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

"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.

the big problem is even if they were honest, what can they possibly get someone after they've taken their profit cut and paid for shipping and handling? they really should charge $75-$100 per month and send out more expensive records and honestly it should be limited to new releases or reissues. "oh you like these bands, well here are four new releases from June that you'll dig." of course that would require them knowing something about music and beyond the dollar bin scam part they obviously aren't even trying, as Austin said.

now thanks to clicking on their dumb site my facebook is wall to wall vnyl ads.

at least now they are wasting a little bit of their ill gotten gains advertising to a bunch of people who will never buy the product.

Howard the Duck soundtrack fucking rules.

― turlte party (how's life), Thursday, May 14, 2015 5:15 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes it does! I listened to it twice tonight!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekofx7dR4AY

I somehow appreciate the boldness of not even giving their charter subscribers at least one good record to get them to come back the next month.

fell down a rabbit hole last night researching vnyl and looking up irate customers. it's all very entertaining. apparently this nick alt guy doesn't even half-heartedly apologize to misled customers anymore, blocks anyone who voices polite criticism, and has 4x the fake followers ott does.

also amusing that he chooses the "we decided we don't give a fuck" defense over something like "we didn't know about that law and therefore can't deliver our originally planned service now." can't someone complain to the kickstarter cops?

They're prob p under-resourced

if that's possible after they raised almost 4x their kickstarter goal to provide a service less than half as involved/cost-intensive as the one customers thought they were buying...well...

I meant the Kickstarter cops

oh true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCnouXJ2rl4

"This Glenn Miller album should kick off the mood and we think Peter, Paul and Mary will go great in your stash!"

Love the curator notes.

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)

― katherine, Thursday, May 14, 2015 9:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, not to worry. I'm sure that as long as it's a dollar record (at most) they don't discriminate. In fact, there appears to be no logic at all in their "curation" beyond that one rule.

Not vinyl, but got twitter spam this morning on the "lifestyle products for guys" version of this silliness. Bespoke Post will send you, each month, a "Box of Awesome." A curated box of crap. Hell, maybe there will be vinyl in it one month. Never know! Sign up!

https://www.bespokepost.com/land/sem-bespoke/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand&utm_content=bespoke-post&utm_term=bespoke%20post&gclid=CJjt3dyDxMUCFc4kgQodKDAAPA

And, xp, gotta thank WFMU's Fabio for driving "Mr. Giant Man" into my brain and inspiring me to find that record.

think it was said but I love that these guys think that 'curate' means 'tell you what vinyl we included in your package and vaguely tell you we love some album'.

"Just dug through your Discogs, saw you like many of the same musical performance acts as I currently like! Hope you enjoy the Peter Frampton, Santana, and Ambrosia records! That Ambrosia albums is one of my personal favorites!"

Bespoke Post will send you, each month, a "Box of Awesome."

At least you can skip a box if you don't like the contents.

fell down a rabbit hole last night researching vnyl and looking up irate customers. it's all very entertaining. apparently this nick alt guy doesn't even half-heartedly apologize to misled customers anymore, blocks anyone who voices polite criticism, and has 4x the fake followers ott does.

― soyrev, Friday, 15 May 2015 05:58 (10 hours ago) Permalink

Dude has a brick & mortar store on Abbot Kinney now what does he care

wow, i signed up for VYNL's sister service, FUD, and here was my first shipment!:

http://downtrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ctofis2.jpg

amazing! they really nailed my taste.