Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

Mather said:
Prices come down, there's way less stuff being pressed and my collection is worth less than half of its current value.
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JonnyH said:
Less people buy vinyl. Less vinyl eventually gets made. More people go to digital only, more physical stores close. @NathanRicaud will continue to prop up VMP.
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TenderLovingKiller® said:
Anyone who collected comic books and/or sports cards in the 90’s can see the writing on the wall it isn’t a matter of if but when.
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I've written about this at length before- but the first time vinyl crashed was a mass exodus to a superior sounding new format (CD) and the reason the comic/trading card bubble burst was that the majority of the target audience grew out of it leaving wannabe speculators holding the bag with tons of product. I don't need back issues of 90's X-Men anymore- i do and will always need my Hendrix Family reissues.

Predicting a vinyl bubble burst is to either predict music fans are actually going to abandon physical product for good, or that there is going to be something else that will supersede it as far as quality and collectibility. My opinion is the reason the "bubble" is still going over 15 years later is trifold:

- There isn't as much competition for media collector's dollar. With streaming TV and movies, and with 4k not really the game changer that BD was, a lot of people aren't splitting their entertainment budget with TV show box sets or movie upgrades anymore.

- You don't have to buy everything that you kind of like anymore. With Spotify around to scratch the gratification/preview itch, consumers can pick and choose what albums they want to have a special physical copy of. And nothing is taking it's place; we've been through it all at this point and vinyl won out.

- Third and most importantly: Ten years ago the record labels listened to us. A ton of those LP's from 2007-2010 sound like trash. Listeners wanted quality for the price premium. They responded by contracting guys like Bellman/Gray/etc on overdrive to make definitive sounding reissues of tons of albums. So the quality is there.

So I think what you actually have instead of a bubble is a millennial generation (aprox with some X'ers and Zoomers on both sides) that have survived the Recession of 2008 and now the COVID crash and are using their income to fuel a record industry- maybe as a form of escapism (I don't know enough to expound on that). If SHF is any indicator of how long that type of buying behavior can last, this should be going for a long time yet.
 
TheThinWhiteDuke said:
I've written about this at length before- but the first time vinyl crashed was a mass exodus to a superior sounding new format (CD) and the reason the comic/trading card bubble burst was that the majority of the target audience grew out of it leaving wannabe speculators holding the bag with tons of product. I don't need back issues of 90's X-Men anymore- i do and will always need my Hendrix Family reissues.

Predicting a vinyl bubble burst is to either predict music fans are actually going to abandon physical product for good, or that there is going to be something else that will supersede it as far as quality and collectibility. My opinion is the reason the "bubble" is still going over 15 years later is trifold:

- There isn't as much competition for media collector's dollar. With streaming TV and movies, and with 4k not really the game changer that BD was, a lot of people aren't splitting their entertainment budget with TV show box sets or movie upgrades anymore.

- You don't have to buy everything that you kind of like anymore. With Spotify around to scratch the gratification/preview itch, consumers can pick and choose what albums they want to have a special physical copy of. And nothing is taking it's place; we've been through it all at this point and vinyl won out.

- Third and most importantly: Ten years ago the record labels listened to us. A ton of those LP's from 2007-2010 sound like trash. Listeners wanted quality for the price premium. They responded by contracting guys like Bellman/Gray/etc on overdrive to make definitive sounding reissues of tons of albums. So the quality is there.

So I think what you actually have instead of a bubble is a millennial generation (aprox with some X'ers and Zoomers on both sides) that have survived the Recession of 2008 and now the COVID crash and are using their income to fuel a record industry- maybe as a form of escapism (I don't know enough to expound on that). If SHF is any indicator of how long that type of buying behavior can last, this should be going for a long time yet.
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Oddly I was considering this topic myself earlier today, I’ve started to think about greatly reducing my spend to vinyl I will spin a lot, not just FOMO or more just picking up every new release that interests me.
Starting to remind myself i can stream a lot of these albums. God a lot of the time I have the vinyl edition but I stream or at least play it on my Hi-res player a whole lot more (because I’m listening on the move).
I might not have reached this point just yet but I’m bloody close.

These trends or behavioural changes tend to spill out to the populace I notice - so I’m not discounting a vinyl bubble burst. I know I’m no longer prepared to simply accept £30-£40 costs.
Fuck I started by picking up a tonne of secondhand vinyl for 50p. Each !
 
ByersVinyl said:
Oddly I was considering this topic myself earlier today, I’ve started to think about greatly reducing my spend to vinyl I will spin a lot, not just FOMO or more just picking up every new release that interests me.
Starting to remind myself i can stream a lot of these albums. God a lot of the tome I have the vinyl edition but I stream or at least play it on my Hi-res player a whole lot more (because I’m listening in the move).
I might not have reached this point just yet but I’m bloody close.

These trends or behavioural changes tend to spill out to the populace I notice - so I’m not discounting a vinyl bubble burst. I know I’m no longer prepared to simply accept £30-£40 costs.
Fuck I started by picking up a tonne of secondhand vinyl for 50p. Each !
Click to expand...

Yeah I think consumers resisting a price point is more of a market reaction than a sign of a full on "bubble burst". People are going to charge as much as people are willing to pay. Sometimes they nail the sweet spot and sometimes they overshoot it (Blowout bin, baby!) and sometimes a bunch of children in charge of a record club will go into the hole on a $500 Grateful Dead box set reissue full of stuff all the fans already have.
 
ByersVinyl said:
Oddly I was considering this topic myself earlier today, I’ve started to think about greatly reducing my spend to vinyl I will spin a lot, not just FOMO or more just picking up every new release that interests me.
Starting to remind myself i can stream a lot of these albums. God a lot of the tome I have the vinyl edition but I stream or at least play it on my Hi-res player a whole lot more (because I’m listening in the move).
I might not have reached this point just yet but I’m bloody close.

These trends or behavioural changes tend to spill out to the populace I notice - so I’m not discounting a vinyl bubble burst. I know I’m no longer prepared to simply accept £30-£40 costs.
Fuck I started by picking up a tonne of secondhand vinyl for 50p. Each !
Click to expand...
Same. I think the Herbie box felt like my last extravagance. I've more or less built a list of stuff I'd really like to own on vinyl and given you and I are in 'let's get fucked by customs' land my real wants aren't cheap. At least not for me with my level of disposable income. So the idea of chucking 30 to 40 quid at something that's alrigjt but isn't really going to get much of a runout just doesn't float my goat these days.

And the sheer number of variants out there is insane. Just press the fuckers on black and make them all nice, flat and clean!
 
TheThinWhiteDuke said:
I've written about this at length before- but the first time vinyl crashed was a mass exodus to a superior sounding new format (CD) and the reason the comic/trading card bubble burst was that the majority of the target audience grew out of it leaving wannabe speculators holding the bag with tons of product. I don't need back issues of 90's X-Men anymore- i do and will always need my Hendrix Family reissues.

Predicting a vinyl bubble burst is to either predict music fans are actually going to abandon physical product for good, or that there is going to be something else that will supersede it as far as quality and collectibility. My opinion is the reason the "bubble" is still going over 15 years later is trifold:

- There isn't as much competition for media collector's dollar. With streaming TV and movies, and with 4k not really the game changer that BD was, a lot of people aren't splitting their entertainment budget with TV show box sets or movie upgrades anymore.

- You don't have to buy everything that you kind of like anymore. With Spotify around to scratch the gratification/preview itch, consumers can pick and choose what albums they want to have a special physical copy of. And nothing is taking it's place; we've been through it all at this point and vinyl won out.

- Third and most importantly: Ten years ago the record labels listened to us. A ton of those LP's from 2007-2010 sound like trash. Listeners wanted quality for the price premium. They responded by contracting guys like Bellman/Gray/etc on overdrive to make definitive sounding reissues of tons of albums. So the quality is there.

So I think what you actually have instead of a bubble is a millennial generation (aprox with some X'ers and Zoomers on both sides) that have survived the Recession of 2008 and now the COVID crash and are using their income to fuel a record industry- maybe as a form of escapism (I don't know enough to expound on that). If SHF is any indicator of how long that type of buying behavior can last, this should be going for a long time yet.
Click to expand...

You say it has won out as the physical format but CDs still shift more than double the units that vinyl does. Vinyl has now surpassed CDs in terms of revenue generated, due to its much higher list price, but is still a fair way off in units.
 
ByersVinyl said:
Oddly I was considering this topic myself earlier today, I’ve started to think about greatly reducing my spend to vinyl I will spin a lot, not just FOMO or more just picking up every new release that interests me.
Starting to remind myself i can stream a lot of these albums. God a lot of the time I have the vinyl edition but I stream or at least play it on my Hi-res player a whole lot more (because I’m listening on the move).
I might not have reached this point just yet but I’m bloody close.

These trends or behavioural changes tend to spill out to the populace I notice - so I’m not discounting a vinyl bubble burst. I know I’m no longer prepared to simply accept £30-£40 costs.
Fuck I started by picking up a tonne of secondhand vinyl for 50p. Each !
Click to expand...
I too started buying records for 50p each (I have near-complete collections of Queen, Bowie and the like as a result). I still regularly go to carboot sales (I went to one this morning) and I noticed how my mentality toward buying records completely changes. I'm used to paying around a quid per album at a carboot. When I ask someone how much they are selling them for and they say £4 each, I tell myself that it isn't worth it because they are priced too high. I have 'rejected' countless albums because of this mentality, only to then spend more than this on postage when buying online. It's quite the disparity as some of the best records I have are from carboots, yet I still pay £25 for a new record with £4 postage online. Its really a weird mind-set to have, and I guess it's down to years of buying them for £1, as there really hasn't been a fluctuation in the average sale price for records at carboots. HOWEVER, I have typically found that 'good' records are becoming harder and harder to find. When I first moved to London 8-ish years ago I used to go to carboots with my girlfriend and we would jokingly guess how many Queen albums we would see, as every other stall seemed to be selling them. I can't even remember the last time I saw one now. There are also the people that expect to sell Beatles singles for £20 a pop because they are 'super rare'....and there is unfortunately more and more of those people appearing.
 
Joe Mac said:
You say it has won out as the physical format but CDs still shift more than double the units that vinyl does. Vinyl has now surpassed CDs in terms of revenue generated, due to its much higher list price, but is still a fair way off in units.
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You aren't wrong on the units sold at all- I was mainly speaking on the future; cars aren't being equipped with CD players anymore, the PS4 doesn't even play them (much to my anger and to the indifference of my friends), and it just seems baffling on where CD players are even promoted anymore. I think vinyl is going to be the last man standing
 
TheThinWhiteDuke said:
You aren't wrong on the units sold at all- I was mainly speaking on the future; cars aren't being equipped with CD players anymore, the PS4 doesn't even play them (much to my anger and to the indifference of my friends), and it just seems baffling on where CD players are even promoted anymore. I think vinyl is going to be the last man standing
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I think they’ll both survive as niche. Physical formats are no longer a “convenience product” that you buy expecting to play everywhere, even CDs. Let’s face it despite vinyls revenues now well surpassing CDs they still account for 4% of the music industries revenues, streaming is 80%.

Your casual buyer who likes the top 40 and who used to buy a few singles a month and the odd big album no longer does, they’re on Spotify or Apple Music. Don’t underestimate the economic power of millions of small purchasers over a small amount of lunatics who buy to excess.

Both CDs and vinyl now exist for the people who chose to collect and listen to music on a physical format for whatever reason. If you take that into account look at all the big audio player companies, they all still have significant lines of audiophile CD players and nearly all the All-in-One type HiFi’s still have a CD drive.

There was a generation of collectors that were convinced to swap their Vinyl for CDs and as a mass they absolutely won’t be going back (although some, a few are on this forum, have lol). They are all only in their early 60s and still have more disposable income than our generation who have been financially shat on.

I don’t think you’ll be able to declare a physical format war winner in the next 20-25 years if indeed physical formats persist. All you can say is that music will, like most media, continue move increasingly to cloud based solutions like streaming.
 
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