Vinyl Me Please Essentials

duke86fan said:
tbh now that i think about it it makes sense that the country and rock subs are dying and consolidating into essentials

storf stated in the Q&A he was having trouble managing what ROTM to do in September until he finally decided to repeat the ramones, so I am guessing the curation for rock had been all over the place. and for country we know there has been a lot of repeats (waylon, chalino, alan jackson) so curation for that was also really hard.. best to just have the occasional rock and country pick that is big in essentials instead of trying to appeal to them

is that a good thing.. that's debatable.. does it make sense from a logistics and planning standpoint.. sadly yes
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As I said before. Having too many subs hurts them. They end up ordering too many copies Ronnie Milsap and Sam Hunt records that they likely can’t even give away. The better approach, especially given their current price points, is to only be producing desirable/popular for their remaining subs, and then if they wanna release Harry Nilsson’s Son of Dracula, or a Brad Paisley album, they can do limited numbered exclusive. I know @MikeH has rightfully stressed that licensing issues too it will will be easier securing 36 albums a year than 60. I don’t know if this fixes all their issues completely but if it allows them to get their shit together while they scale down it seems like the smartest route to take.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
As I said before. Having too many subs hurts them. They end up ordering too many copies Ronnie Milsap and Sam Hunt records that they likely can’t even give away. The better approach, especially given their current price points, is to only be producing desirable/popular for their remaining subs, and then if they wanna release Harry Nilsson’s Son of Dracula, or a Brad Paisley album, they can do limited numbered exclusive. I know @MikeH has rightfully stressed that licensing issues too it will will be easier securing 36 albums a year than 60. I don’t know if this fixes all their issues but if it allows them to get their shit together why they scale down it seems like the smartest route to take.
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This gives them more credit than I personally think they deserve. Having fewer albums doesn't mean that they'll be making better picks, it just means there's less selection. Allowing swaps is definitely a tough thing to manage in terms of pressing numbers, but I just don't see this as a move that's going to translate into better curation. Even with the number of options they have a lot of people are swapping for credit. Sure it's probably good from a business perspective if they can't staff enough to cover the volume they're doing, but I just don't see this as being good for the consumer in the long run. But I don't have to keep buying if I don't like what they put out. Plenty of options I like more lately anyway, but I do like the quality of the jackets and I appreciated the good CS when it was good (last few times have been terrible). I'm kind of just over them at this point. There's nothing to be excited for because every announcement is a downer.
 
I honestly think the smartest business decision they could make is having every track limited to a specific number. Like Interscope is doing 3000 subs. Once that's done they have no more stock taking up space. It's easy to budget and forecast. They could put a cap on each sub and create the fomo they so love. Swaps would be more limited but the "rarity" would still make people buy some of the less desirable picks. And they could still expand at a more focused pace knowing what the market will bear by creating the demand. It's bull shit capitalism 101.
 
Hemotep said:
I honestly think the smartest business decision they could make is having every track limited to a specific number. Like Interscope is doing 3000 subs. Once that's done they have no more stock taking up space. It's easy to budget and forecast. They could put a cap on each sub and create the fomo they so love. Swaps would be more limited but the "rarity" would still make people buy some of the less desirable picks. And they could still expand at a more focused pace knowing what the market will bear by creating the demand. It's bull shit capitalism 101.
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i remember that when they first were starting you had to register to be in the club.. like you were put on a waitlist saying "I wanna join the club" and then you would get an email when you were able to... i remember because I really wanted to join for donuts
 
MyWifeHatesTrain said:
I think what is more likely is that FOMO is dying. Seems like less and less things sell out at preorder stage.
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They have been smart to start doing way more limited variant drops (300-500).

I think @Hemotep isnt wrong either about the idea of limiting tracks, but VMP had around 20k subscribers last time it was brought up (so probably a bit less now) and limiting stuff to say 5,000 either means that it’s a bloodbath and subscribers miss out because they can’t be at swaps first thing, or limiting to 10-20k doesn’t seem limited at all and they sit. They could seemingly do with lowering the amounts ordered though of the records of the month. Hardly any sell out these days aside from rock, which is cancelled.
 
MikeH said:
They have been smart to start doing way more limited variant drops (300-500).

I think @Hemotep isnt wrong either about the idea of limiting tracks, but VMP had around 20k subscribers last time it was brought up (so probably a bit less now) and limiting stuff to say 5,000 either means that it’s a bloodbath and subscribers miss out because they can’t be at swaps first thing, or limiting to 10-20k doesn’t seem limited at all and they sit. They could seemingly do with lowering the amounts ordered though of the records of the month. Hardly any sell out these days aside from rock, which is cancelled.
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I do find it funny that rock ROTM seems to be consistently selling out but was one of the streams they killed. Probably was the hardest to get licenses for titles. I mean look at Bad Company, there are 2 audiophile reissues this year alone
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I do find it funny that rock ROTM seems to be consistently selling out but was one of the streams they killed. Probably was the hardest to get licenses for titles. I mean look at Bad Company, there are 2 audiophile reissues this year alone
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Wasn’t it one of the lower pressing numbers for the tracks? Makes sense it sold out though based on the titles they chose. They will just roll those kinds of rock titles into essentials I’m assuming.
 
Hemotep said:
That sounds more just like he isn't very great at curating things... But we already knew that. It's been said to death but they need some diversity in who is curating the picks.
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It's not just the picks, they need a diversity of voices in everything they do and have for years now. It's great Matt chatted with a handful of customers recently, but that's still somewhat self-selected and was only temporary. It appears he's unlikely to either get rid of the people he initially hired or bring in new voices that differ from the existing inner circle. If anything, he's circling the wagons because there's been no clarity on replacing the people who were fired or if the "interim" tag was genuine. He was fantastic at starting up the company but seems incapable of doing more and was just as asleep at the wheel as the rest of the board. All he's doing now is offering a vision for a path forward that amounts to 'contracting back to similar to what we were doing when I was initially in charge'. Super inspiring.

If your main curator can't get his shit together for even Essentials, leaving aside the duplication and general meh selections in other tracks, then why wasn't he also fired (or demoted/shared title if you can't bring yourself to do that)? It can't be shown on a spreadsheet as obviously as investment in a record plant you no longer own, but his actions are also costing the company a lot of money in lost subs/customers.
 
I know Storf is the “face” of curation but he doesn’t pick everything. There has been a fairly diverse group of people picking albums. Not sure if Storf has final say or what but anybody in the company can pitch albums and they have brought in people to curate hip hop and other tracks. Y’all just don’t like what they have been picking and have been able to get the rights to haha. Easy to pin the curation on him since he’s the only forward facing person at the company with regards to picking albums. And he probably does end up picking too many albums himself (like all the Nilssons).

I agree that maybe a new head of curation would help but I also think that VMP just has had poor leadership over the years. There’s been no focus really, communication between teams is non-existent, making decisions on the fly without actually being able to implement or communicate those decisions, etc.
 
MikeH said:
I know Storf is the “face” of curation but he doesn’t pick everything. There has been a fairly diverse group of people picking albums. Not sure if Storf has final say or what but anybody in the company can pitch albums and they have brought in people to curate hip hop and other tracks. Y’all just don’t like what they have been picking and have been able to get the rights to haha. Easy to pin the curation on him since he’s the only forward facing person at the company with regards to picking albums. And he probably does end up picking too many albums himself (like all the Nilssons).

I agree that maybe a new head of curation would help but I also think that VMP just has had poor leadership over the years. There’s been no focus really, communication between teams is non-existent, making decisions on the fly without actually being able to implement or communicate those decisions, etc.
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One of my favorite AOTM, Experience Unlimited, was suggested by a forum member and it was before N&G. As for me they could hire @Yer Ol' Uncle D and I'd subscribe for 24 months.

What I was expecting with VMP at the beginning was this kind of curation. Fugees, Beck or Moby are good records but I don't need to be introduced to me. Give me Ayalew Mesfins and Experience Unlimiteds every month and I'll be happy with.
 
Skalap said:
One of my favorite AOTM, Experience Unlimited, was suggested by a forum member and it was before N&G. As for me they could hire @Yer Ol' Uncle D and I'd subscribe for 24 months.

What I was expecting with VMP at the beginning was this kind of curation. Fugees, Beck or Moby are good records but I don't need to be introduced to me. Give me Ayalew Mesfins and Experience Unlimiteds every month and I'll be happy with.
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I don’t disagree and love those too but the “lost sounds found” ROTMs are almost always the worst selling ones, so not sure how sustainable that would be. I think you can get Ayalew and Experience for under $15 each these days.

The big names are what makes VMP money and what allows them to do some of those lesser known albums.
 
MikeH said:
I don’t disagree and love those too but the “lost sounds found” ROTMs are almost always the worst selling ones, so not sure how sustainable that would be. I think you can get Ayalew and Experience for under $15 each these days.

The big names are what makes VMP money and what allows them to do some of those lesser known albums.
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yukbon said:
Sure, but note that Ayalew is still in the store for swaps this month. So uh that might be a bad example of "an album that keeps the company in the black"
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Sure it's not the best selling records but I don't know what kind of deals they make with major labels. I always had the idea that in order to release a certain record they had to release others from the same artist/label. So at the end of the day, they may sit on many different releases from an artist/label while they sell out only one, the most popular, and can't even repress them to recover. Not sure they really make a lot of money with these deals.
 
Skalap said:
Sure it's not the best selling records but I don't know what kind of deals they make with major labels. I always had the idea that in order to release a certain record they had to release others from the same artist/label. So at the end of the day, they may sit on many different releases from an artist/label while they sell out only one, the most popular, and can't even repress them to recover. Not sure they really make a lot of money with these deals.
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I think they have sometimes had deals to release multiple albums from the same artist or label but doesn’t seem that often. Ayalew was released in 2018 and still taking up space in the warehouse.

Lost sounds found are great in theory. In practice I don’t think a single one has sold out. If they did, it took years and years. And nearly all of the lost sounds found were done with other labels like Now-Again, who won’t give exclusive rights and then press their own versions a year later.
 
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