kurtz

I wouldn't care about using Disney characters, but it is a shitty move to bootleg Tom Whalen's artwork like this.

There is a big difference between using a giant corporation's characters and ripping off a small artist's original work.
 
I urge you to contact Tom Whalen and ask him how he feels about some random dude taking an image of his artwork that was found on the internet, screening it onto LP jackets and selling it to hot topic picture disc collectors.

You guys really think at $15 a pop, plus shipping this dude is not making any profit?

There is a big difference between using a giant corporation's characters and ripping off a small artist's original work.
 
I urge you to contact Tom Whalen and ask him how he feels about some random dude taking an image of his artwork that was found on the internet, screening it onto LP jackets and selling it to hot topic picture disc collectors.

You guys really think at $15 a pop, plus shipping this dude is not making any profit?

You guys really think at $15 a pop, plus shipping this dude is not making any profit?

I wouldn't care about using Disney characters, but it is a shitty move to bootleg Tom Whalen's artwork like this.

I wouldn't care about using Disney characters, but it is a shitty move to bootleg Tom Whalen's artwork like this.

There is a big difference between using a giant corporation's characters and ripping off a small artist's original work.
 
I urge you to contact Tom Whalen and ask him how he feels about some random dude taking an image of his artwork that was found on the internet, screening it onto LP jackets and selling it to hot topic picture disc collectors.

There is a big difference between using a giant corporation's characters and ripping off a small artist's original work.
 
I urge you to contact Tom Whalen and ask him how he feels about some random dude taking an image of his artwork that was found on the internet, screening it onto LP jackets and selling it to hot topic picture disc collectors.

There is a big difference between using a giant corporation's characters and ripping off a small artist's original work.
 
I urge you to contact Tom Whalen and ask him how he feels about some random dude taking an image of his artwork that was found on the internet, screening it onto LP jackets and selling it to hot topic picture disc collectors.

It's neither Hüsker Dü nor Sugar, so I'd say no.
 
On a serious note, try giving it a wipe down with isopropyl alcohol.

What's the appeal of buying from Urban Outfitters or Hot Topic or places like that? Are the prices cheaper? Is it easier for you? Is it the exclusive presses?
 
I never buy records from places like that because in my experience you can get the products from the labels/artists or independent shops just as easily. Personally if there's a chance to get the same album from a record store (even for slightly more £££) then I'll shop there, definitely. We don't have Hot Topic stores here but the Urban Outfitters in my city, aside from being a cathedral of utterly awful pricks, has totally ridiculous prices for albums that can easily be bought elsewhere.
 
 

Young God Records and Swans are the same people.
 
Stoked for Filth!
 
Hope to also see Cop and Public Castration...

I guess I personally feel like maximizing profit - something Tate alludes to a few times in both posts - is a motive more in line with a publicly traded company whose sole concern is the bottom line. In the "scene" of underground music (whatever the fuck that means post-internet), however, people have always trumped money. I know countless articles have been written on this subject - how street cred doesn't pay a mortgage, the concept of selling out is stupid, "punk is totally irrelevant", etc. I myself have long been reticent to leave the stability of a dead end job for more fulfilling creative endeavors just for the fact that I need money to live, so I empathize with that struggle. I do still believe, though, that if you're playing in a rock band in 2014 and you're not satisfied with coming out of a gig with enough to get you home and an affirmation that people like what you're doing, maybe you should look into the tech sector.
I also don't appreciate the condescending tone of "well, you don't want to pay for music, but you'll blow a bunch of money on bullshit". I don't go out to eat. I don't smoke. I don't drink regularly. I'm not a $4 coffee person. Roughly 90% of my expendable income is spent in patronage of the arts. I'm sure that chicken wing person exists, but some of us are just bummed that $50 doesn't go half as far at the record store as it did 5 years ago, and the only people getting richer from it are the labels who have never been afraid to kill the goose in pursuit of its golden eggs, along with a few opportunists who 15 years ago would've been in the collectible stuffed animal game.
I feel pretty fortunate in that so far, none of the stuff with bonkers ($30+) pricing has been anything I'm interested in, but sooner or later there's going to be something I want that ends up being an SRC exclusive on vanilla fudge swirl, and I'll be angrily shaking my fist at all you dummies who long ago decided that 45 minutes of high school nostalgia was worth $30 a hit.

That's the problem with everybody now. No one wants to take a loss on anything. 99.9% of things you buy in life lose value over time. Most of your records will. I'm sick of people trying to sell everything for basically retail even though it's used.

All the people saying that these reissues and overpriced records are still going to hold value or wont be seen in dollar bins in 15 years obviously werent around for the 90s and early 2000's when records were routinely found in dollar bins and worth shit, with even less being produced than now. You think because you paid 35 dollars for it now that in 15 years you wont let it go for less than that, but when your significant other is hounding you to sell them because it is taking up space in the basement and they want the room for their new exercise equipment and the box is too heavy to bring to the dumpster themselves, you will take whatever you can get for it from ebay/local record store.

There is an absolute false market for vinyl at the moment. People are buying multiple copies as a collectible as opposed to one copy to listen to. At some point this either becomes a mainstream hobby or it dies again. Right now it's tilting into the mainstream as I watch Dads pull credit cards to buy their 13 year old $150 worth of reissues. Trust me, 99% of the kids I was with in the 80s blowing my allowance with on 45s no longer have a single record and the same will be true when Hot Topic and other mass retailers cease seeing a huge profit like every other trend. 
 
I never made an analogy - I stated a consumer fact from the perspective of a music fan: If you consume music in mass like most of us do then you need to find the balance between your hobby/habit and your economic responsibilities. $1 used cds today are what a $2 copy of Spiderland was when I bought it in 1997 - THE CHEAPEST WAY TO GET AWESOME MUSIC. Am I pulling out those $1 cds with any nostalgia attached to them? No. But I'm also watching my saving account grow and holding 15 pieces of new music in my hands instead of one jacked up reissue that will inevitably be cheaper in a few years. None of these bands are The Misfits and even with them I got most of my shit cheap way back and their recent reissues will eventually make their way to the same fate. 
 
Be smart folks. Most of this stuff is meaningless no matter how much we want to attach that kiss with the girl that got away with some crappy Jimmy Eat World song as we dump another $100 on a reissue of a record you already have. 

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a different world than most of the people on VC. I rarely ever spend over 20 bucks on a record, and the rare occasions that I do it is typically an import.
 
It's so weird that $20-$30 records is the norm for you guys.
 
 
 
^ Smartest post in this thread.
 
I have also been scoring big lately on cheap CDs.
 
And I will continue to until 10 years from now when cdcollective starts up and people start buying them again for nostalgia.

VC = Entitled Twats
 
 
 
 
(According to the high-horse minds of AP.net)

Maybe it's time to accept that vinyl at the moment is seen as a novelty and collectible and not a music format. 
 
I say it over and over: the reason my collection is so large is because when I started buying in the 80s/90s it was 10x cheaper to buy on vinyl than cassette and cd. I was looking the other day at my copy of Slint "Spiderland" and it still has a $2 price tag on the back. I bought all my music on vinyl so that I could have 5 items for the price of a cd. 
 
In the past year I have scaled back my buying of vinyl exponentially correlating with the ridiculous rise in prices. I'm not immune from the occasional vinyl splurge but I'm killing it at my local used book store where they have binders of cds for $1. 
 
If the physical format is more important than the music then you'll have to roll along with Brother Tate and eat the cost. My advice: get your consumer habits in check and go for the cheaper option whenever the music holds no nostalgia. 
 
Now, I know I'll get a bunch of "It sounds better" bullshit. Nothing I've bought in 30+ years of buying vinyl justifies me reaching into my pocket for a marginal record and paying $30 when the cd can be had for $1 used. 

This thread is at silver status until we get a Heisel appearance. 

They get people into the fetishization of the physical format as a frame-able novelty that comes in pretty colors and limited editions. Those people then get bummed when albums put out by established bands/labels don't have colored variants/hand numbering/180 gram weight, so labels begin to cater to this type of customer and the next thing you know $20+ is the norm for new LPs, and every garbage dollar bin filler is repressed as a $30 "limited edition". I'm not saying Hot Topic is solely responsible for this shift, but I don't think doing CD-cut splatter reissues of nostalgia trip albums is doing anything positive for the format. Read the blonk splatter series thread, there are people who already owned regular pressings of just the albums they wanted, and then bought the whole series just to, I guess, have them all match? I don't want anything to do with that line of logic!
So I care more about why people are getting into vinyl than about raw numbers. The people who make music I care about have always and will always make vinyl because they don't see it as a "collectors item".

jason tate is the whiniest bitch ever. this isn't a new opinion nor is it an original thought in the slightest... but the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality is the sorriest excuse of an idea ever. 
 
also, how is coming to the defense of large labels at all (absolute)punk?
 
yes vinyl prices are going up from "cash-in-labels" like SRC, Because Sound Matters and AFS (RIP). And from major labels like Warner and Interscope (lana del rey at urban outfitters?!) because it's the first thing they know they can sell in a while. 
 
Small indie labels are still finding ways to keep prices down though because those sales aren't guaranteed. They spend more to produce each unit and sell it for less. 
 
Like every other big corporation, big labels aren't worried about getting the music in the people's hands, they're worried about making as much money before the bubble bursts. If they could take a step back and realize they're causing the bubble to burst sooner, that'd be great.

Yes... track down the Allegory Of Allergies.... my favorite from them