Vinyl Me Please Anthology

johnpisme said:
I still haven't even listened to the last part of the podcast.
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I didn't end up listening to the podcasts after the first one because my shipment was so delayed that I wouldn't receive the records until after some people got their next box. Not only did this ruin a lot of the experience for me but it also meant that I was not able to participate in various pieces properly like podcasts and the community.
Additionally, I listen to podcasts in my car, putting it on a web page made it harder to listen to and so I didn't.
I'll stop my rant there but to say Anthology was a massive disappointment from a user perspective is an understatement.
 
CCKrone said:
I'll stop my rant there but to say Anthology was a massive disappointment from a user perspective is an understatement.
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Here here.

I will definitely be sitting out if there is a Motown anthology. Same for Stax. I have quite a few titles in my collection from both and don't feel the need to dig deeper. If Motown is #2 and Stax is #4 (based on the slimmest of evidence) I am still curious about #3. Would love to see them do something modern, either an electronic or hip hop label maybe.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Here here.

I will definitely be sitting out if there is a Motown anthology. Same for Stax. I have quite a few titles in my collection from both and don't feel the need to dig deeper. If Motown is #2 and Stax is #4 (based on the slimmest of evidence) I am still curious about #3. Would love to see them do something modern, either an electronic or hip hop label maybe.
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At this point, I'm pretty much in only for Classics (because those AAA pressings are fire) however, if more picks are like Fania, I may just drop VMP all together. Perhaps the wrong thread, but October's picks seem to not be my cup of tea so I may swap for something I like slightly better.
Anthology had a ton of potential, Stax may interest me but only if A) the price is not outrageous and B) I know what I'm getting when I order it and can preview the music a bit.
Getting Dexter Calling, while an amazing album, was a bad pick only because it's widely available in AAA already. They could have picked a better album for the first one too, as much as I love Art Blakey and Horace Silver, the recording was fairly degraded.
I think they need to find their audience here, I can see this being shut down after a few more only because I don't think there will be much interest in a premium "curated" experience for many sets. Blue Note was the perfect way to get people hyped and for the most part, people seem pissed off about it (and rightfully so) to the point where they are selling off their sets around cost (I'm not going to include the flippers here because they exist no matter what). I think they need to focus on providing a better experience for their subscribers before moving ahead with other more premium offerings like Anthology. Once they build up that trust again, then look into branching out a bit to increase revenue/profits.
 
IDK, for me Motown is incredibly hard to collect for if you value mono mixes, good sound and clean surfaces. Over here the majority of heavy hitters (Supremes A Go Go, Reach Out etc) are certainly $5 records for the most part, but good luck finding one that's not riddled with regrind, pressing bubbles etc. Even then you've got to account for the wear to the grooves and surface, which was incredibly common as these records were partied down. Beyond all this, for the most part, the majority of 60s Motown / Gordy / Tamla just sounds like shit in my humble opinion. Some are too sharp, some too muddy, and almost all are just not good. Some folks prefer the UK Tamla/Motown pressings, which are certainly on quieter wax but those don't do a whole lot for me either, at least the ones I've come across in the US.

Currently I think the best Motown stuff on vinyl are the US 80s reissues, despite the preference for stereo mixes. They're pressed on clean vinyl, and sound pretty decent, but I fear the secret is out as the prices are up. Essentially for Motown stuff — sure it's cheaper than Blue Note, but if you want audiophile keeper grade copies, good luck not spending $30+ on multiple copies looking for "the one". It's not the worst label to collect for (looking at you King) but not a great one either.

One caveat here which may be a hot take, but I do agree the price is steep for both the VMP anthology bracket and the label's own AAA mono box. The reason why is that these albums are short, and sometimes a bit heavy on the filler. I don't really know how many Motown records are actually worth $30 to me.
 
Interesting interview with Kevin Gray about the Motown in Mono series (not a box) coming from The Sound of Vinyl:
www.udiscovermusic.com

“It Just Really Floored Me”: Mastering Engineer Kevin Gray On The ‘Motown In Mono’ Series

Mastering classic Motown albums for the ‘Motown In Mono’ reissue series gave engineer Kevin Gray a chance to remember why he first fell in love with them.
www.udiscovermusic.com www.udiscovermusic.com

Fwiw, that set (Motown In Mono) is $150 US for 5 albums, so $30/album. I'l be interested to see how the VMP one compares price and album selection-wise if they are indeed going head to head. <insert Why not both? gif>
 
zombie.modernist said:
IDK, for me Motown is incredibly hard to collect for if you value mono mixes, good sound and clean surfaces. Over here the majority of heavy hitters (Supremes A Go Go, Reach Out etc) are certainly $5 records for the most part, but good luck finding one that's not riddled with regrind, pressing bubbles etc. Even then you've got to account for the wear to the grooves and surface, which was incredibly common as these records were partied down. Beyond all this, for the most part, the majority of 60s Motown / Gordy / Tamla just sounds like shit in my humble opinion. Some are too sharp, some too muddy, and almost all are just not good. Some folks prefer the UK Tamla/Motown pressings, which are certainly on quieter wax but those don't do a whole lot for me either, at least the ones I've come across in the US.

Currently I think the best Motown stuff on vinyl are the US 80s reissues, despite the preference for stereo mixes. They're pressed on clean vinyl, and sound pretty decent, but I fear the secret is out as the prices are up. Essentially for Motown stuff — sure it's cheaper than Blue Note, but if you want audiophile keeper grade copies, good luck not spending $30+ on multiple copies looking for "the one". It's not the worst label to collect for (looking at you King) but not a great one either.

One caveat here which may be a hot take, but I do agree the price is steep for both the VMP anthology bracket and the label's own AAA mono box. The reason why is that these albums are short, and sometimes a bit heavy on the filler. I don't really know how many Motown records are actually worth $30 to me.
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I definitely get your point about finding a serviceable copy of Motown records, but I think any serious Blue Note collector would not blink twice if they got offered an original copy of their favourite Blue Note records for $30. In reality, you're lucky if you are able to get a clean Japanese 70s repress for $30.
 
Speedracer said:
I definitely get your point about finding a serviceable copy of Motown records, but I think any serious Blue Note collector would not blink twice if they got offered an original copy of their favourite Blue Note records for $30. In reality, you're lucky if you are able to get a clean Japanese 70s repress for $30.
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Totally agree. In my typical rambling fashion I didn't summarize my points. To me $30 for a Motown reissue done right is fair because it's super hard to find clean copies. But to your point you can't even get G+ copies of some BNs for under $25, so the value of a BN reissue is way higher. Plus, to some Motown is a singles label, and BN is undeniably an album label. Not sure if I would agree but I bet that will inform some people's sense of value.
 
zombie.modernist said:
IDK, for me Motown is incredibly hard to collect for if you value mono mixes, good sound and clean surfaces. Over here the majority of heavy hitters (Supremes A Go Go, Reach Out etc) are certainly $5 records for the most part, but good luck finding one that's not riddled with regrind, pressing bubbles etc. Even then you've got to account for the wear to the grooves and surface, which was incredibly common as these records were partied down. Beyond all this, for the most part, the majority of 60s Motown / Gordy / Tamla just sounds like shit in my humble opinion. Some are too sharp, some too muddy, and almost all are just not good. Some folks prefer the UK Tamla/Motown pressings, which are certainly on quieter wax but those don't do a whole lot for me either, at least the ones I've come across in the US.

Currently I think the best Motown stuff on vinyl are the US 80s reissues, despite the preference for stereo mixes. They're pressed on clean vinyl, and sound pretty decent, but I fear the secret is out as the prices are up. Essentially for Motown stuff — sure it's cheaper than Blue Note, but if you want audiophile keeper grade copies, good luck not spending $30+ on multiple copies looking for "the one". It's not the worst label to collect for (looking at you King) but not a great one either.

One caveat here which may be a hot take, but I do agree the price is steep for both the VMP anthology bracket and the label's own AAA mono box. The reason why is that these albums are short, and sometimes a bit heavy on the filler. I don't really know how many Motown records are actually worth $30 to me.
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Motown Records are worth $30 to me in an audiophile format. VMP doing it, not so much.
 
Lee Newman said:
Motown Records are worth $30 to me in an audiophile format. VMP doing it, not so much.
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I want to avoid the anthology myself after last time’s drama.

$30 is no problem to me as normal releases go, but the box format is what kills me. For the a Motown Mono Box to work I think it would have to be exhaustive, and I feel like this just a weird sampling of well regarded Motown LPs. To be fair, how can you reduce f-ing Motown down to 5 or 6 LPs? VMPs will likely be similarly bizarre (unless they pick some of the glaring omissions from the mono box). Honestly I wish the box charade would end and they would put them out individually.
 
Joe Mac said:
Here’s my take. Record Labels aren’t important. Acts are. Celebrating Blue Note or Stax or Mowtown is bollocks. I only get artist box sets, label ones are senseless cash grabs that put the customer last. I wonder why VMP are there...
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I don't know about this take. These three labels are hugely important in this history of American music. They each had a different contribution to culture. The people that ran them were more than just businessmen. I get this take with the more faceless major labels that are focused on dollar bills.
 
Joe Mac said:
Here’s my take. Record Labels aren’t important. Acts are. Celebrating Blue Note or Stax or Mowtown is bollocks. I only get artist box sets, label ones are senseless cash grabs that put the customer last. I wonder why VMP are there...
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I agree with your insinuation that VMP has transitioned from a club to a profits first business, as it clearly has.

I gotta disagree with you that record labels aren't important though. As my bookshelf can attest, I find the history of record labels fairly interesting. Blue Note, Stax, and Motown came about at a transitional time in music and the music industry and were hugely influential in creating the sound of Soul and Jazz as they are now. I thought the idea behind the Blue Note Anthology was pretty good, just VMP's execution of it was lacking. I listened to the six albums chronologically and while none of the six are genre defining albums, it was interesting to hear the evolution of the jazz sound at Blue Note.

Now, would I have enjoyed a Wayne Shorter Anthology more? Probably. So I've just made my own.
 
Dtknuckles said:
I don't know about this take. These three labels are hugely important in this history of American music. They each had a different contribution to culture. The people that ran them were more than just businessmen. I get this take with the more faceless major labels that are focused on dollar bills.
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TCell said:
I agree with your insinuation that VMP has transitioned from a club to a profits first business, as it clearly has.

I gotta disagree with you that record labels aren't important though. As my bookshelf can attest, I find the history of record labels fairly interesting. Blue Note, Stax, and Motown came about at a transitional time in music and the music industry and were hugely influential in creating the sound of Soul and Jazz as they are now. I thought the idea behind the Blue Note Anthology was pretty good, just VMP's execution of it was lacking. I listened to the six albums chronologically and while none of the six are genre defining albums, it was interesting to hear the evolution of the jazz sound at Blue Note.

Now, would I have enjoyed a Wayne Shorter Anthology more? Probably. So I've just made my own.
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Ok so maybe my point lack nuance and was a bit flippant, to be honest I wasn’t really looking to tease it out but I suppose now I will.

Personally I don’t see the label as being the story. I see the artists as being a set of stories. A label is a conduit. It provides a platform, through money, contacts, release etc.

Where I lie I suppose is that beyond that I don’t really personally see a label as something I care about massively. I care about the artists. I would never buy something based on the label it was on. It’d be based on the artist/reviews/recommendations/sampling the music.

I just find the whole idea of throwing 6 different albums by different artists whose only similarity is that they released those albums on the label into a box to be repulsive.
 
Joe Mac said:
Ok so maybe my point lack nuance and was a bit flippant, to be honest I wasn’t really looking to tease it out but I suppose now I will.

Personally I don’t see the label as being the story. I see the artists as being a set of stories. A label is a conduit. It provides a platform, through money, contacts, release etc.

Where I lie I suppose is that beyond that I don’t really personally see a label as something I care about massively. I care about the artists. I would never buy something based on the label it was on. It’d be based on the artist/reviews/recommendations/sampling the music.

I just find the whole idea of throwing 6 different albums by different artists whose only similarity is that they released those albums on the label into a box to be repulsive.
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This is fair to a degree but I do think there are labels that had an overall aesthetic vision and stuck to that vision. Maybe not always, maybe not through all different ownership, but Blue Note in particular was putting out a very specific music in a very unorthodox way. They didn't make a ton of money and didn't sell millions, but looking back, Blue Note was hugely important to the development of Jazz from the late 50s through the 60s, mostly because the label emphasized giving certain musicians space to work.

Whether that can be applied to any other labels, I don't know honestly. But I do think an argument can be made for a few different labels that it was the aesthetic vision of the label in general that allowed a certain kind of music to coalesce and gain a wider audience. Sometimes that was purely commercial and sometimes it wasn't.

But then there are labels that were just pure commercial hit machines with all different styles and aesthetics under one roof, so that would make much less sense.
 
But Blue Note is a singular label in a lot of ways. To say that they were just a platform to provide money & contacts dosen't really give the entire picture of what they did.

By doing what they did they highlighted a specific type of music and presented it in a way that made people take is seriously as an art form.

Joe Mac said:
Ok so maybe my point lack nuance and was a bit flippant, to be honest I wasn’t really looking to tease it out but I suppose now I will.

Personally I don’t see the label as being the story. I see the artists as being a set of stories. A label is a conduit. It provides a platform, through money, contacts, release etc.

Where I lie I suppose is that beyond that I don’t really personally see a label as something I care about massively. I care about the artists. I would never buy something based on the label it was on. It’d be based on the artist/reviews/recommendations/sampling the music.

I just find the whole idea of throwing 6 different albums by different artists whose only similarity is that they released those albums on the label into a box to be repulsive.
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Indymisanthrope said:
I'm on board with this take. Label anthologies take the focus off the artists and are more about a business celebrating other businesses, in my view. The history of a label can be an interesting thing from an academic point of view, but I don't think a handful of albums is the best way to represent that. I still think that if an Anthology is going to be a mix of artists, I'd find it more interesting to make the nexus point be the producer, or the city, or something like that, than the label. That's probably harder to curate & execute...but it's more interesting (to me).
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Indymisanthrope said:
I'm on board with this take. Label anthologies take the focus off the artists and are more about a business celebrating other businesses, in my view. The history of a label can be an interesting thing from an academic point of view, but I don't think a handful of albums is the best way to represent that. I still think that if an Anthology is going to be a mix of artists, I'd find it more interesting to make the nexus point be the producer, or the city, or something like that, than the label. That's probably harder to curate & execute...but it's more interesting (to me).
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I agree. Part of me still prefers individual artist boxes, however, if you must do that but I can certainly see significant merit in the idea of a box set showing the progression of Phil Spector, to take the most painfully obvious example, developing his sound over a series of different artists albums. Or a compendium of Bacharach and David Songs all recorded by different artists.
 
Joe Mac said:
I agree. Part of me still prefers individual artist boxes, however, if you must do that but I can certainly see significant merit in the idea of a box set showing the progression of Phil Spector, to take the most painfully obvious example, developing his sound over a series of different artists albums. Or a compendium of Bacharach and David Songs all recorded by different artists.
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This would be a licensing nightmare!!!
 
Dtknuckles said:
But Blue Note is a singular label in a lot of ways. To say that they were just a platform to provide money & contacts dosen't really give the entire picture of what they did.

By doing what they did they highlighted a specific type of music and presented it in a way that made people take is seriously as an art form.
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Ah now calm down. They were a small independent specialist label that focused on one genre. There have been hundreds of similar labels that specialise in all different genres in the history of music. Lots of them did lots of cool things. They would still be nothing without the artists.
 
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