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

Nee Lewman said:
Yeah but there are recent rotms in that stuff too. They dumped the internationals and had one of their biggest price increases at the same time.

I’d love to see their p&Ls. I’m sure it looks like a monkey with a calculator.
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keep in mind, those "recent" ROTM orders were probably placed close to a year ago. havent looked in a bit but gary bartz was the last one i saw which was something like 9 months ago. i think VMP is really cutting numbers down on how much they press for ROTM lately. there have been quite a few sell outs this year already. the fact that gus cannon is supposedly almost sold out is wild to me but good on them i guess. still don't entirely believe it...
 
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MikeH said:
keep in mind, those "recent" ROTM orders were probably placed close to a year ago. havent looked in a bit but gary bartz was the last one i saw which was something like 9 months ago. i think VMP is really cutting numbers down on how much they press for ROTM lately. there have been quite a few sell outs this year already. the fact that gus cannon is supposedly almost sold out is wild to me but good on them i guess. still don't entirely believe it...
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Me either. Plus it’s worrisome to a certain extent. Swaps have been low supposedly. They scuttled quite a few customers (I know quite a few internationals are left for a bit but I’ve seen quite a few people say there were out now and if it were me, I would do it in such a way that I had the biggest impact) and consolidated two other subs into that track. You would think that they ordered a small amount of this. That being said… Noble Records has certainly proved that there is a kind of fervorish desire for some private press/tiny press items. Maybe there is a larger audience for Stax jug band music than I ever thought. Although, I’m willing to bet that the zine article, the hype machine and the relative lack of it being on streaming lead to a desire to say why not? Plus we know the cultish aspect of their service is strong. I’m glad it’s successful for them, but there is a part of me that wonders if we don’t see a “sell out” every month - with plenty opportunity to swap to it later later or tbt for forever. It just all seems odd to me.
 
Also, this was July, no?
www.hhv.de

Joni Mitchell - The Hissing Of Summer Lawns Vinyl Me, Please Edition

Why you'll love it... By the time Joni Mitchell made The Hissing of Summer Lawns, she had already entered the pantheon of the greats, with albums that can be talked about in casual conversation without having to say the artist (Court and Spark, Blue, Ladies of the Canyon, et al.). But the...
www.hhv.de www.hhv.de
 
TrickyNick77 said:
Storf is taking a victory lap with the success of Gus Cannon. Does seem a bit early for that. I can see Pauli and the CS team getting hammered when Rock and Country subs receive their RotM next month.
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This has always been my assumption. Let’s say they are down to 15,000 members. There are less than a thousand active here, Reddit and Discord. I would assume there are a good 9000 that have paid their dues and just let stuff come to them. I’d guess they got at least 2000 people getting ready to get this dropped on them unknowingly. I’d guess half the country members will just shrug it off and maybe a 1/4 of the rock people. There will be at least 1000 people going wtf? That’s a bigger headache than I’d want but whatevs. And that number is probably conservative.
 
Twentytwo said:
I'm ready to be done with them since they did away with Country. I got my last subscription for $279 with 8 free records, not about to spend $530 on 12 this year with less choices than ever.
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Yeah, I’m good through January and will keep an eye out for ones I am willing to spend the monthly price on but they don’t offer the value proposition at that price (much less more for a quarter or a year). If country were still going and prices had not just been priced through the damn roof, I would have considered staying. Even Classics which was my favorite repress series for a bit isn’t what it once was.
 
Nee Lewman said:
Yeah, I’m good through January and will keep an eye out for ones I am willing to spend the monthly price on but they don’t offer the value proposition at that price (much less more for a quarter or a year). If country were still going and prices had not just been priced through the damn roof, I would have considered staying. Even Classics which was my favorite repress series for a bit isn’t what it once was.
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Gus Cannon sold out? Does that mean they pressed 300 copies, or the remaining subscribers think it is a Stax soul record, or half were just unwittingly shifted over from another stream and don't realize they are getting this?

Or...the new strategy is to stoke FOMO by claiming it is sold out, while holding back a ton to sell as a one-time 'repress' later.

On to topic.

My subscription expires at midnight. I had $92 in membership and store credits left. I bought my LAST THREE VMP titles with it.

When the Black Sabbath repress comes in, that will end my relationship with VMP, at least the direct one.

Curiously, I might have renewed (although the next three months don't inspire me and honestly, most of this past year has been very spotty) but I am happy they took that decision away from me. I am back now to where I was in 2018 - if something REALLY interests me, I'll buy a copy on Discogs.

And, I don't have to worry about when VMP goes belly-up part way through a subscription.

Relieved.
 
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Nee Lewman said:
Noble Records has certainly proved that there is a kind of fervorish desire for some private press/tiny press items.
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Isn't this sort of the point that CEO Matt was trying to make? Re-calibrate and go back to their "core" mission of Lost Sounds Found with scarcity? Didn't he mention that he wanted to bring this back during the Discord Q4 chat? I mean, speaking personally, I got into all of this in the first place for the FKA Classics and the triad of Malik/Frisell/Scott is exactly what keeps me interested. They can do a lot better on a lot of things and I'm the first to bitch but I remain hopeful. The last few months have certainly convinced me that they got way in over their heads. We shall see.
 
Holdsworthian said:
Isn't this sort of the point that CEO Matt was trying to make? Re-calibrate and go back to their "core" mission of Lost Sounds Found with scarcity? Didn't he mention that he wanted to bring this back during the Discord Q4 chat? I mean, speaking personally, I got into all of this in the first place for the FKA Classics and the triad of Malik/Frisell/Scott is exactly what keeps me interested. They can do a lot better on a lot of things and I'm the first to bitch but I remain hopeful. The last few months have certainly convinced me that they got way in over their heads. We shall see.
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He didn’t really talk about lost sounds found, which wasn’t their original take anyhow… it was something about stories. Lost sounds found was post forum dissolution. He did talk about the albums that need a brighter light shined on them, but that’s not quite the same thing. Thing is, when they’ve really done that, it’s not been super successful for them at any point (even though it’s when they’ve club works at its best.). I also think they’re gonna have a hard time with that at their current base and price point. Noble and Easy Ride are pressing at better plants, too and usually a good bit cheaper
 
Nee Lewman said:
Also, this was July, no?
www.hhv.de

Joni Mitchell - The Hissing Of Summer Lawns Vinyl Me, Please Edition

Why you'll love it... By the time Joni Mitchell made The Hissing of Summer Lawns, she had already entered the pantheon of the greats, with albums that can be talked about in casual conversation without having to say the artist (Court and Spark, Blue, Ladies of the Canyon, et al.). But the...
www.hhv.de www.hhv.de
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Didn’t see that one because, to be honest, don’t really care what’s selling elsewhere haha. If you paid full price for any VMP stuff in the past year, you fucked up. Referral codes, 40% off sales and freebie subs all gave opportunities to get stuff for cheap. I’d be annoyed if they were selling Rocket to Russia, or Sabbath, or store exclusives that sold out and you can’t get at VMP anymore. But people have had ample time to buy all this stuff as members. Some people seem to want them to just sit on piles and piles of these albums just because. They are gonna get the pressing numbers wrong sometimes and be left with stock. They did it a LOT in the last year or two. Let em sell it wholesale. Just get rid of the “you can only get this version at VMP” on their site.

Nee Lewman said:
This has always been my assumption. Let’s say they are down to 15,000 members. There are less than a thousand active here, Reddit and Discord. I would assume there are a good 9000 that have paid their dues and just let stuff come to them. I’d guess they got at least 2000 people getting ready to get this dropped on them unknowingly. I’d guess half the country members will just shrug it off and maybe a 1/4 of the rock people. There will be at least 1000 people going wtf? That’s a bigger headache than I’d want but whatevs. And that number is probably conservative.
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I think VMP is gonna start cutting pressing numbers on the ROTM a lot to sell out quicker. I’d bet Gus Cannon numbers weren’t gigantic compared to past essentials pressings. I doubt they pressed as many Cannon as they did Ramones for example.

I do think there will be people who have no clue the rock or country track ended despite the zine, header on the website and numerous emails that have gone out.

I also think people underestimate how many people are set and forget customers who probably don’t even know you can swap. But those people will probably be fine with Gus Cannon.

We’ll hear abut the people who are pissed that they didn’t know rock or country ended and got autoswapped to essentials…because they will be the loudest. But I’d bet that number isn’t huge.
 
Holdsworthian said:
Isn't this sort of the point that CEO Matt was trying to make? Re-calibrate and go back to their "core" mission of Lost Sounds Found with scarcity? Didn't he mention that he wanted to bring this back during the Discord Q4 chat? I mean, speaking personally, I got into all of this in the first place for the FKA Classics and the triad of Malik/Frisell/Scott is exactly what keeps me interested. They can do a lot better on a lot of things and I'm the first to bitch but I remain hopeful. The last few months have certainly convinced me that they got way in over their heads. We shall see.
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They have said a few times that:

A) they are gonna go away from lost sounds found

And

B) they are going to cut pressing numbers and probably exclusive numbers. They don’t want stuff sitting on shelves in warehouses for years.

I think they said Anthologies are on the back burner now too sadly. Some of the anthologies are the best VMP releases out there. Zamrock, Miles, Impulse, And Tribe records were all awesome. Waylon and Willie were great too.

IMO, they should just cut pressing numbers pretty drastically (especially on store exclusives and Variants) and try to achieve one or two month sell outs. Sell all old backstock wholesale. If ROTMs sell out frequently, some of the members may come back. Right now, many rightfully seem to think that there’s no benefit to being a member if they can just get the records later at RT, Plaidroom, HHV, etc. but if those albums start selling out and not making it to wholesale, popular titles will get people signing up again.

I reckon the freebies subs ending and price going up is gonna kill membership numbers though. Member numbers were probably very inflated from that freebies campaign.
 
Jan said:
I might be in the minority, but actually like the record. Pricing at that time was also at a level where even with international shipping the records would not be much more expensive than the regular version in stores. At that price level they would alternate between big records like demon days or fugees with new artists. For me the club was more fun at the time
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This is general feeling as well.
 
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