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

From what I can tell, De Luxe is a new, potentially unsigned, band that's given Vnyl promos.

amazing

xp $.54 for the cd. it's a respectable $4 for the 12". Only 100% markup? a #vnylscore!

The 12" single play makes a lot of sense for #vnyl b/c a) like the chud they've been sending out, 90s singles are fairly plentiful at thrifts or wherever they're sourcing this stuff and b) millenial record noobs could very well get excited about something like an I Believe I Can Fly 12" (16 for sale from $1.95 - discogs). This guy is a genius.

Yes 90s singles are everywhere. I am kicking myself daily for passing up a Destiny's Child vinyl I saw a month ago. It was less than $2!

Well I did get quite excited a few months ago when I found a copy of the 12" single for En Vogue's My Lovin for a dollar at my local thrift store amongst the usual Barbra Streisand and Nana Mouskouri albums.

En Vogue's My Lovin for a dollar at my local thrift store amongst the usual Barbra Streisand and Nana Mouskouri albums

It'll still get sold to venture capitalists anyway.

Very true. Very asinine.

i got 4 out of 6 on this using built in laptop speakers. nice to know i'm not deaf. definitely heard differences that were small.

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

ha, my sister just sent me that link this morning, have not tried it yet

https://instagram.com/p/3K4rK0JnUB/

https://twitter.com/Bluelissa/status/603397177977622528

oof: https://instagram.com/p/213M0_royx/

The De Lux thing might be even sleazier than sending people dollar bin albums?

so gross...

What's sad is that people use this to argue that they don't just send worthless dollar records. "See? I got this new record too! Checkmate, naysayers!"

i still think those people are phony people though.

they read phony anyway. HEY GUYS, LOOK WHAT I GOT, YAY!

boz scaggs record is legit awesome, but that copy looked a little busted.

has anyone actually /listened/ to that 'de luxe' album?

https://instagram.com/p/3K4rK0JnUB/

― Frank 4ad (NickB), Wednesday, June 3, 2015 11:46 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For example, Chris needs to be told that there is a catch to this:

chrisparlamas
@getghost00 I've never seen anyone get a new album
chrisparlamas
@getghost00 if I see a trend. I'll get the Service back

rmde

On the topic of figuring out when to own music outside of her three-year old Spotify subscription, my friend Lola Pellegrino, 28, cites one of the few non-digital purchases she's made in the past five years: a Neutral Milk Hotel vinyl box set. "The sixteen-year-old fangirl was in my head when I saw the $110 box set and she was whispering, 'Buy it ... for us,'" she says of the purchase. "I think it's worth noting that when I bought it, I didn't own a record player and I still don't own one. I have never listened to it, but I don't regret buying it, either."

Amanda Knochel ‏@knochel_head · Jun 2
I Believe in Music- Mac Davis. It's like @getvnyl just understands me. #vnyl #vinyl

http://www.discogs.com/sell/item/243136688

That box set is sold out and already going for $300, probably the most sensible vinyl purchase on this thread.

https://twitter.com/Bluelissa/status/603397177977622528

― Frank 4ad (NickB), Wednesday, June 3, 2015 3:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That mailer costs more than that record.

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