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

for real !!

bated breath

hoping it's just three pairs of multi-colored socks

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

Def Jef! now there's a name I haven't heard in a loooooong time, think I used to have a 12" by him.

seriously! apparently after 1991 he just moved to production full time.

Wow! Didn't think you'd actually do the vid. Seeing that, I bet Vnyl has got people contacting stores and grabbing up their vintage RSD stuff, which I imagine is better than their thrift store sweeps of yore.

lol - I was bored and wanted to delay my disappointment a little longer. was kinda hoping for something dopier!

you are probably right. i looked up the vinyl online and it's not exactly highly sought after!

awesome video, thanks for sharing. you should do more, you’re most definitely a not terrible youtuber !

gonna cue up some masta ace later today

thanks for sharing!

i have to assume that they buy these things in lots, and everyone with "hip hop" in their spreadsheet has a chance of getting this one at some point. take pity on the VNYL intern who has to handwrite the same note ("INSERT RAP ACT MENTIONED BY CUSTOMER") three hundred times.

Listened to the Kenyatta track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isg_KABU9XY

and it's alright, but missing several of the elements that made the original so appealing to others

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8OZux6hp1Q

you are probably right. i looked up the vinyl online and it's not exactly highly sought after!

― XVI Pedicabo eam (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 5 August 2020 02:57 (ten hours ago) link

My experience is that there is a huge gulf between the actually desirable RSD offerings (good luck getting those) and the loads of crap offered on RSD that you continue to see sealed in bargain bins for years afterward.

yeah, when I used to go to our local record store after RSD, there'd be an entire rack for "RSD shit that nobody bought". I mean it didn't say that explicitly but ~we knew~

yup, ime it's often live albums by mid-level bands

lol otm. i usually used to poke around and see if any of them were good byes and....usually no, I could often tell why they didn't sell.

with the Delicious Vinyl one, its p obviously a niche release, so for next month, I've decided i'm going to troll and tell them my new favorite band is something they can't possibly find a pairing for.

so give your suggestions here for what shit band I should pretend to like next month.

Moxy Früvous?

wrong kind of smash hits

I bought some stuff from LITA earlier this year and they were giving away one of their past RSD releases with orders over a certain amount. They must have piles of them laying around.

It's very much "get this shit out my garage"

great video Neanderthal! :D

yes, excellent work!

I always feel in Neanderthal's videos like I am on the floor, lying on my back looking up at him. And maybe that I shouldn't be—like something has gone wrong, I am maybe semiconscious or it is near the end.

haha it's more that I use my phone and am terrible at angling. like how you never actually saw the vinyl's full title in a shot, or how you all got a glimpse of the record before I did :)

I posted a soccer celebration video from a match last year and my girlfriend at the time said EWW ALL I SAW WAS YOUR NOSEHAIRS

Hahaha. I'd watch more of those, Neanderthal! I spent most of the first couple of minutes trying to work out what t-shirt you were wearing. Cool shirt.

completely forgot to place my order for the next month. oh well. I did curated again.

never played the record they sent me, in fact I stole the sleeve from it for a picture disc that was sent to me inexplicably without one.

This seems a strange way to use money.

Surprises by mail tho.

We could organize a physical music swap where everyone sends and gets a thing. Only if we're all committed to writing related drink recipes, of course.

it's $15/month, and as maffew says, the idea of a surprise record by mail is kinda fun even if the first one was meh. if the second one they give me is a dud, though, I'll probably peace out.

But isn't actually *playing* the record an integral part of the experience?

I mean, I planned to, but...mood hasn't struck me

current mood: buyer's remorse.

i keed, i keed.

maybe not the thread but man it's infuriating to have your local store run out of the RSD release you wanted and then come home and find a dozen copies on eBay for 3x the price

Yeah I was excited about the reissue of this one Windows96 album last month, but then it sold out on the day of release. A few eBay listings popped up for it the same day. 6 copies on Discogs right now starting at $60. Bah sharks. Lifestyle accessories.

nice to see that rsd maintains the same old shittiness as years past in this, the shittiest of years.

This year my local began publicly announcing their previously-unspoken policy of everything unsold gets posted for online flipping at noon. Why bother opening the store at all?

I did see one store stayed closed on Saturday, stock went to online at 6

(as in didn't open on sat but was on Fri, etc)

Yeah stores like that should be banned from getting any stock in the future though I guess i can’t get too mad at them considering they probably really do need the money

I get the appeal of exclusivity and collectability but like this culture of “here’s something you want, it’s $10 more than you want to pay and you’ve got an hour to pull the trigger, otherwise good luck ever finding a copy again motherfucker” kinda sucks imo

it's "gig economy" philosophy applied to actual merchandise and it's one of the most astonishing displays of dystopian capitalism i've ever witnessed.

but yaaay. . . . records. . . and stuff. . .

Exploiting FOMO

I just wish they’d make 12x12 album cover prints for the chumps that buy new vinyl for decoration or whatever

Hell, just print a bunch of empty jackets, could probably still charge the same

when cds were initially a thing i wrote to rough trade saying that the first two i'd bought were two of theirs and that i missed the full-sized covers and then sent the relevant vinyl sleeves (Reading Writing & Arithmetic, Smith's first)

(then = they)

I picked up a copy of the Robyn on Sunday. The store owner said I should keep an eye on it because last year’s release is now going for stupid $.

Yesterday on Reddit I got into it with a flipper who “bought too many copies” and then “ran into some unexpected expenses” & they ended up deleting the post. At the same time there was another person abjectly looking for a copy cause all their area stores were sold out, & I ended up selling them my copy at cost — they are an uber-fan and I’m not. They seem like a genuinely lovely person & I'm glad this record is going to make them happy.

Artificial scarcity sucks — there’s no reason they shouldn’t press as many Robyn records as the market can bear. 2000? I mean, Songs for Drella is being pressed in a run of 8000, FFS.

It's disgusting to watch at this point, imo. The wrong aspects of RSD are the only ones that matter at this point and it really disappoints me. I've said it before, but I wish RSD had focused more on just the idea of celebrating record stores - a coordinated, nationwide day where stores can open early, bring in bands, serve pizza/beer (or however they may want to celebrate!) and take a page from Comic Book Day - just print up 4 of 5 different "novelty" 7"s each year in such quantities that everyone who walks in the door gets one for free.

I mean, Songs for Drella is being pressed in a run of 8000, FFS.

Say what? I just bought a scuffed copy on Discogs!

Oh okay it was still cheaper than the RSD version (which Rough Trade is pressing in a run of 750)

I've always been basically sympathetic to RSD and the artificial scarcity and markups since the whole idea is to subsidize record stores - when I used to go I didnt mind coughing up for marked-up exclusives since I saw it as basically tipping the store. But its just weird to see stores getting more and more open about flipping their own RSD stock online right away and not caring as much about getting local foot traffic into the store. Obviously theres a pandemic this year so theres also that concern, but I wonder if it will get more common in the coming years.

Yeah the flipping seems way more prevalent this year. I wonder if the pandemic is making it harder to track/punish the stores that do that - weren't the stores that did this to lose access to the following year's titles? But I've seen lots of examples of stores being pretty blatant about it.

I've seen commentary from, and talked to, record store owners that push pretty hard both for and against the day. It seems like the day works better in the bigger cities, but maybe not so much for shops in smaller markets. I can't remember where the store was, but I saw something on Twitter a few weeks ago from an owner saying he eventually gave up on RSD because the razor thin profit margins on the exclusive titles wasn't worth all the angry/obnoxious customers he dealt with for the two weeks prior and two weeks after the day itself.

Oh okay it was still cheaper than the RSD version (which Rough Trade is pressing in a run of 750)

― Just a few slices of apple, Servant. Thank you. How delicious. (stevie)