R.I.P. VMP Forum

AudioAce said:
Ooofff

I mean it doesn't have the classic Outkast songs but its not that bad.....
Click to expand...
You know what it is their worst album damn it.

Not to say its bad but its not as good as any of their later albums.

I was worried they would of picked Idlewild for R&HH ROTM
 
Kris said:
I agree with this. I thought they did a good job with new releases. None of us have nostalgia attached to those, but tbh their lists weren't terribly different from NPR or other sites. Except hip-hop maybe? I don't know, because I don't really follow hip-hop news. I did find some great hip-hop albums from VMP (and the forum).
Click to expand...
I'd say their hip-hop curation is the most "well PITCHFORK likes this album soooooo" of them all. It's *very* on the nose, in my opinion.
 
On the “curation,” it definitely strikes me as driven by their relationships (Now-Again being the most obvious), weird nostalgia (the selection of Phoenix), and trying to be esoteric for the sake of it. Sometimes it works really well and they hit it out of the park, and other times I just scratch my head.
 
Took me awhile but I finally caught up with this thread lol sorry for the rant that's ahead

I'll say this: assuming that the whole forum business never happened, my current financial status likely would have prevented me from continuing my VMP membership. But their response to those concerned and method of how they went about shutting it down were definitely factors to my decision in the end. While I respect those who have stuck around and see VMP's decision as just a business move, one thing keeps popping up for me when I think of the shutdown and it's about a thread that I never even participated in personally.

The thread where people opened up about their struggles with depression and other issues was a big source of comfort and catharsis for a lot of people. I imagine for several it was the only outlet like that they had. And in taking down the forums, VMP were actively pulling the rug out from many people's circle of support.

Now, it'd be grossly unfair of me to try and claim that VMP realized the implications of this and just said "fuck it" anyway. I'm not saying this to try to mischaracterize anyone at VMP as caring so little about their members they'd intentionally take down a thread for people to discuss their lives heart to heart with others.

But that's the thing, in shutting down the entirety of the forums, it led to the implication that a thread like that was just as meaningless to them as someone complaining they received a warped record. I think this is partially what upset me. I felt like there had to be a better way of going about this than just total devastation of the forums. This wasn't just them "putting the forums on pause" for many of the forum members. For me, and I'd say many others, it was a threat to all the relationships we'd built in the forums in our time there. It was them admitting that they'd rather alienate those who dedicated so many hours and dollars to their service because they were more concerned with being the cool kids' record club than actually taking the advice of those who cared about the products they were paying for.

I don't want VMP to crash and burn, and I sincerely hope that for the sake of those still subscribed they get their act together. But for me, no amount of colored vinyl can make up for the fact they willingly took down one of the best places on the internet without even giving it time to regroup somewhere else. The fact that the shift from there to here has gone as smooth as it has is nothing short of a miracle, because I can remember freaking out over the fact that this community might die forever.

Although my time on the forums has been relatively miniscule in comparison to some others, I still feel that it's given me a place to be myself and share my love of music with others who are just as passionate. And I wouldn't give that up for anything. Y'all are the best ♥
 
Joe Mac said:
I think that would fall into the same bucket hehehe as Astral Weeks for me tbh, I also think that the one we got is miles better than Moondance too but that’s all personal taste I suppose lol!
Click to expand...

If the point of the selection was to go deep tracks, then I get it, however the selection was the one Sony let them press and most likely not to their choice.

I liked it but they aren't big enough to get the next press of Led Zeppelin IV, maybe CODA.
 
sorcerer said:
I like that they're doing Southernplayasticadillacmuzik because it's the first time it's gonna be on vinyl in full, and with deluxe packaging and such.
Whether or not it's better or worse than other albums is subjective. What I think you're trying to say is "they're doing it because it's the less popular one" which I don't take issue with if the other albums are readily available in good full quality and it's still a great album to me.
I don't plan on buying it regardless but it's unfair to judge it simply because it's not the more popular album.
Click to expand...
Oh it's a great album! It's just not on the top of anyones OutKast list. That being said even if this particular instance is warranted they have often had less well received albums from artists, often for dumb reasons.
For example, They chose Lord Willin' over Hell Hath No Fury ( I like Lord Willin' don't get me wrong) even though HHNF is by all accounts a better received record. And the primary issue in this instance isn't the selection, it's that they chose Lord Willin' because THEY had nostalgia for it. THEY listened to it alot in highschool. That's a pretty weird way to curate to a large group of people.
 
wmeugene said:
That was me. Most of my boxes ranged from 10-20 records and the 8 covered about 30 records received and were all documented warps/scratches.

They’re definitely tightening up the policy and seem resigned to and content at driving long term members away.
Click to expand...

They should have had you send them back, I'm sure some people took advantage of keeping one and getting a new one.
 
sorcerer said:
I disagree. It's baseless to say that no one has Southernplaya at the top of their Outkast list, because you can't prove that. I think there are actually a lot of Outkast fans who have never heard Southernplaya and would be delighted to hear it for the first time on good wax.

I personally prefer VMP choosing the less *popular* album because it might be something I've never heard before and when I get it I'll find out I love it. It also puts the less popular album in the spotlight for people who may have heard it a couple times but tended to default towards the popular albums, which could lead to people re-listening to it and finding out they like it more than the popular album.

Strictly from a business standpoint, you can argue that choosing the more popular album is the better choice to make because it means more people will sign up and purchase the record, but ruins the spirit of the "club" part for me. I would much prefer a record club that isn't focused on selling out every single ROTM by choosing the real crowd pleasers every single month. At that point it loses a lot of the charm.

It's like a book club where you only get classic books in the mail each month. Yeah, they're generally great books, but I'm not really expanding my taste by delving into the real surface level of literature.
Click to expand...
I agree to a certain extent. Alot of times when an artist or band has a lesser known album it's because it's either entirely different from the rest of their discography sonically or it's just not very good. A good example being Pink Floyd's Ummagumma and in this example I'm only talking about the actual new material on the album, not the live disc of previous work. That album is ( I won't say sucks because there's probably people that like that record) not their best work. That's a commonly held belief that even the band shares. The vast majority of Floyd fans think it's one of if not their worst album, there's a few more that can contend for the worst spot but I'd argue those records are more well known than Ummagumma, and I think one of the reasons that Ummagumma has kind of slid off in terms of the Pink Floyd discography is because it isn't their best work. It's actively not a very good listening experience. Waters and Gilmour have both expressed outright contempt for that record. The same goes with Nada Surf. I think they're decent but I don't like that album and neither do they. No one would've picked Sorceror if they had the choice either. Mainly because the songs on Sorceror aren't even Miles' songs (except 1). It's not the issue of picking a record that isn't the one that everyone thinks of as good it's that they seem to be picking deep cut records in the artists discography to seem more esoteric
 
sorcerer said:
It's just a matter of what you want out of a record club at the end of the day. Would be cool if they had a track for esoteric stuff but I guess they'd have a hard time trying to justify that business-wise.
Click to expand...
Weren't they planning on doing a crate digger type of track?
 
Count_Vader said:
Oh it's a great album! It's just not on the top of anyones OutKast list. That being said even if this particular instance is warranted they have often had less well received albums from artists, often for dumb reasons.
For example, They chose Lord Willin' over Hell Hath No Fury ( I like Lord Willin' don't get me wrong) even though HHNF is by all accounts a better received record. And the primary issue in this instance isn't the selection, it's that they chose Lord Willin' because THEY had nostalgia for it. THEY listened to it alot in highschool. That's a pretty weird way to curate to a large group of people.
Click to expand...
It’s on the top of my OutKast list.
 
Kris said:
It really is a vanity project...
Click to expand...

Agreed.

But not on the Anoraks, though. That's just all purpose gear. An essential that just happens to be branded

Or the Blue Note anthology, rather than focusing on QC and shipping.

Or the Billboard article.

Or the P4K thing.

Actually, I'm not seeing the vanity project aspect, but I AM stoked on my $32 a piece Who Sampled? exclusives. Much better than the regular Mr Bongo versions on black and widely available for up to $11 a piece less
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top