I was just trying to find any positive in the situation. My bad.
Thank you to whoever it was who showed me this drop
Lil Gin - Da Serpent's Stepson
@Cloud ?
It sounds great!
First off, I'm sorry that I tripped -- yesterday was NOT good. I want to apologize for that, if I came off too harsh; I will try to breathe before responding next time. My main point here is that you've repeatedly suggested that these labels need to raise prices on everything to price people out. That doesn't add up to me. Part of the reason Daupe! stuff goes for so much is because it's so limited and because it's so expensive to order, once the overseas shipping and everything is factored in. As reckless as it is, I don't even look at the price when I'm carting things, because there is "no time." The crazy thing to me is that, history seems to be indicating that, when an album sells for less, it actually sits longer. If it's like $30 and everyone thinks they can get it, it doesn't sell. It's all a mind game about exclusivity and FOMO. Everyone had time to buy Billy Woods reissues like Hiding Places and now they are going for over $100 to $150. That thing was just $40 and available for weeks, if not months, before selling out. So, let's say that KA sold his album for $30 or $35, which is still more than his previous stuff went for, initially, anyway. If someone wanted to flip that album, they wouldn't need to pull as much out of it. In other words, they could sell it for $80 and still come up off that. They could even sell it for $60 or $65 and it would be a profit. People would be rightly pissed still, but only because, in their minds, it's an album "worth $30" being sold for a large markup. But, if you keep suggesting and endorsing these inflated retail prices, then you're basically saying that you'd rather buy it for $100 than for $80. More of it goes to the artist, which I get, but the artist already gets a larger cut, by cutting a retailer out in the first place. They either don't or shouldn't give a shit. Especially, someone like Westside Gunn. These dudes were crack dealers. I don't think they're too concerned about someone taking their scraps and catching something off the back end, especially when it only works to inflate their own value and popularity. But, the flippers aren't my concern -- I just think that it might be a misunderstanding and/or misdirection of the real issue(s). Bots are another issue, however; which I won't get into.
The part that keeps triggering me when you suggest this is the reality that people in Buffalo that are struggling can't afford these records about their own lives. If they are hustling and have funds like that, they can, but... you know, it's kind of a classist perception that these albums should be set at a price point so high, as if it's a benefit. You seem to collect OBIs, perhaps, even indiscriminately of what they look like. So, that's your thing. But the whole thing is the idea of exclusivity and some implied importance. That's all these runs are, they make people feel important. Limited edition. Cool. This one has the paper slip. This one doesn't. The split vinyl looks better, but the solid pink had less copies and costs more... must have. That's why the prices are so fucked. So, we're buying albums about people in poverty, living in warzones, and juggling with their own consciences yet, ultimately deciding, they have to sell poison to their own communities. They're feeding fiends. So, to me, it's just absurd to see Discogs comments about people reselling a record like, "Can't these losers find a better way to make money?! You're the scum of the earth!!!" Because a bunch of suburbanites that can't work a hustle enough to get a copy, can fantasize about being crack dealers. What I hear in the music is that plight and that hustle, to work whatever situation you're given to survive. Some people just see over the top chains and stacks of money. Figure it out. We have this community, because we sought it out. People help each other out. That's great. But, even if we didn't, if I really decided that I needed something, I'd figure it out. While people are bitching in Discogs listings on RSD every drop, I'm off tracking the shit I want down, by pulling up websites across the globe.
We're in the middle of a fucking pandemic. People are struggling. Collecting vinyl is already a luxury -- anything beyond absolute necessities always are -- but even more so now.. I started collecting because I was getting Zeppelin albums for 50 cents and Talking Heads albums for 10 cents in record shops, at the time. Through the early 2000s, I was buying albums for $2 a pop. Shit became trendy on a wider scale and the whole culture got swallowed up. $30 a record is still kind of insane. And I know we've become desensitized to it, but when a lot of people really can't afford to get things as they are, it gets really tiring watching someone repeatedly suggest that these records are pulled even further out of their financial reach. KA is tripping, regardless of whether or not he sends a nice message about how you might have to save up to buy his album or not own it. How about not putting people in that position in the first place?
Another thing is that the ALC records sold out, regardless. So, if someone threw a bill or even $130 at his last drop -- depending on which version they got -- they all still sold out quick. Now the flippers may only be able to sell them for $175? Okay, they don't make much, but it still costs anyone buying it MORE money. If they were sold for less, they would be charging less. Wanting to buy it from ALC or someone else for $100... what's the difference? Same price. Plus, if you want to get really technical and you believe that jacking the price up through the roof increases your chances of getting it... not really. Let's take your premise here and test it out. If there are 100 copies of something and they are so expensive that it actually pushes flippers out, somehow, then who gets all of these records? "Real fans?" -- whatever than means. Okay. By that logic, these people are never going to resell them. So, if you missed that window, they aren't going to pop up on the secondary market for you to ever own them. I mean... you can twist and work this all day, but there is a point where this pricing is insane, and we've moved well past it. No matter how you slice it, collecting vinyl -- especially when it's pressed with music built off the backs, history, culture, and struggles of impoverished communities -- should not become something that's exclusively available as some luxury for the most financially stable and "upper class."