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The Official 'Vinyl Me, Please' thread.


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17 minutes ago, YouTwo said:

Were you alive in the 90s?  (That's a serious question, not a snarky one).  She was pretty popular in the 90's but not so much after that, besides a true fan following.  

I was. I am in the UK tho so maybe that has something to do with it. The first I heard of here was over on the VMP forums then they referenced her in a Family Guy sketch the other night...

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Just now, Skacel said:

I was. I am in the UK tho so maybe that has something to do with it. The first I heard of here was over on the VMP forums then they referenced her in a Family Guy sketch the other night...

Perhaps.  I honestly don't know a whole lot about her besides her music videos from the 90's on MTV.  I know when I looked up her sales numbers for Tidal it only has US numbers so maybe it never really made it's way across the pond?

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5 hours ago, neo_styles said:

Maybe you'll get lucky and there will be a few copies during next month's garage sale. I imagine you'll have to be quick on the draw, though.

I've emailed VMP and requested that they cancel my account.

 

I've been paying for a crate subscription for years and buy from VMP frequently. I was told firsthand by staff that every record of the month would go for sale on the member store - that's why I opted for the crate subscription closed beta in the first place.  After several back-and-forths showing screenshots of this, VMP just forwarded me around from staff member to staff member, each sending copy and pasted condescending "sorry - join the wait list!" emails.

 

Fuck that. I'm done paying for the chance to purchase a record just so that VMP can retain its fundamentally hypocritical business model of "we're bringing back records that need to be widely available - so now join our propriety and restrictive platform to get them!"

 

I love the work put into their selections and packaging, but their platform is so shamelessly anti-consumer it completey blows my mind. As customers, here are our two options:

 

A ) pay a flat, high monthly rate to get whatever VMP wants to sell you, which is bound to inevitably include records you don't actually want

 

B ) pay monthly for the chance to purchase those records a month later by struggling against their constantly crashing server for up to two hours as you try to even add something to your cart without crashing the fragile servers on their member store. Oh, and apparently every once in a while, VMP decides it can make more money off one of its "album of the month" releases. Tough shit - you don't get those, or any sort of heads up that you won't have the chance to.

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They do offer a guaranteed way to get every AOTM but you decided you didn't want to pay the cost. Unfortunately, they don't offer an option where you can  just do the crate sub and also guarantee that you can get a copy of every AOTM you're interested in. If that's what you wanted (or you interpreted them as promising you that), I can definitely see how that'd be frustrating but it seems like a pretty straight-forward set of options. Pay more for more certainty or pay less and be OK with having delayed access to items if/when they reach the member store.

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56 minutes ago, richardsurf said:

They do offer a guaranteed way to get every AOTM but you decided you didn't want to pay the cost. Unfortunately, they don't offer an option where you can  just do the crate sub and also guarantee that you can get a copy of every AOTM you're interested in. If that's what you wanted (or you interpreted them as promising you that), I can definitely see how that'd be frustrating but it seems like a pretty straight-forward set of options. Pay more for more certainty or pay less and be OK with having delayed access to items if/when they reach the member store.

It's not about not wanting to "pay the cost", with a crate subscription, the price is the same. You're not saving yourself anything except the option to essentially opt-out for a month for $4. 

 

If Demon Days hit the store and sold out and i missed out on it, I'd be a lot less annoyed. My problem is that VMP purposefully opened up extra full subscription spots to deplete their stock, which shafted crate subscription members. They made a conscious decision to grab the extra money and sell more subscriptions rather than reserve a predetermined amount for their store, which they have literally always done up until now.

 

The least they could've done was clearly communicate to crate members that Demon Days would never even be hitting the member store, but by the time they responded to my emails and confirmed it wouldn't, it was gone.

 

VMP never promised me that "album of the month" releases would be easy to get from the store, but they did explicitly tell me that they would always at least hit the store - so I didn't even think to try and switch my account over. Why would I?

 

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1 hour ago, mellowtooth said:

A ) pay a flat, high monthly rate to get whatever VMP wants to sell you, which is bound to inevitably include records you don't actually want

 

All multi-month subscriptions now included unlimited swaps of the AOTM, so you should never have to get an AOTM you don't actually want.

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1 minute ago, ksuwdboots said:

All multi-month subscriptions now included unlimited swaps of the AOTM, so you should never have to get an AOTM you don't actually want.

Presuming that you want one of the others or don't already have all the ones you do want, which is not the case for me.

 

Either way, you don't have to sell me on an AOTM subscription. If you read what I wrote, I was already willing to switch over for Demon Days. My problem is with VMP deliberately shafting crate subscription members this time by not reserving stock as they always have in the past, and not even informing us of this change to the formula.

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12 minutes ago, mellowtooth said:

Presuming that you want one of the others or don't already have all the ones you do want, which is not the case for me.

 

Either way, you don't have to sell me on an AOTM subscription. If you read what I wrote, I was already willing to switch over for Demon Days. My problem is with VMP deliberately shafting crate subscription members this time by not reserving stock as they always have in the past, and not even informing us of this change to the formula.

I wouldn't say they've been "reserving stock" of previous AOTMs for crate subscribers (or full subscribers who wanted a second copy), it's just that for previous AOTMs the supply (amount VMP pressed) has always exceeded the demand from full subscribers, so there were always some copies left over for crate subscribers. With DD, the demand from full subscribers for the AOTM exceeded the supply. 

 

EDIT: The original reason for the crate subscription was to guarantee non-full members access to the member store, not guarantee access to previous AOTMs.

Edited by ksuwdboots
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Just now, ksuwdboots said:

I wouldn't say they've been "reserving stock" of previous AOTMs for crate subscribers (or full subscribers who wanted a second copy), it's just that for previous AOTMs the supply (amount they pressed) has always exceeded the demand from full subscribers, so there were always some copies left over for crate subscribers. With DD, the demand from full subscribers for the AOTM exceeded the supply. 

Exactly.  I believe Crate was created is a way to move a lot of the overstock AOTMs.  More than likely there was nothing in the fine print about titles being guaranteed.  And i'm sure the conversations with them about AOTM titles being available was meant in the context of leftover copies will be available to Crate members.   I would not expect VMP to hold back copies of a hot title for a program that they most likely want to do away with.  

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42 minutes ago, mellowtooth said:

My problem is that VMP purposefully opened up extra full subscription spots to deplete their stock, which shafted crate subscription members. They made a conscious decision to grab the extra money and sell more subscriptions rather than reserve a predetermined amount for their store, which they have literally always done up until now.

 

VMP had a "cap" on new full subscription spots and opened up that cap for this release? I honestly didn't know they limited their membership sign-ups like that.

I also didn't know that VMP "reserved" a predetermined amount of AOTM copies for their store. I always thought that, when all monthly subscribers had received a copy, leftovers are made available on the store (and for swaps). Do you have a link to where they mention that, every month, a number of AOTMs are reserved for the member store?

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10 minutes ago, YouTwo said:

Exactly.  I believe Crate was created is a way to move a lot of the overstock AOTMs.  More than likely there was nothing in the fine print about titles being guaranteed.  And i'm sure the conversations with them about AOTM titles being available was meant in the context of leftover copies will be available to Crate members.   I would not expect VMP to hold back copies of a hot title for a program that they most likely want to do away with.  

Yeah, they would prefer to just get rid of the Crate subscription - but they're actually doing a cool thing by 'grandfathering' in those who already purchased it and leaving it be.  Of course they may in the long run, just get rid of it entirely.  

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2 minutes ago, YouTwo said:

You would think at least a VERY small amount could make it to the store eventually.  They hold copies back for replacements on damaged ones so if there's any of those at some point they could be released in the store.  

someone asked them about this on IG and they said there's absolutely no way gorillaz will be available in the shop

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1 minute ago, richardsurf said:

VMP had a "cap" on new full subscription spots and opened up that cap for this release? I honestly didn't know they limited their membership sign-ups like that.

I also didn't know that VMP "reserved" a predetermined amount of AOTM copies for their store. I always thought that, when all monthly subscribers had received a copy, leftovers are made available on the store (and for swaps). Do you have a link to where they mention that, every month, a number of AOTMs are reserved for the member store?

Yeah, I had never heard either of those statements and I really see no reason why they would. Of course they are going to take full subscribers over crate members every single time since it is the smartest business move and is the same reason they took away the 1 month option for the last wave of open memberships because they knew people would still buy it. There will probably be leftover copies though so they can replace any damage or problems once they all ship out but who knows how many that will be and I would not count on any actually hitting the store but who knows once all the dust settles.

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Crate was a mistake on their part as it allowed people to sign up for a SMALL amount and still pick up the AOTM one month late and on-demand (i.e., if you didn't like it you could skip it). They rectified this by removing the Crate option half a year ago... however, they were nice enough to grandfather in Crate members indefinitely.  Maybe the original promise of Crate was that you could get old AOTM, but assuming that would still be the standard after they have removed the option from their business model entirely is assuming too much, IMO. 

 

Either way, remove emotions from that decision because once you cancel you can't go back... and the Crate membership is one hell of a sweet deal ($4-6 a month) to pay for access to their stock and free shipping. 

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