Shady scams and other silly business ideas to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors

I went to the VYNL store and it was so weird. Serious Scientology feeling in there. Chud ass records were sectioned off by "#vibes" and they were selling shit like a Walter Murphy album for $20. Nick Alt was there but he RAN in the back kitchen when he saw I was filming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25BuARcGqn4

Haha this is so great thanks for doing this.

The store definitely creeps me out I had no idea there were so little actual... records in their record... store?

their dollar bin finds are unimaginative garbage

not to defend this company, but god forbid people would want to purchase records because they like them, not because of how much they go for on discogs

a lot of the records they send aren't bad at all but there's no reason someone should pay $25 a month for the privilege of getting some of those records. i think the store sounds pretty typical, there are lots of morons who sell thrift store junk at 10x their value and morons who will buy it, their shady deal is pretending they're curating to your specific tastes when you sign up with them, when they're actually not.

not to defend this company, but god forbid people would want to purchase records because they like them, not because of how much they go for on discogs

people arent buying these because the like them, they are buying them because its sound that happens to exist on a vinyl disc. it absolutely does not matter what is on it. it could be a fucking goodwill tires xmas sampler.

Thank you for vynl reportage c!

their shady deal is pretending they're curating to your specific tastes when you sign up with them, when they're actually not.

― nomar, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 2:26 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and doing so in the cheapest possible way they can by sending records that cost them literally nothing to stock.

there's a record store in my town that is run by a total piece of shit but they do have the best selection and nice employees

anyway the point is that they have a big sign on the side of the building that says "GET PHYSICAL WITH YOUR MUSIC" which never fails to make me nauseous

i wonder what the maximum age you would have to be to actually be awed by the very fact of something "on vinyl".

anyone my age would have grown up with records and they would be NBD.

i worked at a company that did that kinda targeted advertising shit once, pretty standard that they only charge for conversions so if you wanna bleed vnyl dry click it every time

― soyrev, Wednesday, May 20, 2015 1:50 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ been doing this nonstop today

chaki, i appreciate that you actually had the balls to kind of push back against their cultish #vibes b.s. in person.

Yes, especially since she knew you were taping.

lolll nice job chaki. "Vibe system?!" brilliant.

i guess it is kind of a radically new kind of record store i've never been in before, like what if a record store only had as many records as some other kind of store that also has some records someplace, and you just sort of spread them around in concentrated pockets of fancy displays, with vast open space and a suspiciously large staff in between.

not to defend this company, but god forbid people would want to purchase records because they like them, not because of how much they go for on discogs

tbf i don't think anybody brought up discogs to find objective measures of record quality, but to point out that charging $25 for this stuff lathered with Lifestyle Experience cachet is a sickening scam since virtually everyone in america is within a 10-15 minute drive of thrift stores overflowing with crap-to-decent-condition copies of these records. i think it's a GOOD thing that you can find $1-2 copies of uncool 70s/80s records and discover stuff you like about them. i think it's lame, if telling and hilarious, that someone can repackage three of those at random and sell it for $25 by convincing people it's "curated" or something, or i guess by taking it for granted that none of the customers know about thrift stores.

in this sense VNYL is just the latest stage in a long, long evolution of hipster lifestyle choices to where you can have all the trappings of a #hipster, down to desiring "vinyls," without having ever been to a goodwill or a garage sale. used to be the latter kinda came with the territory. not lamenting it i guess - happy to keep the assholes away from my good hunting grounds, and there's nothing inherently authentic or true about going to thrift stores (i would defend the importance of garage sales to my values and life at length but that might need to be another thread) - but it is kinda interesting.

lol thx

http://cdn01.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/maggie-magnificent/maggie-gyllenhaal-peter-sarsgaard-magnificent-seven-12.jpg

maggie g and sarsgaard

nooooooooooooo ;_;
maggie g breakin my heart all over again

she's an idiot

http://boldprogressives.org/2012/09/right-wing-billionaire-wont-back-down/

although to be fair maybe they were there for the same reason as chaki

desiring "vinyls," without having ever been to a goodwill or a garage sale

I can't even wrap my head around this. But I spend all my waking hours on a music nerd discussion forum, so..

people arent buying these because the like them, they are buying them because its sound that happens to exist on a vinyl disc. it absolutely does not matter what is on it. it could be a fucking goodwill tires xmas sampler.

― Cory Sklar, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 11:32 AM (Yesterday)

Totally, this is like a bottom-of-the-barrel parody of "cool" record stores. Like at "cool record stores" you get 80s new wave records and major label free jazz records that were good bargain bin staples marked up to $10. This is bargain bin for a reason stuff that no one is really making any artistic argument for its increase mark up apart from it being a vinyl record.

Think of the demographic of a typical City and Colour fan. They don't know any of these bargain bin records or artists. They know bands like Thursday or Brand New or Childish Gambino. That's what their record collection consists of and they say they're record collectors but when they come across these titles in thrift shops they don't really care or know what they're looking at. But when you filter them through a service where they're packaged with hashtags by people just like them it's suddenly exciting and interesting. And yes, since it's on vinyl it doesn't matter what it is.

Think of the demographic of a typical City and Colour fan.

I'm American, I have no idea what this is.

So now you know who VNYL is for.

people that spell color with a "u" ?

is City and Colour a soccer team

Do people who particularly fetishize the medium prefer things beat-to-hell? Like fake distressed jeans?
Wondering if that's how they spin stuff like this:

https://twitter.com/ddoff/status/606923502571028480

fake distressed jeans tend not to be splitting apart at the seams

actually fake ring wear is the fake distressed denim of vinyl right?

feel like ring wear should be earned

Only saw this thread recently. I'm the guy who posted the thread about Wax & Stamp a while ago (UK one).

Not read the entire thread but a few general questions about ours and similar models: we send out an LP and a 12" single each month for £26 inc. p+p, but we're sending out records that have been released within that month or so. Which if you think an LP costs say £13-16, and a 12" single about £8 (store price that is), then once you've factored in postage, our customers are pretty much getting the two records at what they'd cost to them in the shop. Margin comes from buying direct from the labels (mostly) or distributors (occasionally).

We don't do tailored curation.. We pick a guest selector each month who chooses their favourite release that month, and then we pick another record as well.

Think of the demographic of a typical City and Colour fan.

I'm American, I have no idea what this is.

― let he who has not approved of the ronaldinho bottle opener cast the (sarahell), Thursday, June 11, 2015 1:47 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sorry I guess I'm just mored tuned in and hip, huh. I am also American.

Cory, what was in the "Between the Sheets" section? What was that vibe?

Lady, if you have to ask . . .

desiring "vinyls," without having ever been to a goodwill or a garage sale

The thing is, these records can be found in the used section of record stores, for decent prices (maybe not $1, but close to it, and they're likely to be in better condition). Surely people who want vinyl go to records stores, I mean, that's part of the cool "vinyl" experience.

lol Chaki's video upthread cracking me up.

"why is Wham! dinner party music?"
"I would go to that dinner party!"
"I wouldn't"

where the fuck is this "store"?

Venice, Los Angeles.

it's on Abbot Kinney st. in Venice Beach, CA which is like a super hip rich person's st. re: "btwn the sheets" #vibe it was like "this has a black guy on it!" i think herbie's thrust was in it which is honestly one of the best records of all time imo

she's an idiotactress

fixed

are Walter Murphy records, as seen in chaki's vid, a staple of dollar bins and thrift stores in the US? they are not in the UK (and not just because we don't call them "dollar bins" or "thrift stores") and I would, as they say, buy that for a dollar

(but probably not for $25, no matter how vibe-curated)

i'll bet you could find a walter murphy album at the charity shop or at the car boot sale if you looked hard enough.

since we're talking discogs, the average price of that walter murphy album on that site is $2.58.

average price of a u.k. copy on discogs is $6.18. (which isn't actually the average...it's just the only copy that has sold in recent memory...)

desiring "vinyls," without having ever been to a goodwill or a garage sale

The thing is, these records can be found in the used section of record stores, for decent prices (maybe not $1, but close to it, and they're likely to be in better condition). Surely people who want vinyl go to records stores, I mean, that's part of the cool "vinyl" experience.

― nickn, Thursday, June 11, 2015 1:22 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As I tried to say in my earlier post, the target demo here glazes over when they see these records in the wild or never sees them at all because they shop exclusively in the new section of a store or Urban Outfitters. It helps to have "cool people" "curate" these records for them to make them excited. Suddenly what would otherwise be an anonymous beat up old record in a bin is now special and personalized regardless of what the content is.

did you guys know he did the theme to family guy

I do now

Chaki's "I wouldn't" comment cracked me up too

i found out when i watched yr video this morning!

I wouldn't have thought there were enough people who "want to be into vinyl" without doing any of the things people into vinyl do to form a business model around. Good for the scammers, then.

My brother worked at Guitar Center for a long time, and he said there was a large portion of their clientele that seemed to want to have an electric guitar as a lifestyle accessory rather than any love of making music, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

a large portion of their clientele that seemed to want to have an electric guitar as a lifestyle accessory

^^^ these guys keep guitar stores in business (as opposed to, say, drum stores). It's really weird the number of people I know who own guitar(s) and never, ever play them.

it's the thought that counts.