Hi, I have april uprising limited edition 24-bit remaster still factory sealed on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/141217730220?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
According to United's price calculator: 1000 standard weight black LPs in generic DJ sleeves cost $2.09 per unit. If you're only pressing 500, it's $2.82/unit. According to Gotta Groove's price card: $2.20/unit for 1000, $3.10/unit for 500, and that's with no sleeves at all. Other plants' prices are roughly in line with those. That's without premastering, full cover labels, non-generic jackets (gatefold jackets can cost as much as the records themselves) recording costs, and having enough money left over to keep the label's lights on/dump into the next project. I hope this thread doesn't exist just because a guy told you in 2007 that Universal sold 12" singles for $1.50 wholesale. They were that cheap because:
1. It was 2007, and I don't care that you think vinyl was big, the record sales show it wasn't. Digital sales were in their infancy, CDs were still king, and vinyl was for nerds, old fogeys, and DJs. Now, post-"vinyl revival", post-Jack White, post-Record Store Day, pressing plants are slammed 24/7 pressing new special edition copies of Rumours, and prices have gone up. This is 5th grade economics here.
2. Universal owns the whole pipe, from the artist to the studio to the manufacturing (at least, when they used to own plants of their own) to the distribution.
3. 12" singles (at least the kind we're talking about) are more or less all promos, whether they're marked as such or not. They could eat a loss no sweat, because those cheap singles were getting played by DJs and other tastemakers, and that artist's music was getting extra exposure to sell a couple thousand more copies of their album, which had a huge profit margin.
For the most part, small labels doing small pressings are doing so because it makes the most sense for them. You keep bringing up Universal, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, as examples of how it should be done, but guess what? Universal has warehouses, huge staff, and hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of these labels you seem to hate are run out of bedrooms, garages, and basements. They don't have the capital or physical space to make thousands of copies of everything they put out just so it never goes out of print.
The thing is, I empathize with a lot of the cynicism you hold towards this message board. I hate splatter bullshit, I hate preorders, I hate $20+ single LPs, I hate the fact that people here get excited about Linkin Park and Evanescence and Limp Bizkit reissues and don't give a shit about great new music that's coming out. I think your anger is misplaced, though. This was never an "audiophile"-type vinyl board. It was founded in 2007 by a guy who ran a punk label, when vinyl was just starting to be more of a thing, and it was a place for people with punk/indie/hardcore-type tastes to get more info about what was coming out. Somewhere along the way, it warped into a place where Panic at the Disco has at least 5 separate threads and a guy who works for Hot Topic is revered as a god. But boy you need to take your Valium and stop yelling at a bunch of people who do not care that you like bootlegs or whatever. You hate collector bullshit, that's fine. Welcome to the club. I don't see myself as a collector, but I don't miss out on releases I'm interested in because of people who do. Is it possible that your rage comes from a place of self-loathing, because you have realized that you have the same music tastes as people who keep their records in frames on their walls?
If i want 10 different variations of the same record, fuck you, I'll do it.
I listen to all my records, rare or not. Do i enjoy owning a limited pressing? Sure, it adds to
the collecting aspect. I just cannot for the life of me understand what would make a person
this mad about what other people do with their money.
Are the record labels doing it to make more, absolutely, But again who cares, if the consumer is happy about it
then its a win, win situation.
Now that I've found a way to get most US records to EU at US cost with insanely low shipping charges, I don't mind any more.
However, some of these comments are really ignorant:
I for example had to import around 90% of all the records I own from US. Of course it's not a big deal when you have to import one record for every 50 you buy.
Also, buying the EU pressing of a worldwide release doesn't help either. For a record that costs $15 in the US, the EU release costs 20 eur, which is roughly $25.
Wow, that's a good argument. The average pay for a store clerk/someone working in retail here (I chose this because many on this board work similar jobs) is 3.50-4 eur/hour. That's $4.50 to $5. The average (cheap) price for a record is $25-$30 (pretty much the same if you buy locally or import from the states). Fortunately our money is worth more, somehow magically this helps a lot.
