Ha! You’re not wrong but eventually this has to catch up with them right? Or not. Who knows.
Vinyl Me Please Anthology
- Thread starter mdmost
- Start date
MikeH
Well-Known Member
VMP and investors don't care unless it hurts their bottom line. I'm not entirely sure that it has. They are counting on releasing another big album probably in the next few months and their subscriber count will rise again. And the idea that they shut off their forum because it had negative criticism and showed up in google search results is probably the correct assumption. Hell, Lloyd Star even tweeted an article the other day about not paying attention to what other people say about you hah.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
They took a one time hit of people cancelling their subs and demanding refunds and that's about it. They'll release Outkast or some big record in the next few months and profits will go back up.
I think shutting the forums down will hurt their bottom line more than they thought though as people have pointed out that the forum is a big reason why a lot of exclusives sold out.
Lloyd Star is such a basic ass COO name, of CFO or whatever he is.
AnthonyI
Well-Known Member
When it's all said and done this is and will always be a dollars and cents thing. Detaching from any negative pub was step one in my opinion. I still think too many people give VMP a pass on certain things, but I still don't begrudge those who are happy with the product or feel the issues don't outweigh the value (Sound, pressing, etc). But, if the profit is there at the end of the day, nothing will really change, it's business as usual...........after all, VMP is a business. Each of us have to make our own choice and we need to be bigger than what VMP says we are and respect each others choices regardless of personal opinion.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
He was born for the job. I mean, rearrange the letters in his name and you get Ty Dollars.
Mather
Unknown Member
Yeah this is the thing, they are marketing their service predominantly to people that don't know any better. Aside from BlueNote which they really should have left till later their entire model is based on a curated experience that the average consumer doesn't have to think about. Casual subscribers can get home from work, take the records out of their mailbox and listen to them, show them off to their friends who will be impressed with their eclectic musical knowledge; most of these people will not care about poor pressings or warps or improper jacket art. These same people will get the High Five emails and will go to the VMP store and buy the very overpriced records because they don't know any better and they won't look elsewhere because VMP takes care of all of their vinyl needs. This is likely exactly what VMP wants and it's how they'll make the easiest money. It's a curated life for the new millennium, don't do the thinking because we'll do it for you. The fact that all these incredibly overpriced curated selections continue to sell out speaks to how well this model is working for them. I don't think they're losing much money on these errors.
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duke86fan
Well-Known Member
BjorgenFjorgen
Well-Known Member
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they're running off whatever rounds of VC they had managed to attract, but in order to get more they probably do need to show a real path to profitability. They're not going to get there by reprinting 30,000 (Queen) or 1,000 jackets (Anthology) or replacing every record with a wobble or seam split over and over. (The solution to this is obviously better QC but hey, what do I know.)
Mather
Unknown Member
The other solution is to stop replacing records unless they are essentially unlistenable. And unlistenable by VMP standards, not the consumers. I would imagine this will be coming down the pipe very soon. Whether there's an official message about it or not.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Pretty sure Storf said that they were worried about making money at all on Anthology, at least when they were originally only going to do 500 copies.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Yep this is it. I have seen way too many copies of VMP albums being sold for more than the subscription on reddit and such when there's a 1" seam split on inners and the person admitted to getting a replacement copy for free. It's a nice policy to have originally, but when you start selling out and don't have replacements for people who receive records that are actually unlistenable, it becomes a pretty big cost to them I'd imagine. And lots of people seemed to have taken advantage of that return policy.
chrb98
Active Member
This would be the final nail in the coffin for me. The only reason I'm still buying from VMP is because I know that, despite the QC issues, I can eventually get exactly what I paid for in the condition I paid for it in, or I can get my money back. And thank god for that, because QC has been a god damn mess for a long while now. If their solution to "too many people are having issues with their records and want a replacement" is to stop sending out replacements, then I'm done for good. Although it is eerily in line with their "too many people got mad when we provided details that ended up being false, so we're just not gonna provide details any more" modus operandi
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Getting your money back though is a bit of a bummer of a solution. I understand that every once in awhile things outside of a company's control happens and a refund is the only answer. But many of these problems have been self-inflicted by VMP and if there's a limited album you really wanted (like De La is Dead) and you get a warped to shit copy and the others have all sold out, a refund doesn't make me a happy customer when it keeps happening over and over and over again.
bother
Well-Known Member
Holy shit. I know I'm not offering anything new, I just gotta post.
I haven't been active on the forums in a minute so I didn't notice they shut down until today....
What a clusterfuck. What the hell are they thinking?
And then BOTH records they sent have printing errors. Obviously the Dexter Calling one is absolutely egregious and stupid, but putting Stereo on the Horace labels is pretty stupid as well. That stereo thing really threw me. I could've sworn it was in mono but the label said stereo... I thought I was going insane.
And where's all that amazing extra content? Did they mean those two emails they sent out with links to articles other people have written and that one playlist?
The podcast is cool I guess.
At least the records sound really good.
You know, they could've really phoned the anthology "experience" in pretty hard but so long as they got the records themselves spot on, I bet there wouldn't be many complaints if any.
Whatever. I like the way the box looks. Seems sturdy.
I haven't been active on the forums in a minute so I didn't notice they shut down until today....
What a clusterfuck. What the hell are they thinking?
And then BOTH records they sent have printing errors. Obviously the Dexter Calling one is absolutely egregious and stupid, but putting Stereo on the Horace labels is pretty stupid as well. That stereo thing really threw me. I could've sworn it was in mono but the label said stereo... I thought I was going insane.
And where's all that amazing extra content? Did they mean those two emails they sent out with links to articles other people have written and that one playlist?
The podcast is cool I guess.
At least the records sound really good.
You know, they could've really phoned the anthology "experience" in pretty hard but so long as they got the records themselves spot on, I bet there wouldn't be many complaints if any.
Whatever. I like the way the box looks. Seems sturdy.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
People have complained quite a lot over on the facebook group and gotten threads deleted. The best thing is someone pointed out that the only thing VMP has actually contributed to this project (the packaging) was the part that was screwed up because of course it was. The stuff they didn't touch is the only good part of the package really.
Yes, it could have been worse, but the whole product launch can be distilled into every single problem that VMP has had in the past year or so. Very few details, blaming errors on other people, trying to silence critics and really poor QC.
bother
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I saw some of the complaints on the FB group and ended up here. I haven't been active on FB because, well... there's not a whole lot going on there. It's a Facebook group. It's not that good for discussion. I check it out maybe once a week but it's been mostly flat after the first week or so.
I can't say I'm shocked they screwed the packaging up. They've screwed up a ton of sleeves since I've been a subscriber. A lot of them flew under the radar but this is pretty awful.
Looking back at past posts, the whole new investors, new COO thing makes total sense. Of course they don't want a forum hosted on their own site. That makes them look bad hosting some of the stupid shit we say, and if they're trying to become a "big" company or whatever, then yeah, nuke the forum. They don't want an easy place for people to find criticism and they probably don't have the resources necessary to put in the seriously heavy moderation they'd need to make sure the forums are squeaky clean, you know, for
Overall I'm disappointed. I was really sold on this anthology for the price based on the idea of an "experience." I don't know what that experience was going to be but, hell, I was willing to give it a shot. So far I've got two okay podcasts, a Facebook group that's kinda useless, I think they sent out a couple emails with some links, and the actual records with printing errors on each.
At least this whole thing is making me go out and buy more jazz.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
I mostly joined because of the selections and the previous Blue Note x VMP quality pressings. The educational aspect was nice as well and it's a very very strange decision to not send the liner notes out until the last box. I get that they wanted to keep some of the album titles secret until right before you get them, but its still a weird decision when you pitch it as an educational experience and the experience we are getting is just a facebook group of people posting some blue note albums they own and VMP sending out emails with articles written by other people and a playlist that other people curated. None of the other things advertised have happened...discounts, giveaways, listening parties, etc. The quality of the records themselves are great but the rest of the experience has been a bit of a shit show and not at all premium as the price and VMP have promised. I won't be back for round 2.
bother
Well-Known Member
Oh serious question, why was there an AMA with Storf? Did he do his PhD in music theory with an emphasis on post-bop or something? Or was it just like, hey this guy works here and loves music so ask him some questions! I'm trying not to judge that since I didn't watch it (the thing's an hour long so...) but that seemed weird honestly.
Now I think I'm just nitpicking, but man. I really did think there'd be an education experience. Maybe there still will be as we go forward but I doubt it.
Now I think I'm just nitpicking, but man. I really did think there'd be an education experience. Maybe there still will be as we go forward but I doubt it.
swamp
Well-Known Member
We'll never know how much of an expert on jazz Storf is. The AMA was just an hour of him rejecting every question for not being scholarly enough.