine passed away recently. i always enjoyed listening to music w/ her, and wondered what had become of her LP collection and if they were just going to toss it or give it to goodwill (as they were many of her things), maybe they could send it to me instead because it would mean a lot to me?

her middle-aged daughter was convinced that her mom's small LP collection (about 150 classical LPs) would be worth a fortune. was going to pay to have them appraised. my mom convinced her to send me a list of some titles, and i broke the news that monetarily anyway, they weren't even worth the cost of getting them appraised. she was really hard to convince. "but they don't make records anymore? aren't all these things rare? i've heard that you can sell records for $1,000s!" i think at one point she thought i was pulling a scam. anyway, after a few weeks she finally agreed to send them to me (but only if another relative would carry them out and pay to ship them).

so yeah people think their records are worth a lot of money when they are not.

also people are greedy.

Might be right, could be a bit too late. Sorry if this is going to bug you! It'll have "ART" on the inner cover if it ws mine

― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine)

It was indeed your copy of Last Exit I bought. Got my brother to check it out and it says Art right there on the sleeve. Small world!

haven't had a chance, don't get over to st.paul that much...my usual spot is Roadrunner Records in South Mpls, small but nice stock and I feel the most fair pricing in town. Hymie's is really nice since they moved out of the original gross building to this new place....

Electric Fetus can actually have some really good priced stuff and they get a lot of new stuff they end up clearancing

― Little Nicky Pizza loved that rascal Rust (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

Going to check out Roadrunner tomorrow, looking forward to it.

I like Hymies a lot as they price things very reasonably and they have a greats soul/disco collection but I find they don't seem to get a lot of new stuff in. Either that or the stuff they do get is so good it doesn't last long in the shop. The people that work there always seem really cool.

I keep hearing that Electric Fetus is one of the best places to get vinyl but I've never had much luck there. They don't seem to get a lot of second hand stuff in there. Probably haven't been there in a couple of years though, will have to give it another try.

Fetus is hit or miss but they don't always know what stuff is worth

Kitchen Person that's great! I didn't actually WANT to sell it, just needed to, glad it went to a good home etc.

Those're my initials btw, I wasn't judging its merit or anything

Yeah I was really chuffed to find a copy there. It was probably my best find in all the times I went there. I'm now wondering if I ended up buying anything else you sold (if you did?) no need to make a list or anything. I'd struggle to remember all the records I bought in New Zealand/Australia now. All I know is I had bought way too many when it came to packing my suitcase to go back to the UK.

I was selling quite a bit of stuff, so maybe. They'll all be marked like that.

When I see those records again I will keep an eye out for those same marks.

"for art's sake"

the "death of vinyl" era was really a golden age

I lived in Brazil for three years in the late 90s and every market in every town had at least one stall selling huge quantities of records at next-to-nothing prices. Not to mention the record shops themselves - they just wanted to get rid of their space-filling stock. I had a cheap turntable when I was there but decided it'd be impractical to build up a large collection, especially when there were handy compact discs around. If I'd known then what I know now...

hehe

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_LasOjYP_M

hey it didn't thing

http://www.recordstoreday.es/images/tienda/tshirt-rsds2014.jpg

Noooooooooooo!

http://img2-2.timeinc.net/toh/i/steps/laying-vinyl-x.jpg

vinyls in the record store? I'd like to lay some of that!

the plural of vinyl is vinyl
xps

i'm pretty sure i remember people pricing records too high before the internet. but, yeah, the 90's were a fine time for those of us still digging. and i try not to think about the dollar bins in chain stores filled with copies of paul's boutique.

when the hmv store in philly opened they had tons of boxes of old caroline distro and they were a buck a piece. they couldn't get rid of it fast enough. unsold 80's metal and indie and all kinds of crazy stuff. nobody wanted it at the time. i kept going back for more. (tower on south street had something similar around then where they all of a sudden had every folkways 10 inch ever made for a buck a piece. new (old) copies. endless amounts of them.)

rekkerds and flooring. mostly rekkerds. but some flooring too.

12" either way

Would have loved to pick through the Caroline records bin...

what the hey?

1 For Sale from £312.58

Statistics
Have: 187
Want: 1218
Avg Rating: 4.68 / 5
Ratings: 109
Last Sold: 17 Sep 13
Lowest: £27.59
Median: £117.22
Highest: £156.29

i kinda like urban outfitters getting so into it, inevitable sweet deals on expensive reissues in clearance bins when the bubble finally bursts

Argh I keep venturing into these places strictly because I hear about these clearance bins ALL the time but none of them have any!

I know friends have gotten good deals before

On the other hand though I went to a second hand shop that I guess arranges to buy old lines directly from certain stores like UO and Free People etc. Anyway apparently they'd gotten a batch of vinyl from UO for whatever reason that they were selling for $4 an LP. Ended up getting Ride - Nowhere, PJ Harvey - Let England Shake, Bill Callahan - Apocalypse and few others I can't recall at the moment.
So I have actually lucked out with vinyl as an almost direct result of UO and shouldn't complain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/business/media/music-sales-drop-5-as-habits-shift-online.html?_r=0

Wrong thread?

Oh this:. Sales of albums on CD fell 19 percent by revenue to $716 million, while LP sales grew 43 percent to $146 million

those numbers are shocking. LP $ is a full quarter of CD money.

or a fifth rather. Still a huge proportion.

I also have never seen a reasonably-priced record in an Urban Outfitters, though I always get suckered into checking. Amazing to realize people are actually paying those prices for that stuff and that it's not just a loss-leader piece of the decor, intended to suggest to shoppers that they've arrived at a place frequented by the in-crowd, etc.

i got TRUE ROMANCE for $9.99 there earlier this year

but vinyl is pretty astonishingly expensive to me - i mostly buy used/sale stuff with special exceptions

I got Gish and Siamese Dream for $5 each at UO

For awhile, they'd put decent things in the $10 And under bin in the back. I'd go in on an "additional 50% off sale items" day and get some good stuff. But those days are over.

bought a Heavy Metal Kids LP for £6 at my local branch, which is slightly over the odds but a bargain compared to every other used record in there - they price them uniformly at £6 and it's mostly 50p charity shop fodder

also not really interested in spending £20 on most LPs esp ones that can be had on CD for a quarter of that

Sales of albums on CD fell 19 percent by revenue to $716 million, while LP sales grew 43 percent to $146 million

Which stull means a combined drop of about 21m right?

yeah but but vinyl has a better chance of survival having already survived an extinction level event and rebounded

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/b/bustarhymes_extinctio_102b.jpg

^^^ expanded reissue available soon at urban outfitters, only $45 and it comes with a download code

also - according to wiki jack white sold 44,000 vinyl of his new album that's kinda nuts

Yeah, they were saying on Sound Opinions how its the best selling new release on vinyl since Pearl Jam's Vitalogy, twenty (!) years ago.

Vinyl for Vitalogy was released a week earlier than the CD/Cassette, iirc. Also, that vinyl for the new JW album looked beautiful, and was gimmick-packed in the best way.

Vitalogy landed in the Top 60 on it's opening vinyl week too.

yeah but but vinyl has a better chance of survival having already survived an extinction level event and rebounded

― u2 removal machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, September 28, 2014 1:34 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is true on several levels: vinyl is the only format that can be played without electricity.

haha i didn't even think of that but yeah...but overall, i'd guess vinyl survives CDs just because it went though all those transitional pains of going from a mass market to a niche, specialist product and has somehow not only survived but improbably flourished...

What's the secret to finding cheap records at UO?

I used to stop by all the time assuming they'd be blowing shit out and it never happened.

Same here. I think I'll ask someone there next time. Maybe they only do it certain times as aged inventory or something.

Amazon clogs up pressing plants with most pointless reissue series ever

was in HMV yesterday and there was a sign pointing upstairs that said "Music and Vinyl"...

need that mint Dave Grusin "Theme From the Goonies" for parties

I'm happy with the prices of vinyl going up - basically this means that when I sell all the stuff I collected when nobody really gave a shit, I can make myself some serious dough! Thanks, hipsters!

get ready for the windfall! Thanks for the new ride, hipsters!
http://www.welsh-house.net/images/andy-festiva2.jpg

Have any new plants been built lately? It seems like the best thing for the industry would be Amazon or Apple or Urban Outfitters or whoever team up to build some new record plants. Then again records are made out of oil so that's more carbon from the vinyls being made and the additional pollution.

Maybe start 3D printing records in mass w recycled stuff.

I don't know about new plants in the US, but that Czech place has been building new presses for themselves.

Tesco is to tap into the rapidly growing vinyl music market this week when it sells the new album by British rock group Iron Maiden.

The Book Of Souls, the band’s first studio offering in five years, will be released on Friday, with the triple LP format going on sale in 55 of the chain’s largest Tesco Extra stores.

It is believed it will be the first time Tesco has sold vinyl albums, as CDs were the dominant format when supermarkets started selling music in the 1990s. In the past few years, the vinyl album revival has been gaining momentum, with sales increasing by more than 50% in 2014.

Vinyl has bucked the downward sales trend of other music formats such as CDs, which fell by 6.5% in the past year, and downloads, which dropped by nearly 9%. Streaming increased by 78% last year.

Tesco’s music buyer, Michael Mulligan, said: “In the last year, we began selling record decks in our largest stores and initial sales are very encouraging, so giving our customers some new vinyl to play on those decks seems like the logical next step.

“And there can be no better way to launch this trial than working with one of rock music’s most iconic bands and their eagerly anticipated new album.

“We are anticipating demand for The Book Of Souls to be as high as Iron Maiden’s last album, which was the band’s most successful to date, reaching number one in 28 countries including the UK.

“If this trial is a success, then we would consider selling more vinyl albums before the end of the year.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/31/tesco-sell-iron-maiden-album-book-of-souls-vinyl-format

run to the tills...

That Amazon thing is silly but hardly most pointless reissue series ever, I reckon most reissues are pointless these days

when I see something with a BACK TO BLACK sticker on it in a record shop it's almost always a top 40 record that was never hard to find - at least that's my experience, I may be wrong http://www.discogs.com/label/197898-Back-To-Black

http://www.factmag.com/2015/08/26/virginia-plant-open-viny-press-motherload/

hey that's cool! wonder if they had to retool them at all, like the folks who bought those Indian 78 presses

I buy vinyl exclusively; I won't rehash the reasons because there's tons of threads like that - but as far as supply and demand goes, I will say that I would buy a LOT more new vinyl if major reissues could get priced at the point of, I dunno, new releases on Kill Rock Stars. I hear what people are saying about economies of scale and shit, and I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure if KRS can put out a $12 record Sony should be able to. The REM cited above is a case in point, actually all their vinyl post-New Adventures has been one continuous gouge. WTF, guys?

― Doctor Casino, Friday, May 1, 2009 12:25 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm sure there's another thread for this but it doesn't seem quite suited to the "scams" thread... but seriously this has gotten just insane with the huge gaps in price for brand new single LPs. Slap a "180-gram" label on it and all's fair I guess - that's been true for a long while - but come on. Brand new editions of the two big Shins albums - $11 apiece. Cool! I assume it's bare-bones but you know what, I don't remember that record having any lavish extras when it first came out so who cares? Keep flipping through the bins - brand new edition of Last Splash - $25! Pod, from the same reissue campaign, is only $21 though. Every Smiths LP at least $25.

But the funniest thing by far are the $18-24 reissue copies of, like, Still Crazy After All These Years. I like that album just fine, but do the people greenlighting these releases know that anybody who wants to hear it on vinyl can find it on sale for $2 or less, in VG condition somewhere in any city in the country?

I think they're counting on people not knowing that, or not caring. There are a few oddballs who LIKE new vinyl because it's clean. In theory.

Noticed some of the majors jacking prices up recently, so a single LP is $30 on some of them. Joy Division reissues (via Rhino) went up 5-6 bucks I think. So annoying. At least there's still a fair amount of punk and indie stuff that's like $15.

But the funniest thing by far are the $18-24 reissue copies of, like, Still Crazy After All These Years. I like that album just fine, but do the people greenlighting these releases know that anybody who wants to hear it on vinyl can find it on sale for $2 or less, in VG condition somewhere in any city in the country?

The real deal HQ vinyl reissues (on Friday Music and such, mastered from original tapes) DO sound amazing, though. The people buyng them already have 10 original copies of Still Crazy.

also, rich people like new shiny things

$8 in 1980 is $23 now. They really aren't all that crazy.

I don't like 180 gram vinyl because people operating the pressing plants often don't know how to prevent warps when taking the press off, but I'll say something in defense of budget releases versus premium releases.

I buy vinyl almost exclusively, and I'm kind of indiscriminate about whether I buy used, budget, or more expensive releases (including imports). Some of the budget records I buy are clearly made with old plates. You can hear the age of the plate, and you'd often be better off buying an old used copy or finding the tracks you like on compilations.

Some of the premium releases are more expensive because they've made new plates and the label is recouping that cost. Some records just have more packaging, and you'll pay $2 or $3 extra for the packaging. Download cards (never use them) also increase the cost of new records. Licensing increases the cost of records put out by labels that don't own the rights to the recordings.

Often the actual cost of producing the music will figure into your price (which is why a house 12 inch will cost less than an LP, even though both records are basically the same piece of plastic). New (and good) masters and proper sourcing will increase the price. Bootleggy records with shitty mastering and sourcing (like those Todd Terje boots sourced from mp3s) are often very cheap. Importing a record obviously boosts the price anywhere from $5 to $10. And as you've suggested, small batches of records will cost more than large batches because of the economy of scale.

KRS has always had dirt cheap records, and I think labels like KRS have cheap releases because a) they're pros who have been putting out records for 20 years or more, b) they have low overhead, c) they stretch the life of their masters and plates, d) they have a punk aesthetic compatible with a "good enough" attitude toward their product, and e) they own all the rights to the music they put out.

Since the 90s, major labels have never stopped gouging on new records. They often press in relatively small batches, they make bullshit "deluxe" packaging decisions, they employ people who make a buttload of money, and they don't care about music fans. Major labels also have some of the worst mastering for vinyl in the industry.

xp Yeah, but he has a point that new records are still sold for $10 or $11.

Talking about old vs. new prices, last year my friend did a tribute set on his radio show for the anniversary of Tusk. He dropped some factiods between songs, the most jaw-dropping of which was that upon release, the album listed for $16.98, which is over $50 in today's money. "No way!" I thought, pulling up an inflation calculator. Whaddya know, $55.63 (as of today)!

$8 in 1980 is $23 now. They really aren't all that crazy.

On that note, inspired by the impending Petty poll roll-out, the dollar difference in the proposed issue price for Hard Promises in '81 works out to a little over $2.50 now ($8.98:$23.50::$9.98:$26.11).

brimstead, bamcquern, those are all great points. i think for me it does come down to that major-label gouging thing. i'm not at the audiopphile level where i can hear a lot of the other differences and tbh i'd be surprised if most of the intended market for these records can either. i would be comforted to know that still crazy is going to get bought by a paul simon die-hard thrilled that at last all the detail of the electric piano on "i do it for your love" will be coming through clear as a bell. but it seems fairly likely to me that if it gets bought at all it's going to be buy some ignorant newbie trying to build out their collection, who doesn't know what's out there. this would have seemed absurd to me a few years back, but in the world of #vnyl i have to reckon with this weird unfamiliar version of a vinyl consumer.

again though that's distinct from the megafan shelling out for the $150 superdeluxe box set package or whatever, where they've really bought the same album many times and are excited by this new form it's going to be in, the packaging, the object, the giant booklet printed on old set-lists, whatever. they wanna do that, more power to 'em.

was $8 the standard record price in 1981? new releases or catalog? list price or sale price? sincere questions - i wasn't there! i'm thinking of all the like, $5 "NICE PRICE" type stickers i see on stuff from that era. $5 or $6 in 1981 dollars is more like $13-15 now. it was $8-10 in the late 90s so no wonder CDs seemed like a huge rip when you'd see serious catalog filler going for $16. music industry's a racket i guess - who knew??

List price was probably $8.98 or $9.98 if you were a Steely Dan fan, so yeah you could probably get stuff on sale for less than $8. Nice price was back-catalog stuff that they sold for a few bucks less.

from wiki

This was the second Tom Petty album on the Backstreet Records label. The album's release was delayed while Petty and his distributor MCA Records argued about the list price. The album was slated to be the next MCA release with the new list price of $9.98, following Steely Dan's Gaucho and the Olivia Newton-John/Electric Light Orchestra Xanadu soundtrack. This so-called "superstar pricing" was $1.00 more than the usual list price of $8.98.[11] Petty voiced his objections to the price hike in the press and the issue became a popular cause among music fans. Non-delivery of the album or naming it Eight Ninety-Eight were considered, but eventually MCA decided against the price increase.

From what I gather (Doc, I think we're about the same age), catalog titles were usually a couple bucks less, with some corner cutting re:packaging (deleted gatefolds, exclusive inner-sleevese etc.*). A lot of stores would knock a buck or two off "New Arrivals".

*Many years ago I found a used copy of a 'budget' reissue of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which was reduced to two records in black sleeves inside a doublewide outer sleeve.

http://images.wolfgangsvault.com/images/catalog/detail/RS348-RS.jpg

this stevehoffman thread has some good, if all-over-the-map information. poster kwadguy cleared up the nice price for me:

In 1979, you'd pay between $5 and $7, on sale, for most front-line product. It was around this time that the labels went to a two-tiered pricing scheme (the so-called "Nice Price" for CBS, for example), and that's when you could start to get back catalog much cheaper (typically as low as 3/$10 on sale). Prior to the two tiered system, a lot of back catalog was either completely out of print or sold at a similar price to front line stuff...(maybe a buck different list in some cases).

obviously, one wouldn't expect these to just exactly track inflation. other changes in costs and most obviously in economies of scale since it's really not a mass medium. i guess i should be grateful i can buy the damn things at all... but still, those cheaper sub pop and KRS catalog releases lead me to only shake my fists at the other ones. because i'd totally buy last splash for $13, sure, what the heck.

steely dan weren't thrilled about the price hike either.

but no threats to retitle the album "gouge-o," petty wins on that one

i would be comforted to know that still crazy is going to get bought by a paul simon die-hard thrilled that at last all the detail of the electric piano on "i do it for your love" will be coming through clear as a bell.

yeah my uncle is totally one of these dudes and it's quite silly because he really can't afford to be.

but it really is mostly rich people who only want new things. used? gross!

edit: but it the expensive random vinyl thing is mostly rich people who only want new things. used? gross!

$15 is the PERFECT price for a new record.

but then I always thought that $10 would be the perfect price for a CD. and that never happened. I think there would still be CD stores if that had happened though.

I would buy 10 dollar CDs all the time. instead of the two CDs I buy a year.

it's like when thrift stores sell used CDs for $1.99. I end up buying 2 or 3. if they were a dollar I would buy 20 of them.

but then I always thought that $10 would be the perfect price for a CD.

Really? That's about what they are over here..

Yeah, I was gonna say. "Catalog items" - stuff like Dylan, Clash, even GZA and Weezer and shit - regularly sell new on CD from between $5.99 and $8.99. At least they do at my local brick and mortar (and also on Amazon)

As a result I buy CDs all the time. For one thing, it's satisfying buying something for $6 that you once might have actually had to pay upwards of $21.99 for, and for another, digitally sourced new vinyl for $28.99 vs same thing without the pops and hisses and clicks and the need to flip the side over for $6.99 = no contest.

And yes, I fully expect to become the equivalent of the weird uncle in the family who still keeps Betamax tapes. Perhaps I already am!

>> but then I always thought that $10 would be the perfect price for a CD.

> Really? That's about what they are over here..

£10 maybe, not $10

ha, so this was all starting to sound familiar and it turns out we covered a lot of this same ground on recent revive of Continuing with CDs? - down to me going on about Kill Rock Stars prices! apparently i really have a soft spot for Kill Rock Stars.

xpost well, they were for a while..

i started buying LPs because they were cheaper and i would copy them onto cassettes for the car. even the new ones were cheaper! i stocked up on so much weird early '90s indie too...god knows how much that Lake of Dracula LP was. five dollars maybe? CDs were 16 bucks, new LPs were ten or less, used LPs were five or less (i got so much classic rock during this time, all my essential Neil Young, Stones, Zeppelin, Hendrix, etc was all in that range and they were all EX or NM.

I love weird early 90s indie

i acquired most of my LPs when i worked in a used record store or made regular trips to old shitholes and "friends of the library" bookstores to buy cheapo shit at $1-$3. i never buy vinyl anymore, mostly because new shit is extremely expensive as people have mentioned itt and also because as a format vinyl is just super inconvenient for me right now. putting a record on in my living room is probably 5% of the music listening i do. the rest is at work or during my commute. and playback has been a little shitty too on my technics 1200 table, i need to replace the stylus and probably recalibrate things and it just feels like a pain to do.

i know i'll go back to it though. most of the music i am listening to right now is current shit that is either not available on vinyl or selling for $25-$50. it will always be the best format imo for finding old and cheap surprises, dropping $50 on 20-30 lps from a good cheap record store is still super fun.

I have a cheap ariston deck i bought 17 years ago with my first paycheck for writing. i've always wondered if upgrading to even the most basic technics 1200 or standard DJ deck would sound noticably better.

these prices don't exist in a bubble. Given all the alternatives and competition nowadays, music should be cheaper relatively speaking than in the '70s. Then again there is countervailing pressure in that the few people who do buy new vinyl are going to be less price sensitive than the rest of the market.

and playback has been a little shitty too on my technics 1200 table, i need to replace the stylus and probably recalibrate things and it just feels like a pain to do.

― marcos, Thursday, December 10, 2015 10:27 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ugh, I got a new needle and I FEEL like I calibrated everything correctly, but it still sounds like shit lately and as a result induces anxiety when I play my records. I don't know how to figure out whether the new needle sucks, I screwed up the calibration, or I need to also replace the stylus. The uncertainty stresses me out when I feel like I want to put something on.

Yeah, I think what I'm responding to is sort of a subset of the same problem as the NYC or SF housing market, where the issue isn't necessarily the costs of providing the thing, but the price that a certain segment of the market, who have more money than they know what to do with, is willing to pay. Obviously, it's not a major social crisis if less well-off enthusiasts can't buy all the records they want; they're a luxury in the first place, and not even a mass-audience one the way they were in earlier decades. Nonetheless, there's something kind of lame in the idea that far more new turntables are being sold and used in 2015 than in 2000 or 2005 (I haven't checked but er... this is true, right?) but that people buying those turntables, should they decide to support their local independent record stores, will find themselves faced with a bunch of $25-a-pop albums intended for hot young stockbrokers on the move. The people I know firsthand of course build out their collections with used stuff like all of us have always done but, still.

Meanwhile I'm overdue to really overhaul my listening setup - I'm finally buying a lot of records again thanks to the shop opening across the street and stuff, but over the past few years I've effectively downgraded the whole rig as old components have died and I've replaced them with whatever I could find that was quick and cheap - these Yorx speakers are definitely not doing me any favors.

yeah, it's all those vinyl noobs...and neil young fans

ok, it's entirely neil young fans

the issue isn't necessarily the costs of providing the thing, but the price that a certain segment of the market, who have more money than they know what to do with, is willing to pay

this is absolutely the problem

the pricey reissues tend to drive down used prices, at least

I bought the $40 daft punk record after being whipped into a manic state by the ilm thread, though, so I admit that I am part of the problem

As a result I buy CDs all the time. For one thing, it's satisfying buying something for $6 that you once might have actually had to pay upwards of $21.99 for, and for another, digitally sourced new vinyl for $28.99 vs same thing without the pops and hisses and clicks and the need to flip the side over for $6.99 = no contest.

welcome to the silver side.
what with this post and that one re needles/calibration anxiety.
long may the vinyl love-in continue and cds be cheap as chips.

at this point, i'm usually buying new CDs and used vinyl (occasionally I'll get new vinyl if the price isn't too outrageous) ...

used CDs are definitely a great bargain... though they are competing as much against 'free' downloads as they are against vinyl.

used cds are awesome i just wish my city had better used cd places

i am soaking up cheap as chips cds as and when possible.
cos this groove is clearly to flip once people realise the situation.
i.e. cds are often cheaper than legal downloads and way cheaper than vinyl.
in fact, i ordered that KS/Pete Namlook FAX cd boxset yesterday via amazon.
turns out the cd edition is cheaper than the mp3 version of the boxset.
and i get the amazon auto-rip feature for free with the cd edition.
go figure.

> FAX cd boxset

ooh. ordered.

result.

mark e OTM, CDs are the new LPs, but don't tell anybody

i love CDs.

perfect sound forever

I went to the record shop last week and ignored all their hip heavyweight vinyl at £30 a pop (actually quite a lot of pops and crackles for your £30 amirite) and came home with an armful of £1 90s and early-00s CDs instead. hurrah!

although I wonder if the tide is turning, the record shop's new release CDs were not as cheap or as hidden away as previously, plus I was at an all-dayer recently and went to buy an album from the merch desk (Taman Shud if anyone cares, prob not) and they'd run out of CDs and only had vinyl left, even though the vinyl came with a free CD

but I still didn't buy the LP+CD bcz it cost slightly more and was inconvenient for the bus home

I scored 4 for $10 the other day including the Modern Lovers "Songs Of Remembrance", a CD boot on the Punk Vault label so rare it isn't even on Discogs

I think the word is getting out, better buy now

I am so so grateful that I had some spare money 10 years ago and relentlessly filled in all of my vinyl gaps and upgrades with VG+ $5 Beatles LPs and the like

The only problem with cds is the good music is rarely on it

Shopping for used vinyl is depressing--I was one of the big reputable shops here a couple months ago, and they had multiple copies of Rumours starting at $15--RUMOURS!!! I didn't inspect further, but I'm sure they weren't all vintage half-speed remasters or anything.

i love CDs.

― scott seward, Thursday, December 10, 2015 3:50 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do too! i also love the irony of a guy who sells vinyl for a living making this observation. (i don't mean that as a dig; it's an admirable irony!)

What town is that?

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?sort=price%2Casc&limit=25&master_id=38722&ev=mb&format=Vinyl

What town is that?

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?sort=price%2Casc&limit=25&master_id=38722&ev=mb&format=Vinyl

― saer, Thursday, December 10, 2015 4:08 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Man, look at all these rumours, surroundin' me every day....

We sell NM Rumours for $10

Because they sell NM Rumours for $25 and up in L.A. and dudes were buying us out and selling them in their stores.

XPS Houston. I should go back and check on them...perhaps they really were old audiophile editions.

shit.
my cheapskate cd glory times were bound to end at some point.
hey ho.
fact is, i have way too many silver discs as it is.
thankfully it matters not if my needle needs a tweak/recalibration etc
so far i have only worn out one internal cd disc drive, and external replacements are pocket money level replacements.
long live silver discs.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c4/ee/36/c4ee36ea5ca825ee10ff44ad7daf4581.jpg

GOTT PUNCH where's your store?

i can't find cheap fleetwood mac anymore, though i got lucky with a sweet 2 dollar copy of Tango in the Night a few months back.

shops even sell old tapes for £5-10 now

rumours sounds great on CD. you can get it for $7 at amazon! and yeah, oddly, the mp3s there cost more.

I recently stocked up on the first five Byrds albums on CD with bonus tracks for less than $40.

yeah! on a similar tip, there are a bunch of tom petty CDs on amazon currently for under $5 if that's what you're into. not sure whether petty's vinyl prices have soared though.

Up until they cut their stock back recently, I could go to Fry's and get almost the whole Byrds catalogue for under $50.

This was about £15 when it first came out http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Album-Collection-Byrds/dp/B005APT8A8/

thats the boxset i have.
it is bloody briliant.

it is

Those Original Albums Classics and artist album box collections are music in crack rock form. They seem to be really cheap buying from UK and Germany in the US via Amazon marketplace. I've gotten a boodle of those over the past 5 years or so. I got a bunch of soul albums on CD that way, but they have done those collections with all sorts of artists.

I started this one!: Hey Physical Media Lovers! Original Album Classics, Original Album Series (Budget Mini-LP Album Box Sets): Search & Destroy

One of the funniest things about buying records before the latest wave hit was how much really great stuff you could get for $1. Anything that was a hit in the 80s, and anything that was a mega-hit or was massively oversold in the 70s, all that stuff was a buck forever. Bargains are thin on the ground right now, but I'm seeing signs we're in for a bonanza of brand-new stuff at massive discounts like it was in the early 90s: piles and piles of record store day fodder for $5, last year's darlings for $10... I'm saving my $ for when it all comes a-crashing down. I live in a not-hip city of a million people & we have 9 full-service record stores (i.e. Not counting the HMVs or the Urban Outfitters). Something's got to give.

maria recently brought home a new record from urban outfitters that was originally priced at $30 for...$2.99. there is way too much stuff out there.

Shopping for used vinyl is depressing--I was one of the big reputable shops here a couple months ago, and they had multiple copies of Rumours starting at $15--RUMOURS!!!

That is whack.

We (by which I mean people who didn't grow up with vinyl) all started out as stupid vinyl newbies at some point but my mistakes were for $1.99 or $2.99, not $15...

maria recently brought home a new record from urban outfitters that was originally priced at $30 for...$2.99. there is way too much stuff out there.

How hilarious would it be if the represses at Urban Outfitters end up being less expensive than VG copies of the originals at Goodwill.

That would be a right and just world.

gonna start shopping at UO. Thanks, Maria.

In a few years there's going to be a lot of cheap second hand vinyl and much better charity shop stock as people ditch their records. All the old people still buying vinyl (like myself) will hang onto it forever, but a lot of the youngsters buying £25 reissues from Urban Outfitters will be looking to offload it as soon as they move into their first proper homes.

stupid vinyl newbies at some point but my mistakes were for $1.99 or $2.99,

whats a mistake at 2.99?

youngsters buying £25 reissues from Urban Outfitters will be looking to offload it as soon as they move into their first proper homes.

how many records do UO stock though? I didnt think this was a particularly wide range? arent these the kinds of records which are £3 on discogs anyway, right now?

Yeah, I dunno, they sell a fair bit of "classics" and then hip contemporary stuff. Nothing obscure or anything. But, I mean, you've got young bastards buying all kinds of stuff from all different places who won't necessarily cling on to it forever. just generally, buying second-hand vinyl became a pain in the ass a while ago because everyone who was gonna get rid of their records had done so, and the resurgence of the format's popularity pushed prices up. There is just absolutely nothing of any worth in any charity shop across the land right now, no value to be had anywhere. Assuming this craze doesn't last forever, I'm kinda hopeful this will change.

Well, you know, there are still lots of great records out there that are cheap on discogs. And as for in second hand or charity shops that just takes a bit of digging. I found some MBG records in a church hall in Accrington last year for under pound. I bought some other records I had no idea what they were. Most of them were unpleasant so I gave them to another charity shop. Buy it on discogs and its poor, sell it on discogs. Buy it in a charity shop and its poor, give it to another charity shop. Aim for a serene feeling

Yeah I've def heard of friends getting insane deals on nice reissues at the cutout bin at Urban Outfitters

last time i was in UO (specifically looking for said deals!) all i could find was $27 reissues of Rumours. :'(

Well, you have to find the sale bin. However 10-20% chance of finding anything good in my experience.

this is what i'm willing to spend 30 dollars on in 2015. got so much great stuff at the record show last saturday. been looking for a clean IRL copy of this record since....1992?

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/12294789_10154376707042137_2357588617493357690_n.jpg?oh=1a329a8a737cbd33c8fa61ce0167edc3&oe=56D97F30

you can get them cheaper in ebay auctions sometimes, but i always forget to bid on stuff these days. or i forget to bid again. or whatever. i just wanted to see one in front of me. only took 20+ years. i'm patient.

There is just absolutely nothing of any worth in any charity shop across the land right now, no value to be had anywhere.

i disagree - it is out there but you've got to have quite diverse tastes and even then the half-decent stuff doesn't hang around for long, so it comes down to persistence/timing/luck/taking a chance on random stuff

things i picked up at a charity shop today, all for £1 each. nothing really that great tbh (probably total garbage to anyone else), but enough fun looking stuff to make it feel like it was worth bunking off work for:

Nick Straker Band - A Little Bit of Jazz 12" (classic brit disco funk)
Club House - Do It Again / Billie Jean 12" (immense obv)
Black Beat Niks - One Day At A Time 12" (not sure but it's 2002 and on Champion so, um, garage right?)
Marcia Raven - I Like Plastic 12" (hi-nrg iirc, couldn't resist that title though)
V/A - The Fantastic Sound of Philidelphia comp
Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On (v. clean shiny vinyl but no sleeve, but normally you find trashed copies of this in okay sleeves so...)
Wilhelm Kempf - Schumann: Fantasia in C Major (on Deutsche Grammophon, still shrinkwrapped and with a Harrods(!) price tag)
Randy Newman - Trouble In Paradise (i know i'll probably hate this but it was v. minty so what the hell)

On/Off Topic: When did Sundazed jack up their prices? I just checked into their online store because their doing a 20% off sale, and all their single LP's list for $25 now. It wasn't long ago they were $18 (and yes, that means the new sale price is still higher than the old list).