Vinyl Me Please Anthology

MikeH said:
My absolute guess is that it was a complete miscommunication and laziness issue on VMP's part. They likely asked for the artwork, it went through the grapevine at Blue Note. Somebody looked up one of the most recent album art scans, sent over a CD one. VMP took this as okay this is the artwork we need to use as it was sent over by BN and don't want to bother and second-guess Blue Note so we'll just use this. This happens at a lot of companies I have worked at over the years. People are afraid to ask questions and just do as they are told and then people higher up aren't involved enough and don't care enough to actually look at everything.

Blue Note likely figured that VMP isn't total amateurs (their mistake) and signed off without really looking at everything. That would be my guess since I've seen something like that happen too many times.
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Totally what happened.
 
MikeH said:
I have so many horror stories...I work in animation and we have had a number of long and grueling jobs get killed after months of hard work because agency didn't share enough progress with the client along the way or because the client kept "approving" things without really taking the time to look at it and then their feedback at the very end was too far along in the process and would have caused us to redo the entire thing. I have also dealt with a lot of people trying to "mind read" what the clients or agency higher ups want because they are afraid to bother their bosses too frequently with questions. It's infuriating hah.
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I work in post. This literally happened this morning on a film I'm on.
 
MikeH said:
I'd say it is arguably THE entry point for you. It seems like a great deal and I have heard that the pressings are quite good and the way those albums are meant to be heard. Lots of good stuff on those records. Also looks like it doesn't ship for a month or two so you could always stream all of them and make sure you like enough otherwise cancel.
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Fuck it. Ordered.
 
DeadwaxDude said:
I'm confused.. I thought both Jackets were misprinted, and they're only reprinting one? Didn't both have CD serials? Also, for a 280$ set, they should really repress if the label is indeed incorrect. That email doesn't seem like a total solution. But definitely a step in the right direction.
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Don't have it in front of me, but I'm pretty sure just the inside label on the vinyl is a misprint on Horace Silver. It says stereo but the album is in mono. Dexter Calling is the big mess up--wrong BN catalogue number on front and a poor scan + CD artwork and credits on back instead of original liner notes. They are reprinting that one.
 
MikeH said:
Don't have it in front of me, but I'm pretty sure just the inside label on the vinyl is a misprint on Horace Silver. It says stereo but the album is in mono. Dexter Calling is the big mess up--wrong BN catalogue number on front and a poor scan + CD artwork and credits on back instead of original liner notes. They are reprinting that one.
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Fair enough. Didn't Horace also say 2004 digital master on the back? Or was that just Dexter?
 
Glad you guys got this fixed but man, the web of lies in their responses to this is unbelievable. When is the last month that there hasn’t been at least one screw up?

At best, I’d like to think they have a lot of “idea people” over there but are just in over their heads.

They’ve lost me as a customer but I’d like to hope they get it together because they have supported a lot of great artists and projects.
 
wingclipper said:
Glad you guys got this fixed but man, the web of lies in their responses to this is unbelievable. When is the last month that there hasn’t been at least one screw up?

At best, I’d like to think they have a lot of “idea people” over there but are just in over their heads.

They’ve lost me as a customer but I’d like to hope they get it together because they have supported a lot of great artists and projects.
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I've been luckier than most in my VMP experience over the years. I only had one bad issue with a warped record and I was promptly sent a new one. Shipments sometimes took longer than expected for me, but I always got what I ordered. Customer service took some time to get back to me on things but they made things right when they were wrong.

But hearing all of the terrible issues that people have constantly had dating back to at least the beginning of 2019 if not earlier has made me cancel my subscription. I was an ardent supporter of VMP before Anthology was announced and as it was slowly being teased. The idea was awesome. Their Blue Note pressings sounded almost as good as some higher quality/priced ones I owned. But then the botched Anthology release started opening my eyes. The final straw was deleting the forum and the tone deaf answers from VMP higher ups as to why people were mad about it.

It sucks because the curation is good and the records sound good (when they aren't warped or damaged). It could be an awesome company. But the whole VC/slacker vibe and lack of quality control has really made the company go downhill and chasing profit over keeping customers happy has left a bad taste in my mouth. They have gone from "The Best Damn Record Club" to just "Damn..."
 
MikeH said:
I've been luckier than most in my VMP experience over the years. I only had one bad issue with a warped record and I was promptly sent a new one. Shipments sometimes took longer than expected for me, but I always got what I ordered. Customer service took some time to get back to me on things but they made things right when they were wrong.
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Yeah, I also never had any issues with VMP. I've been an essentials member for about three years on and off and I have all of the classics except for the most recent Al Green (after the RSD Al Green 45 box, I couldn't justify more Al in my life). I never had an issue. If I didn't think that VMP could have conceivably had the chops to get Anthology right, I never would have subscribed. Rather than get annoyed or angry about these recent fumblings, I feel bad. As much as we bitch and moan, VMP fills a really great spot in my life and they've done some amazing things lately (ie the Experience Unlimited repackaging and the Nat Turner Rebellion were tremendous).
 
whiskeychaser84 said:
Yeah, I also never had any issues with VMP. I've been an essentials member for about three years on and off and I have all of the classics except for the most recent Al Green (after the RSD Al Green 45 box, I couldn't justify more Al in my life). I never had an issue. If I didn't think that VMP could have conceivably had the chops to get Anthology right, I never would have subscribed. Rather than get annoyed or angry about these recent fumblings, I feel bad. As much as we bitch and moan, VMP fills a really great spot in my life and they've done some amazing things lately (ie the Experience Unlimited repackaging and the Nat Turner Rebellion were tremendous).
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The way they handled Anthology and shutting down the old forum was the first time I actually got angry and annoyed at them as a company personally. Stuff was slowly building for me but those two things were the tipping point and made me unsubscribe. Every single one of the Anthology issues that have happened would not have happened if the people working there actually cared about the end product. There are enough other awesome reissue labels out there who don't constantly screw up and pay attention to every tiny detail. If they are changing something, they let you know. Not going to do the foil stamping you promised? "Hey guys--we are really happy with the design of the box and decided that aesthetically, the foil stamp wouldn't be very visible on the box, so we decided to hand number them instead." That's all it would have taken. Nobody would have complained. Instead, they retroactively changed the information on the website when people pointed it out and deleted their comments on facebook.

These other jazz reissue labels that are great (Pure Pleasure, Sam Records, Jazzman, etc) don't just take your money and run which is how Anthology felt. Oh you gave us $230 already? The CD artwork is fine--nobody will notice! We'll just say that Blue Note didn't have digital files at high enough resolution. Shit...too many people complained...oh there are those pesky files! We're going to reprint! The "experience" we promised about jazz education...we didn't actually think that through but there's some guy who is a member that is posting informative jazz education stuff on the facebook group so maybe that will tide them over...ugh somebody posted a negative comment. Let's just delete it.

They could only get away with the "we're a small company and are ironing out the kinks!" schpiel for so long while they go out and brag about how their company is worth $10 mil+ and get VCs to invest in them. A lot of the issues people have complained about for months and months and months have never been addressed. The curation is awesome IMO. The rest has all been pretty downhill in the past 6+ months. I'd rather give my money to other places that truly care about every aspect of the reissues.
 
MikeH said:
The way they handled Anthology and shutting down the old forum was the first time I actually got angry and annoyed at them as a company personally. Stuff was slowly building for me but those two things were the tipping point and made me unsubscribe. Every single one of the Anthology issues that have happened would not have happened if the people working there actually cared about the end product. There are enough other awesome reissue labels out there who don't constantly screw up and pay attention to every tiny detail. If they are changing something, they let you know. Not going to do the foil stamping you promised? "Hey guys--we are really happy with the design of the box and decided that aesthetically, the foil stamp wouldn't be very visible on the box, so we decided to hand number them instead." That's all it would have taken. Nobody would have complained. Instead, they retroactively changed the information on the website when people pointed it out and deleted their comments on facebook.

These other jazz reissue labels that are great (Pure Pleasure, Sam Records, Jazzman, etc) don't just take your money and run which is how Anthology felt. Oh you gave us $230 already? The CD artwork is fine--nobody will notice! We'll just say that Blue Note didn't have digital files at high enough resolution. Shit...too many people complained...oh there are those pesky files! We're going to reprint! The "experience" we promised about jazz education...we didn't actually think that through but there's some guy who is a member that is posting informative jazz education stuff on the facebook group so maybe that will tide them over...ugh somebody posted a negative comment. Let's just delete it.

They could only get away with the "we're a small company and are ironing out the kinks!" schpiel for so long while they go out and brag about how their company is worth $10 mil+ and get VCs to invest in them. A lot of the issues people have complained about for months and months and months have never been addressed. The curation is awesome IMO. The rest has all been pretty downhill in the past 6+ months. I'd rather give my money to other places that truly care about every aspect of the reissues.
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I wasn't following the foil stamp part of things. That's some bs.

I do feel like our guard is up right now because we've given them the money and VMP fumbled what should have been an underhand toss.

As someone who has written for Rolling Stone, the stuff they're sharing is obviously all garbage links and it's embarrassing. When VMP said podcasts, I was thinking more like an hour or two like every other podcast I listen to, covering bop and hard bop in 22 minutes was rank amateur. It's just lazy. I'd assumed at the very least they would have included liner notes for each album like they do for classics. The Facebook group also is just garbage. At this point, you are fooling yourself if you are expecting to get anything more than six records out of this.

I will say that the day that I started seeing the "Vinyl Me Please Anthology sold out in three hours and we made XX" articles, I felt betrayed. I've found myself focusing on Light in the Attic lately and Tone Poet.
 
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