Vinyl Me Please Anthology

Dtknuckles said:
True, but is could be their reality. They may get more complaints about female artists. Most record buyers are male and may identify with music made by males more.
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I think Storf mentioned people were being blatantly sexistand racist, or using the next level of insults like “rap is not really music” on their social media and support email. Not that the records didn’t sell, so therefore people are backwards. I’m sure they have to delete a bunch of shit, because a bunch of people are sexist, racist pieces of shit.
 
One rambling thought I have about this is how the “secret” concept isn’t just sleazy marketing, but also doesn’t honor the female artists by withholding the praise behind a steep paywall. Not very egalitarian in their sharing of information, and for Motown not very smart as they’re missing out on the additional streaming revenue that a public podcast or even just promotion would provide. They’re not rewriting the canon for the masses, just for the 1% if their customers who plan on buying the box. Really why there is always a sharp line between curation by non-profit institutes as a means of education, and “curation” as a business model and a means to profit.
 
wmeugene said:
They’ve intonated on the old forum and reddit that they get complaints from customers when there are female artists in the RHH sub. I take that as backhanded complaints from them about sales.
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I get where you are coming from and I agree if they blame this box not selling the same as blue note on it being female artists it will be ridiculous.

However, Storf seemed to genuinely lament the fact that Nina Simone not only never sold out, but that he got angry emails about it being chosen, and it is without question an essential in my opinion, unlike some sold out classics. So, I don't think observations that records by women didn't sell as well were necessarily misconstruing anything.
 
zombie.modernist said:
One rambling thought I have about this is how the “secret” concept isn’t just sleazy marketing, but also doesn’t honor the female artists by withholding the praise behind a steep paywall. Not very egalitarian in their sharing of information, and for Motown not very smart as they’re missing out on the additional streaming revenue that a public podcast or even just promotion would provide. They’re not rewriting the canon for the masses, just for the 1% if their customers who plan on buying the box. Really why there is always a sharp line between curation by non-profit institutes as a means of education, and “curation” as a business model and a means to profit.
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The real progressive move is to make a Motown box and just call it a Motown box--then send all women. They don't mind not telling people what they're getting so why specify all women? Also some of the language they're using is borderline weird... not sexist, just the sort of grey area shit you wouldn't say about men. "Honoring these dynamos" for example, imagine saying that about dudes? I think it's a good thing to do this box and I don't want to take that away from them, I just don't think companies deserve too much praise for doing women centric stuff every like 1/100 times they put something out.
 
I also don't understand the logic here:

What is the rhyme and reason to categorizing things the way he did in that response to 3? Jazz and blues by men get lumped together to take the top spot? "Jazz by women" is made it's own category even though they only put out one such release as far as I know?
 
johnpisme said:
I also don't understand the logic here:

What is the rhyme and reason to categorizing things the way he did in that response to 3? Jazz and blues by men get lumped together to take the top spot? "Jazz by women" is made it's own category even though they only put out one such release as far as I know?
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Storf has the freedom to post this drivel on reddit bc it would have been savaged in the Forums haha
 
I am married with a toddler and a 3-month-old. We buy organic as much as we can. My toddler eats everything, so it's not like we're giving her frozen chicken nuggets. And if you have a baby, you know how damn much diapers and formula are.

And I couldn't hit a $345 grocery bill in a month if I tried. [I hate wasting food.]

So you want me to justify $43 per LP on 8 albums I am going in blindly on? I have only spent more than $40 on a single LP TWICE, and it was for something I really, really wanted.

This shit is just greed.
 
johnpisme said:
I also don't understand the logic here:

What is the rhyme and reason to categorizing things the way he did in that response to 3? Jazz and blues by men get lumped together to take the top spot? "Jazz by women" is made it's own category even though they only put out one such release as far as I know?
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It’s always been a little weird from what I can recall - it’s the “customers” don’t want women acts and they’re not as enlightened as us, yet we’re the ones making distinctions such as “jazz by women” that no serious music fan ever makes.

The Carla Thomas/RHH/Classics thing is all customer blaming for not hitting numbers, or just some weird form of misplaced elitism.
 
wmeugene said:
It’s always been a little weird from what I can recall - it’s the “customers” don’t want women acts and they’re not as enlightened as us, yet we’re the ones making distinctions such as “jazz by women” that no serious music fan ever makes.

The Carla Thomas/RHH/Classics thing is all customer blaming for not hitting numbers, or just some weird form of misplaced elitism.
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Hey you know what would have been great?

Any of the albums they chose for this ridiculously priced box set. You want to sell out? Give me the fucking Syeeta LP!!!
 
Heath said:
I'm torn between somewhat appreciating their effort to slow things down (though I don't buy that them keeping it secret achieves that goal), and being pissed at a company for trying to police how I engage with their product
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I really dug that aspect of the Blue Note Anthology, along with shipping from Denver rather than Saddle Creek. However, the awful QA and terrible customer service I had with that set turned me off to future anthologies.
zombie.modernist said:
Lots of hardcore soul fans will blow $$$ on records but they favor the OGs for whatever (IMO flawed) reasoning.
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To me, it isn't flawed. I look at it as a particular item made it through all these years in great shape to tell me a story. I love that. If other people collect differently, their reasoning isn't flawed... it's just their reasoning. To each their own.
GritNGlitter said:
I'm glad this is so expensive. I really can't afford to buy any kind of box set (or even standard records for the most part), but if it were $200 I'd be very tempted, as this is very much directly up my alley.
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That's why this should be a subscription site. Mods and admins should get a monthly stipend so they can buy some records. I know these are pretty selfless folks, but time shouldn't be free. Just like music and journalism.
 
High Rant District said:
To me, it isn't flawed. I look at it as a particular item made it through all these years in great shape to tell me a story. I love that. If other people collect differently, their reasoning isn't flawed... it's just their reasoning. To each their own.
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Nope totally get that and support that. And for some elements like design and packaging you really need the original to get the true vision unless it’s new enough that the source material was saved. I was getting at those who claim the OG copies always sound best, which to me is flawed reasoning. Best sound is always subjective and can only be evaluated on a case by case basis. Plenty of times when a good reissue smokes an OG, and vise versa. I just know a lot of classic soul and classic rock collectors are really dismissive of audiophile grade reissues, to me that close-minded attitude is their loss.
 
I appreciate that VMP at least makes efforts toward being inclusionary in their curation - imperfect as those efforts might be, they’ve at least made a real impact on the record shelf that this basic white dude is trying to share with his kids. It’s fine and good to continue holding their feet to the fire on the topic; I completely believe that their internal sales numbers show clear results across demographic dimensions, so it’d be pretty easy to just fall back into exclusively selling Arctic Monkeys records if people don’t keep constantly dragging them online.

BUT I think in this particular instance we’re getting a little nit picky. It’s cool that they are doing an explicitly female-centric box for their second anthology, and handing over the podcast to two expert women. If the commercial imperatives behind the product prevent it from being the most progressive thing it could be (which really is a tautology), I don’t think it’s fair to expect VMP to turn it into a discogs shopping list and a free podcast. Storf’s heart is in the right place, which I’m aware is not always enough, but in this case it seems to me they’re doing a pretty good thing overall (minus a hundred smackeroos or so on the price).

If there’s one criticism I have (other than the price) it’s that Motown is one of the only labels/sub-genres/categories that I already associate largely with female artists, so hitting me with “during the course of this journey you’ll learn that the history of these artists IS the history of Mowtown” doesn’t seem that revolutionary. I’d be much more interested in “Women of Blues” or “Women of Sub-Pop” or whatever.
 
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