adam19

Thinking about this makes me smile

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE TIME!!!
 
Like and appreciate where your head's at, but you are only looking at material costs. To properly release a record I have to pay for manufacturing costs PLUS an artist/designer, a producer/engineer, marketing/advertising, a PR person, a radio team, mastering, shipping materials, employees, and the artist themselves — not to mention that services like limited run/big cartel and haulix which we use to process orders and service the record to press cost money. None of the labels you love are making a killing. None of them. Your jaw would drop if you saw my tax returns for the last three years. So, though I hold no ill will or grudge against you at all, this kind of thinking comes off to me as entitled, presumptuous and inconsiderate of how much goes into making something sustainable that you're proud of.
 
Also, I usually disagree with anything Jason Tate has to say (this piece included). Dude is well-intentioned but just straight up doesn't get it IMO. It's like he wants Absolutepunk to be Mashable and you just can't look at this niche through that kind of scope. SMH all the dang time.

It has come to my attention that the average price of a record has gone up incrementally in the last two to three years. We have seen Hot Topic, Shop Radio Cast, Music on Vinyl and other companies buy the rights to albums to get them produced on vinyl for the first time or reissued. With this buying and selling of rights to music the price of the product has increased via these outlets. In an example look at the recent reissues of Blink 182's catalogue or the reissues of some of the early Mars Volta records. These records when they initially came out were much cheaper than they are now. Which leads me to say that vinyl is a craze. That is why the prices are going up. People that understand supply and demand have taken the artist out of the equation and bought up the rights to their music to make a profit. After all we do live in a capitalist society.

I have a problem paying 31.99 for a record that can be manufactured for $12.25. I just do. I know that barely any of that ~200% profit is going to the artists that actually make the music. I understand that a record is something tangible and I do have to pay a premium for that at this point in time but where do we draw the line?

The numbers do not lie. There are many vinyl pressing plants located in the United States that have specials on vinyl production. But lets not even look at the specials. Lets max out the possible amount of money one company can spend on getting something pressed. Keep in mind these are big companies with a lot of money to spend and a lot of money to gain. After all we are still buying the releases aren't we? For the example I am using I am going through United Record Pressing, a plant in Nashville Tennessee that presses most, if not all of Jack White's crazy releases. I am on their 12" record cost calculator. The first thing I do is change from a single LP option to 2XLP option, then I change the amount of records from 500 to 1500, lets be realistic, if a business can't sell 1500 units of something it isn't worth their initial investment. We increase the number to 1500 units, and I am changing the weight of the record from standard vinyl to 180 gram audiophile vinyl. I change the option from sending in a CD to emailing in WAV files, because a click is simpler than mailing a CD and we want a higher quality mix don't we? The next step I complete is the colored vinyl portion, everyone loves colored vinyl so it has to be colored, all 1500 on a custom color because if it isn't unique we won't buy it. Then we go to the labels, we don't want one plain color label, we want the upgrade. 2 colors. Now most people who press records might get their own jackets but since we're a big business and we want a one stop shop we're going to get our jackets from URpressing too. PREMIUM gatefold jackets. We are going to have the nice people at URpressing insert the records into our jackets and also offer a digital download and have them shrink-wrap our release. Now the total cost for the business is 17,355.00 without shipping. Let's be super generous and add 1000$ for shipping. So we're at 18,355.00 for 1500 records. That's 12.24 per 2XLP set. How do we justify the markup to 31.99? I can see purchasing this record with all the premium upgrades for 24.99 because lets be honest. There are a lot of upgrades most that are not even used in current represses. Those Hot Topic Blink 182 records are not 180 gram vinyl so let's subtract the 2980.00 Brings the price per unit with shipping down to 10.25 a 2XLP set. But wait, we aren't getting digital downloads and they don't have to put the digital downloads into the sleeves either, let's remove that 490.00 and that gets us down to 9.92 per 2xLP. Oh my God! You're telling me these blink 182 reissues are not 2xLPs? My bad! Let's reduce it down to 1xLP and see the cost. Wow! That brings our cost down to 7.31. But they are charging 19.99 for these in the store.

Normal retail survives by marking things up 100% So let's do the normal retail thing and mark up our release 14.66. That seems like a VERY FAIR price for the album. Hell, I'd even go up to 17$ so they can recoup some of the expensive licensing costs. OMG How could I have forgotten, this particular press I was thinking about was actually 2700, not 1500. Let's change that. That brings our cost per album with the amazingly high quality jacket and the custom color down to 5.02 after shipping. They are selling this album at around 300% profit.

At least with the new Jimmy Eat World Reissues it's a little more tolerable. Those records are 180 gram color vinyl with gatefold jackets and they are double LPs. The cost can't be determined because we do not know how many they are actually pressing. If they are pressing something like 3000 of each, which wouldn't be outside of the realm of thinking, it would cost around 9$ per 2xLP with all the PREMIUM UPGRADES. List price 31.99. Still around a 200% profit margin.

Lets not forget, like all crazes we are taking something very cheap to produce and marking it up incredibly. Crazy bones, those were pieces of fucking plastic. Pokemon Cards, those we're pieces of cardboard with foil. Baseball cards just like Pokemon cards, some minus the foil. Vinyl records are just another craze. But I don't agree with Jason Tate. I don't feel okay paying 31.99 for an album. I feel okay paying 13-18$ and I can still do that with smaller labels like Red Scare, Asian Man, Dischord, Topshelf, and No Sleep (if I left you out I am sorry). I can still go to shows and pick up albums for 12$ from bands like Modern Baseball or The Hotelier. I can revel in the past when I bought 100$ worth of albums from Saddle Creek and I got a personal email from someone named Nate at the company thanking me for making such a big purchase. Or when my friend bought five or six albums from Red Scare and a special OOP surprise was included in her order.

People are good at manufacturing rarity, rarity sells, that's why presses /100 or /300 sell out in a few hours. But people still buy the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 26th press of an album. So I hope the craze dies out, but I also hope that vinyl stays around.

And just to let everyone know, when Shop Radio Cast or someone else represses Brand New's Deja Entendu /1500 on silver vinyl with a polaroid of Jesse's dick (hand numbered by Adam Lazarra (just playing dude)) I will still buy it for 100$. I'm just like everyone else that is feeding the craze. There are viable ways to keep cost of records down. I don't want fancy bullshit. I want a black 120-180 gram record that was mastered by someone who owns a fucking turntable.
 
http://wordsturnstyles.tumblr.com

Looks like you've chosen B.
Awesome, I was hoping you would pick that. I'll take you off ignore tomorrow. Look forward to seeing you continue to whine and cry and try and play your little victim card, figured I was doing you a favor but it appears that really wasn't what you wanted.

Then put me on ignore you little crybaby bitch. All you do is whine about me picking on you, I tell you I'm putting you on ignore, then you continue to take shots at me after the constant whining about burying the hatchet between us. You have 2 options here. I'll make it real simple for your little crybaby ass because you already had what you wanted but you just couldn't resist yourself, so...
A. Ignore my existence on here entirely, or...
B. I take you off my ignore list and I become your worst nightmare on here again.
Comprende?
And you want to accuse me of being VC's biggest hypocrite? LULZ.
Oh and there was no argument about drop time. I'm right so there's no argument to be had. Sometimes people that are hard headed need to be repeatedly told things in order for them to understand. I don't want people to be given bunk information. Lord knows you're probably using my tips to help your flipper business anyways, so in that regard, you're welcome.

Actually I got the Paranorman splatter and haze and the Coraline variant and have spun them regularly. I also got an amber jurassic park and hopefully a variant and I won't be selling any. If you ask most of the people on VC they will tell you that I regularly sell records on here and most of the time they are under cost. I have had over a 100 people leave me feedback on my page and I've never left anyone in the dirt. I hit gold with those drive soundtracks. I'd be stupid not to sell them. I came into this thread to help out and everyone gave me crap so that was the turning point and I just said screw it. Those albums are the only records I've ever flipped. I've helped out lots of people on VC and timbrh you're the only person I've come across in here that I absolutely can't stand. You have the most elitist attitude and I just hate seeing when you post. You were in such a tissy before Jurassic Park dropped because someone didn't agree with you on the time of the drop. Don't talk about how you don't complain about the "mundane" stuff. You're the VC star of being a hypocrite.

I love how Justin Cole's flipper ass continues to obsess over me.
How many Ambers did you manage to flip this time? You out of anyone shouldn't be giving us lectures on "helping people out" on this fuckin thread. You'd rather take people for their money to help pay for your cat's vaginal reconstructive surgery.

#2 is a fucking ridiculous bass player. Dude is so good

i THINK they're covering "Maxwell Murder" for a Rancid tribute album. Would love to hear the twist he puts on that.

Have Heart collectors already refreshing the webstore

She should go for a full house. There's no way that bitch is getting Yahtzee.

Tried to fix that up for you a little bit.

Meh, I think if you're gonna post a picture of a collection it should at least have a few variants, it's hardly a collection if you only have one of everything.

Did you loot a Hot Topic?

I've got the gold FOB, unplayed. Send me a PM if interested

At last night's show while I was in line for merch, someone attempted to take a picture of the merch displays to send to a friend, and the Alk3 merch dude flipped out on him saying there's no pictures and he better not end up on Instagram. A little over the top perhaps? Needless to say, I bought nothing from him.

well that really wouldn't be getting back at us since no one visits your site anyways.

trying to get the first two goldfinger records done, waiting for an email back from John Feldman about it

When your father was on his death bed, did he whisper into your ear "Son, my dying wish is that when you're in your 40's, you go to record collecting forums on the internet and unjustifiably be an asshole to complete strangers for the sake of being a piece of shit. Woman love complete dickheads that have no legitimate reason to talk shit. Be sure to make fun of the mentally disabled by using the word 'retard' and use comebacks from the early 90's. You'll appear seasoned in your shit-talking and soon you'll be knee-deep. In all the pussies."
I'm assuming you're single, have no children, weigh about 295, eat a lot of cheese, and call yourself a photographer (which you're not good at). I can be desultory and offhand as well, and my banter will also be superior to your's because I'm in my 20's, educated, and have more years ahead of me than behind me (unlike yourself).
On the other hand, after typing this out I'm bored with you. Grow up, you'll enjoy your precious little life more by not being such a prick.
BLOCKED!

Hi guys,
Sorry to start a new topic , but I was hoping some of you guys could help me out.
I transfered money to a guy named " LowerThanPiss" when the old board still was up.
He promised me to send me a trackingnumber for the record he would sent , due to shipment to Belgium.
The last reply I've got from him is from May the 29th and on the old board.
I've sent him an email , but still no response.
Anybody know who this guy is or dealed with him earlier ? Is he solid ?
If I'm correctly he selled some records to go to France or something.
Anyway, I would like to receive my None More Black record!
Cheers,
Dimitri