Buying Vinyl?

About 41 million vinyl albums were sold in 2022, compared with about 33 million CDs, RIAA said in its year-end report released Thursday.

The figures contributed to another banner year for the music industry. Sales of recorded music rose 6% to a record $15.9 billion last year...

Revenue from vinyl records rose 17% to over $1.2 billion last year, the 16th straight year of growth for the format and nearly double what it was two years ago. Vinyl albums accounted for 71% of physical format revenue

Wild development

yeah but

https://public.tableau.com/static/images/U_/U_S_RecordedMusicSalesVolumesbyFormat_0/SalesVolumebyFormat/1_rss.png

I read that vinyl sales were actually down if you correct for sales of mdnights

I'd believe that

So if I'm interpreting this correctly, the # of units went down but the revenue went up, so (and sorry if I'm being obvious) the conclusion is that vinyl prices went up significantly...? I'd believe that. I rarely see new vinyl under $20 nowadays. Mostly $23 to $33 (which seems crazy to me) for a single disc.

yes it actually averages out to $30 per LP, I read elsewhere, which is just staggering to me

CDs in the nineties were regularly 15-18, which adjusted for inflation is in the $35+ zone. Do it’s not crazy but the issue is that nobody’s income has kept up with inflation. This post inspired by the bodega charging $10 for a 12 pack of lacroix.

I think Universal (?) raised their vinyl pricing across the board, so naturally everyone else followed suit. 2LP releases routinely hang around the $40 mark now, if we're talking major label stuff (indies seem to have agreed on $30 as the mark to hit there).

I'm sure the costs actually have risen in some areas of the manufacturing process, but A LOT of that is bloat.

Wow, dang. Yeah, good point about inflation. I feel like it's even hard to find used vinyl under $15 except for: classical (which has always been generally inexpensive), jazz (except for Miles, Coltrane, etc.), and avant-garde that's off people's radar (e.g. not NWW list stuff). The best luck I've had lately is finding some great but lesser known $5-$8 jazz records (someone got rid of their Altschul collection! Score!).

I don’t think I ever paid $18 for a (non-import) CD though, even if that was the theoretical upper-limit retail price.

FWIW, I was talking to a friend's parents about CD's, and he said he used to get them for about $3 or $4 per title by buying them in bulk through CD music clubs. I think this had to be the '90s?

I remember this. If you did the absolute minimum for the BMG club (buy one CD at normal price), and maximize all the "free" CDs you get (you had to pay for shipping), yes, the average cost per CD was around $4. Sign up, do the minimum, cancel, repeat. They had some amazing deals on boxed sets, like the Miles Davis ones. They were counting on lots of people not bothering to cancel their subscriptions in a timely manner or not accepting their monthly selection (which you could refuse and return to sender, for free, but many people probably didn't know that), which apparently worked out for them.

That's such a half-assed business model - we're banking on subscribers forgetting or being too lazy - but I feel like that's the business model for a lot of things (i.e. it does actually play out that way). Look at TV ratings - they always talk about "lead-in" as if viewers were too lazy to turn off the TV or to even change the channel.

How much were those Columbia Records “The Nice Price” CDs? Like 8 bucks?

I did the BMG and/or Columbia House thing a couple of times — this was 1994-95. After I got my 8 CDs for a penny (or 12 for the price of one), I sent back the postcard saying, “Please send all future deliveries to [address in Europe].” They’d write back saying, “Sorry, we don’t ship there, but enjoy your CDs!” I got the Ray Charles 3CD Atlantic set, the Count Basie Decca set, and many other things I don’t recall offhand but still have.

As for its business model, record clubs were a notorious way for major labels to hide or otherwise just flat-out lie to artists about sales. There’s a reason the barcodes on LPs, cassettes, and CDs sold by record clubs were replaced by “mfd for BMG direct marketing in ____” or whatever.

Yeah, IIRC club CD's were considered promotional CD's. Like there's a line item in the budget for every major label release specifically for promotional discs, and if you were green you figured it was only the cost of pressing and mailing discs to media/press for review. It was really that and any copies sold through record/CD clubs, which means ZERO royalties to the artist.

Should have searched first - a good article on clubs:

https://www.spin.com/2021/06/cd-clubs-columbia-house-bmg/

Clubs became famous for jiving even the artists whose music made them rich. All featured acts were paid reduced publishing and royalty rates on the claim that placement in company catalogs was billable advertising — this, while clubs paid the artists’ labels full rates. Such royalty shakedowns were a precursor to the floss-thin rates streaming services currently pay musicians.

Piotr Olov, a former content strategist for Columbia House, recalls, “The labels would get this enormous advance against all this product. And then, of course, that advance didn’t slide down the hill to the artists. The royalty rates were a percentage of what even the crappy major label royalty rates were at the time…basically, it is so Spotify, it’s a joke.”

There’s a good (IIRC) documentary made by a guy working at Columbia House in the early ‘90s – The Target Shoots First.

How much were those Columbia Records “The Nice Price” CDs? Like 8 bucks?

$9.99 or $10.99 was typical during the '90s, maybe a dollar more at a mall chain store. Sony also had a "Best Value" line, which was more mid-price ($11.99/$12.99) and WEA's Super Saver Series was about the same as that. Most back catalog titles on majors (basically anything from before the CD era) were in these tiers, but there were exceptions (The Beatles, of course).

CDs in the nineties were regularly 15-18, which adjusted for inflation is in the $35+ zone. Do it’s not crazy but the issue is that nobody’s income has kept up with inflation. This post inspired by the bodega charging $10 for a 12 pack of lacroix.

― ian, Saturday, 11 March 2023 17:22 (yesterday) link

i remember when my small town record store was selling the newly released weezer green album for 20.99 and did a hard no. those were the last few years where you could still scoop up used copies of a well regarded albums for a couple of bucks.

If you think about it, this record club was kind of a precursor to all the monthly digital subscriptions you have now, where they hope you sign up and then forget and pay the man $9.95 a month into infinity.

I looked into working at the Columbia House warehouse back in the 90s until I found out they tested and knew that was not going to work out. It paid pretty good for that kind of work and I knew a couple people that worked there going to IU.

physical media is a niche these days and press runs are much smaller so i don't bemoan the pricing. re. columbia house i tend to avoid anything with CRC on it because who knows where/how it was pressed.

I still think it's wild that the record clubs were still pressing vinyl up into the '90s, and there are actual club editions of, like, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins albums that are heavy collectibles now.

They were still selling 8-tracks through 1988.

You haven't heard Nothing's Shocking until you've heard it on 8-track!

https://i.discogs.com/0Fv6M4WWnviAsjyOYSrSbBBlvOj_-lK8r7cWDVhFe00/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:767/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE1NjQy/MzYyLTE1OTUwODQw/MjItMzk0OC5qcGVn.jpeg

how accurate are soundscan numbers for vinyl? just given a much higher percentage sold through indie stores that, at least years ago, didn't report

do Bandcamp sales count?

Bandcamp does report to Soundscan per their site

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/05/man-who-made-12m-from-fake-vinyl-records-caught-out-by-clash-fan

haha yes I saw that earlier today. I don't understand how he was manufacturing them! Aren't all the pressing plants backed up for years? Was he making acetates? Buying from some established counterfeiting group? So many questions.

"Some of these bootleggers, they make pretty good stuff."

I don't understand how he was manufacturing them! Aren't all the pressing plants backed up for years? Was he making acetates? Buying from some established counterfeiting group? So many questions.

― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve)

welcome to the chaos that went through my head as i read this.
also, a low quality clash pressing gave the game away !?
of all the bands to be able to do a quality check on.

Aren't all the pressing plants backed up for years?

The backup is now down to between 6 months and one year, depending on the plant and the order. But apparently there are pressing plants that will happily process an order from some rando who emailed them MP3s of Nevermind.

Bootleg pressings take up so much of the new reissue stock at a lot of record stores around here, and they’re pretty easy to spot. Not to mention “legit” bootlegs that could be found on plain recordings/4 men with beards/etc. With the really blatant illegal bootlegs, the stores must know what they are and they just don’t care.

the thing is, i knew i was buying bootleg cd editions of Brainfreeze via Fopp when i had the chance, given how rare the originals were.
but with a cd, it mattered not.
whereas with vinyl, i guess its a very different ballgame.

idk man I know for sure there are some boot CDs that are MP3-sourced (e.g. Muslimgauze "Chapter Of Purity")

ooh, god yeah, i have had that re soulwax mashup boots that sound truly 128 dreadful.
but the Brainfreeze boots that were available via Fopp looked very legit, and sounded great.
guess its easier if you have an original cd as source given there is a lot less chaos in the process as opposed to vinyl.

I think there are some plants where if you have a good relationship with them they can turn stuff around fairly quickly...like within a month or two. 100% Electronica for example does a ton of small run pressings and from what I've heard a lot of it is on pretty short notice. So I guess it IS possible if you've got someone on the inside.

The article makes it sound like he was buying stock from European bootleggers, not having the albums pressed himself.

i think this is the first time I've seen the phrase "told to wear a tag" for house arrest
i had to look this up. at first i thought he had to wear a nametag or something like "BOOTLEGGER"

The Scarlet Letter, but it says "VG-"

lol

Electronica for example does a ton of small run pressings and from what I've heard a lot of it is on pretty short notice. So I guess it IS possible if you've got someone on the inside.

I have long wondered about this and have even asked a few people who I would expect would be in the know but no one seems to have an answer. I see bands on social media complaining about waiting a year for test pressings but I feel like there are 75 new dance 12"s on Boomkat, Hardwax and Bleep every three days. And I'm assuming that the cost is more or less the same to press a 300 12"s as 300 LPs, or at least the difference is negligible as far as mastering and plating and test pressings and all that stuff. I buy a lot of house and techno so I'm not complaining, and if there is indeed a conspiracy or secret EDM handshake taking place I'm willing to look the other way, but it still seems odd to me. Kidding about the conspiracy, of course. Any theories? A lot of dance labels are based in Europe and the UK so maybe the plants are more plentiful or at least more accessible over there? I really have no idea!

The Sound of Vinyl site appears to be having a sale in which LPs are $8 total. They are listed as free but shipping is $8 and I don't think you can combine shipping. Found out about this from the Hoffman forums. A lot of the PJ Harvey reissues are included in this.

https://thesoundofvinyl.us/collections/1lp?q=&hPP=30&idx=official_products_price_asc&p=0&is_v=1&fbclid=PAAab7tOr1NeaoH4bAv-I3-t3WmPqmtp8fJUkdoWJqTTawZdQoLOCmuhCYIow_aem_th_ATdsdxFfyjLKXr5QlvRxwaglZp6G1HVdzBew44IORkb6_Gy5d8ZLnHvXAlxk_k83gHY

yeah it's been funky - sometimes you can't add an album to the cart, or sometimes you add it to the cart then it disappears, they are probably getting slammed i'm sure.

was finally able to process a transaction, picked up the PJ Harvey 91-04 Peel Sessions collection for $8 - pretty awesome

Yeah similarly I grabbed the Stories from the City Stories from the Sea - Demos. A lot of her demos LPs are cheap on discogs but not free + shipping. That's a pretty aggressive sale but I assume they figure it gets peoples attention and drives awareness for their online shop? "free records + shipping" is more likely to spread word of mouth than "cheap records + shipping" so I kind of get it, if that's what they're doing.

It took a lot of messing-around (adding and removing items) because things would disappear, but if I added enough I could get two 'free' albums in my cart and pay $8 total shipping for the order. Placed 7 orders like that, so 14 albums for $56 total, a couple of them double LPs even. I mostly got PJ Harvey reissues/demos, a few jazz reissues, the last Avalanches album and some hip-hop (Jeezy, Eve,PE).

had no clue that Avalanches album was on there, that's definitely worth the eight bucks