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

the best part of the kickstarter economy part of the story is that nobody bothered to see if pay-for-records is legal, so it's now technically pay-for-whatever

the fact that they have no actual curation and it's just backstock and secondhand garbage is icing

Quoting the owner:

“It fucking sucks when we disappoint our members. We honestly feel incredibly sad when a member doesn’t like what we sent. That sucks for them and also for us. It’s like you just spent all this time planning out what you think is an awesome surprise gift idea for someone and then they can’t mask the look of disappointment when they open it up right in front of you. It’s completely deflating. Unfortunately, this comes with the territory of being a human curated service."

I imagine in the back of his mind he's thinking: "Nailed it! Just got to stay in character, then nobody can call us out! It's all subjective, I'll say. As long as enough r/vinyl or Urban Outfitters type kids keep subscribing we should be just fine."

If this was mine I'd just buy the contents of a record store that is going out of business with the kickstarter money and pay someone to put four random records that aren't too beat up in an envelope monthly

that'd be like a half-dozen kids working minimum wage for a couple days per month maximum right?

https://media.wnyc.org/media/photologue/images/a7/yourfavoritexmas3_firestone722.jpg

My #XmasVibes arrived! Nice clean copy. No flood damage!

^
Might be U.S.-centric

I'm genuinely at a loss for words after reading the whole Stereogum story.

And a long, disappointed sigh at "kickstarter economy."

guys, the people getting burned are college kids and their moms. it'll be ok

haha, my grandparents had that Firestone record.

Ah, the days when major corporations had their own orchestras.

i think gotvnyl retweeted a couple of zings they took at face value

https://twitter.com/aalupului/status/598895797841895424

psst if you're actually looking for #XmasVibes this is my family's go-to thrift-store-level christmas record and it rules:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91dwOvGB6TL._SX355_.jpg

if people are happy with the vinyl unearthed by vnyl's dig squad, well then i'm happy for them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEhGU3m3Ok

Each box comes with an exclusive 7” vinyl, digital mixtape, three seasonal recipes, ingredients, and tasting notes. One past Pairing Box included recipes for simple tomato pizza with fennel pollen and clam, pancetta and arugula pizza paired with music by Local Natives.

pizza delivered to your door, what will they think of next

wow thnx Vnyl!

http://eil.com/images/main/Jane-Olivor-Chasing-Rainbows-507207.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81qqA4Z0UUL._SX355_.jpg

http://cdn.discogs.com/osmx-dv2q_8kkEG9xTuIP5JwBf0=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb()/discogs-images/R-3524427-1334069248.gif.jpg

why are all these twitter people bragging about how they got suckered

i think gotvnyl retweeted a couple of zings they took at face value

Again, Gotvnyl is the parody account. They probably did that purposefully.

I hadn't realized that regarding Doug Martsch earlier. They got me.

ok. wax and stamp : last blog post : 18th dec 2014.

guess there was no kickstarter funding behind it then.

personally, i find this whole idea weird, but i am not target audience.
i dig in the bins (cd, not scratchy vinyl !), and so, i don't need anyone else to help, but for those that do not have the time nor patience, then this sounds rather fun.
that said, £30 a month is proper bonkers.
if i was wanting a "digging in the vinyl bins" service, then it would have to be a tenner a month, max.

and yes, i know that would mean a constant supply of ray coniff/james last records, but hey ..

Howard the Duck soundtrack fucking rules.

If they sent me the GOOD James Last record (Voodoo-Party) I'd be pretty stoked. But it wouldn't be that one.

"What happened to vinyl fans being diggers?"

most young/new vinyl buyers do NOT want to dig. they just want that old Smiths record right where they can see it as soon as they walk into a store.

Some enjoy targeted ads. It's nuts out there.

Looks like they're not even hiding where they're getting their records from:
http://t.co/7y4ONBMhaW

xxp In that case I'm going to start a new subscription service where, for a £45 fee per month (non-refundable), we not only select for our customers three random LPs a month, but we also don't send them out and instead listen to them for you as well!

If they sent me the GOOD James Last record (Voodoo-Party) I'd be pretty stoked

recently released :

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71FQHV19zeL._SL1200_.jpg

highly recommended.

Howard the Duck soundtrack fucking rules

yeah, I honestly think that someone who sent me a copy of that record really would have nailed my #vibe exactly

not that cheap on discogs tbh

Whoa whoa whoa, there's a good James Last album?!

yup.

tis very balaeric ..

in an easy kind of groove of course .. not scanda-electronica ..

a lazy saturday kinda of groove?

shady saturdays are the best.

Those folks at VNYL really should have considered throwing a #Balaeric vibe in there.

the james last album that andrew mentioned is great! it's called voodoo party and has this awesome song on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTH4aIqhunI

^^^^
soo good.
why the crappy compilations/boxsets when there are such wonderful albums as this !

I can't imagine what it must be like to work for VNYL. I feel like I couldn't physically bring myself to send out one of those packages, let alone handwrite a note about how I much I hope you, valued subscriber and fellow Beach House fan, appreciate these Lionel Richie and Michael Quatro albums.

I do have to wonder, though--what kinds of records did people think they'd be getting three of for $25 a month? Do people not realize that records tend to shoot up in price really fast as soon as they're (a) halfway decent and (b) not ubiquitous? And that halfway-decent, non-ubiquitous records are sufficiently scarce that sending three of them out to hundreds if not thousands of subscribers for a modest price every month is basically impossible?

Not that that justifies sending out crummy dollar-bin staples, which is really impressively shameless.

That's what the kickstarter economy calls for, I suppose.

LMAO

http://i.imgur.com/YwPGHL6.png

LOOOOOOOL

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CE7XG6LWgAAjWAn.jpg

Ugh. They're not even trying.

Too funny.

When you click on #danceparty on the site, it takes you to a Spotify playlist that contains no Glenn Miller, no Henry Mancini and no Peter Paul and Mary.

Nor anything even remotely similar.

I mentioned this elsewhere but I am not surprised that these people start a special vinyl curation service and the only woman they can find to curate, based on the article, is linda ronstadt (maybe jefferson airplane counts, plus whatever that 70s comp was perhaps)

I guess it all goes back to: if it sounds too good to be true, then it is.

"let alone handwrite a note about how I much I hope you, valued subscriber and fellow Beach House fan, appreciate these Lionel Richie and Michael Quatro albums."

i don't really know beach house music, but i really do like that michael quatro album! i even wrote about it for the Pitchfork Review. but, yeah, it's a total dollar album. which is why i wrote about it for my dollar bin column.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Iu6xDUvCY

That's awesome that you dig it, scott.

But come on. Can you imagine any band described as 'dream pop' having anything remotely in common with Michael Quatro?

just the site itself is so dumb. beware of the whole "minimal" web design thing with minimal info. they don't want to have to explain anything to anyone. half-baked kickstarter dumbness.

if they were gonna be cool or hip they would have genres or moods or VIBEZ you could click on and they could have rotating stock of good records and you could just choose 3 albums based on covers or clips or whatever. and pay 20 bucks for three records actually worth 20 bucks. and 40 bucks for some better stuff and so on. people do like to browse online. but a site like that would have to be curated by people who knew what they were doing. and then the guest curator thing would actually make sense. (some hip DJ or band-person could pick 20 or 30 albums that they like from the site's stock and they could highlight those once a week. first come first served. could be a mess, but at least it would be some sorta interesting use of the web. and if they had the money they could highlight indie labels, etc.)

the "surprise" thing is totally dumb unless you are some sort of genius.

I'M certainly no genius either, but there are fun ways to sell things to people that aren't totally obnoxious.

i have only ever made records by physically going somewhere and having lacquers cut, which you then would mail off to be plated. it always seemed to me like the places where you sent files w/ music and art were weird because surely you'd end up with a disappointing product? or maybe i'm just too cynical about the QC at these kinds of places, although this story . . .

iirc, CZ does direct metal masters

i'm not saying it's not legit, nor do i think my caveman process is the only way. but i've only ever been able to make it happen by doing as much as i possibly could myself

plus it's more fun that way

I won't go as far as calling it a shady scam, but I can't image why anyone would want to listen to Feldman's String Quartet II, an extremely long and quiet piece, on vinyl. Any tiny flaw, pop, or crackle will likely be louder than the music, and you have to switch sides every 25 minutes. Oh, and the label only offers this recording on vinyl - no CD, download, or streaming. (Luckily there are two other recordings of the piece out there).

https://www.discogs.com/release/14771547-Morton-Feldman-Pellegrini-Quartet-String-Quartet-II