Vinyl records make a return

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.