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Vinyl

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My brother has a record shop. Probably about 7 or 8 years now. He said it has become too expensive to buy new stock. The cost price of a standard album or re-issue has sky rocketed in last couple of years. He's basically just selling second hand stuff at this point and selectively offloading his own back catalogue of records.

I think as a small independent store, he reckons his days are numbered.
 
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chrismpw said:
Having said that, I've embraced HD streaming to my heart over the last year.
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I really like having streaming to try out the music and decide if you’ll like it enough long term to buy a physical copy. Back in the day you were just hoping the record you bought wouldn’t be the one or two good songs you heard on the radio, and then a whole lot of cack.

Plus you can’t take your turntable to work or play records in the car.
 
mmmmsnouts said:
I really like having streaming to try out the music and decide if you’ll like it enough long term to buy a physical copy. Back in the day you were just hoping the record you bought wouldn’t be the one or two good songs you heard on the radio, and then a whole lot of cack.

Plus you can’t take your turntable to work or play records in the car.
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I used to love the little 'hype stickers' that they used in Probe Records back in the day - "For fans of.... etc"

Stumbled across so many gems like that just taking a punt
 

mmmmsnouts said:
I really like having streaming to try out the music and decide if you’ll like it enough long term to buy a physical copy. Back in the day you were just hoping the record you bought wouldn’t be the one or two good songs you heard on the radio, and then a whole lot of cack.

Plus you can’t take your turntable to work or play records in the car.
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Thus also lessens the pain of paying over the odds for albums, be interesting to see how long the vinyl boom goes on for, the weird thing is there's nothing really that can compete with its uniqueness
 
Chozz said:
My brother has a record shop. Probably about 7 or 8 years now. He said it has become too expensive to buy new stock. The cost price of a standard album or re-issue has sky rocketed in last couple of years. He's basically just selling second hand stuff at this point and selectively offloading his own back catalogue of records.

I think as a small independent store, he reckons his days are numbered.
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A mate in Newcastle says the same. There was a huge vinyl shortage post Covid which pushed prices of new pressings through the roof.
 
mmmmsnouts said:
I really like having streaming to try out the music and decide if you’ll like it enough long term to buy a physical copy. Back in the day you were just hoping the record you bought wouldn’t be the one or two good songs you heard on the radio, and then a whole lot of cack.

Plus you can’t take your turntable to work or play records in the car.
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This is true but my local record store back in the day had a turntable and would play whole albums for you if you got friendly with the staff.

Being a rock and metal fan I must also confess I bought quite a few albums on the basis of cool cover artwork.
 
It can get to be a horribly addictive pastime, but I think it's a worthwhile thing to be into. For Christmas we got our son a turntable, and it's been good seeing him get interested in the records (different colours/styles), artwork, sleeve notes etc. Much better than him just aimlessly messing about on Spotify or YouTube. He still listens to streaming, but more to discover things he might like enough to pick up on vinyl. And he's now very happy doing some crate digging in a record shop, so it's been quite a good thing we've been able to do together.
 

neil999 said:
Agree, would never pay that...theres some nice artwork and a book with it...but still, silly
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I got curious about it after reading your post and that's definitely a selling point. People wanting something a bit special for an album they've got a lot of fondness for.

neil999 said:
There's a similar one for in utero, but it's only 40 quid(only hahaha) so not sure why Mellon collie is THAT much
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Supply and demand? Nirvana have a lot more cross generational appeal than Smashing Pumpkins so I'd imagine the re-release of In Utero was pressed in far greater quantities and in more variations (8LP & 1LP apparently alongside digital and CD) in anticipation of demand from more customers than middle aged dads rebuilding their collections.

Looks like they completely underestimated demand for Mellon Collie or are engineering it for another pressing down the line.
 
ClausThomsen said:
I got curious about it after reading your post and that's definitely a selling point. People wanting something a bit special for an album they've got a lot of fondness for.


Supply and demand? Nirvana have a lot more cross generational appeal than Smashing Pumpkins so I'd imagine the re-release of In Utero was pressed in far greater quantities and in more variations (8LP & 1LP apparently alongside digital and CD) in anticipation of demand from more customers than middle aged dads rebuilding their collections.

Looks like they completely underestimated demand for Mellon Collie or are engineering it for another pressing down the line.
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It does look really nice, but for over £100 I'd be wanting Billie corgan to deliver it and do an impromptu concert at my door.
 
chrismpw said:
You're right - there's lots if bad vinyl out there. There's also lots if bad cd. Sadly much stuff is mixed so it sounds most impressive on a car radio - since that's where most people are exposed to the music. So top selling stuff is compressed (equally loud) boom and tizz music. Fortunately the music I like best- folk, jazz, classical doesn't suffer from those production qualities. Maybe that's why I prefer those genres.

At their best, vinyl is still better, with more life. However I confess to using HD streaming (certainly not spotify) a lot more for its variety and convenience. Mind you, to get anywhere close to my vinyl setup it costs thousands on a dac.
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I've definitely got a lot of the late 90s 'loudness wars' rock/metal/indie stuff in my collection. Doesn't bother me as much as it does some though as that's just how it was made and what I'm used to for those particular albums. Some producers/engineers realised that being able to redline it was a useful tool and used it to good effect. Other's just thought it meant they'd always sound lounder than whatever competing song/album was on the radio or store speakers before them so hammered it.

Then there were some pretty awful remasters of older albums where everything took advantage of going up to 11.

With the boom in streaming though there has been a resurgence in a bit of attention being paid to the CD. Becoming a niche format and the compression backlash has helped in that regard. Jazz remasters especially seem to have a lot of effort go into regardless of format so as you say genre definitely has something to do with it.

I've got a stack of classical vinyl as well, some highly regarded stuff from what I can make out, but I just can't get into it. I can appreciate the brilliance of it but there's just something that doesn't grab me and make me want to sit there for the best part of an hour.
 

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