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

I think all companies should answer their consumer complaints with a form letter that begins with "It fucking sucks when we disappoint our customers"

In a way, bad customer service can be of benefit to a company. It can provide an easy scapegoat in the form of a low-paid phone worker who takes the brunt of the anger and can often use that opportunity to sell the customer on additional services.

Have the VNYL fans been in a record store?

saw a pro-VNYL dude getting aggro on instagram, saying they were great and fuck the hipsters and he'd never seen foghat in a dollar bin.

Hipsters ruin everything. Even things that are doomed from the get-go: Hipsters ruined it.

http://instagram.com/p/2mMCPnDIo3/

happy customer right here:

https://instagram.com/p/2pX5a1vDZq/?tagged=vnyl

what is up with the linda ronstadt and mary travers? good for any occasion, i guess...

https://instagram.com/p/2kECKouMlw/?tagged=vnyl

level with me, scott, do you have any foghat in a discount bin?

pretty sweet looking store...

https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/11150840_1570216133258817_9016011502914235091_n.jpg?oh=222012ac6a830bf7b6ab1a50a0983199&oe=55D1D6EEp

oops...

i'd have to check. i have a two dollar bin near my door. inflation and all that...

Good luck. I've never seen one in there in all my years.

https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/11150840_1570216133258817_9016011502914235091_n.jpg

anyway, their facebook has pictures...

https://www.facebook.com/getvnyl

https://twitter.com/DaleNibbe/status/598811707562065920/photo/1

some of those positive instagram people seem like street teamers...wouldn't doubt it...

for sure

really hard to distinguish between earnest kickstarter supporters and street teamers

i wound up on their 'director of product's instagram last night; she is like, 19, and they are all awful. how does this shit happen

https://scontent-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/11174899_670693216391539_4597169060904868997_n.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tJpElgD.jpg

between this kind of thing and the major labels churning out crappy digital-sourced $30 reissues vinyl is due for its 2nd death any day now. people are so good at ruining fun things.

putting Love Beach in my mailbox is like sending someone anthrax

that big KEEP EM just looks more and more like FUCK YOU to me.

that reminds me, I kinda want a copy of the J. Geils record, I should check my local thrift store

it's a good album

You actually don't need to leave the house to get one now

#keepem sounds an awful lot like "eh, keep 'em, i certainly don't want 'em"

the 2nd death of vinyl cannot come soon enough

i even hate that word "vinyl" and all the fetishism it implies

they're just records, man. in whatever format.

saw a pro-VNYL dude getting aggro on instagram, saying they were great and fuck the hipsters and he'd never seen foghat in a dollar bin.

Hipsters ruin everything. Even things that are doomed from the get-go: Hipsters ruined it.

― austinato (Austin), Friday, May 15, 2015 1:15 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"I've never seen Andres Segovia or Foghat in a bargain bin in all my years, TBH."
I've never seen them in free boxes, my grandma's attic, a church flea market or in a goddamn dumpster either. But those are all very likely places to encounter these records.

someone needs to start working on a way to turn old linda ronstadt records into fuel.

i think that's what neil young's been working on all these years.

a glimpse into one of my two dollar rock sections. to be fair, when people buy stuff i tell them to take a couple of two dollar records on the way out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMC94VXDla0

(having said that, i sell a LOT of two dollar records...)

Scott what are some of the shitty digital-sourced reissues? I wasn't aware of this trend but I'm not surprised either I guess

lots of new vinyl is sourced from CD or digital files! probably most of it.

I guess unless it makes some claim otherwise assume it's digitally sourced

presuming good playability, the Graham Parker, Polecats & Laura Nyro jumped out as good bargains.

#vibes

i'm still loling at the #danceparty peter paul and mary jamz

"If I Had a Hammer (Dubstep RMX)"

it's amusing but also a little sad that some people are still reacting to this as though VNYL attempted to match subscribers' "taste profiles" and failed -- or even trying to imagine some arcane rubric used to decide the contents of the packages they sent out.

they clearly didn't try at all. it is exactly what it seems to be: a randomized assortment of junk-shop records.

if they were actually trying, this might be more interesting.

i'd definitely pick up a copy of that teardrop explodes record

presuming good playability, the Graham Parker, Polecats & Laura Nyro jumped out as good bargains.

And Romeo Void! Hooray!

regarding digital sourcing, from this thread:

S&D: vinyl reissues

I've heard more lately (maybe bc people are more aware) of how lots of cd reissues are nothing more than CD versions copied to wax, basically. like someone said that about the stereolab LPs that just came out in new reissued versions. maybe the recent aphex twin SAW II reissue as well? I was never really aware of that sort of thing. Never really considered it as a possibility.

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, April 16, 2014 8:53 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it is a real bummer and hard to get good info about what's what

I think the only thing you can do abt it is look for "remastered from the original tapes" in the promo hype.

― sleeve, Wednesday, April 16, 2014 9:14 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the fact of the matter is that almost any reissue done by a 3rd party label (i.e. light in the attic, sundazed, etc.) is going to be digitally sourced. the major labels who own most of these records a) may not have the original tapes (we are talking about poorly run bureaucracies managing gigantic catalogs of which they only really care about a small percentage) or b) will absolutely not let them out of their sight. this means having to pay their outrageous in-house engineering and lacquer cutting fees in order to keep the process completely analog. this is the difference between a $18.98 LP on light in the attic and a $40.98 LP on whatever high end audiophile reissue labels still exist...

international titles will throw a whole 'nother wrinkle into this shit, there is no way EMI brazil is sending the original tapes up to the US so that LITA can do marcos valle LP reissues that are 100% analog.

also - and i'm sorry if i sound like a dick but as a dude who has spent 10 years in the reissue game i am kinda tired of having this conversation - there are a LOT of things that can make a LP reissue sound like shit and, yes, a poorly done digitally sourcing job can be one of those things, BUT i would put a LOT of money down that every dude out there that has ever complained on the internet about a digitally sourced reissue would not be able to identify a digital sourcing job vs. an all analog job any better than a coin toss.

― moe handy, Thursday, April 17, 2014 10:50 PM (1 year ago)

hear hear

true story: make one comment on a #vnyl hashtagged IG post where a guy complains about the service and the VNYL head honcho might suddenly follow you

"CD versions copied to wax" sounds like the lamest, but i probably would never be able to tell the difference. worst thing i've experienced about new vinyl is warped records, which has made me generally go back to CDs. CDs don't warp!

my problems have mostly been surface noise related, but I am coming to the same conclusion.