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Oil is down to $88/barrel. Shouldn't the price of vinyl drop too?
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young, crazy horse and analog made it an easy choice for me to preorder when i first heard about it. it's under $40 at some of the online dealers. I've paid 40 to 50+ for a number of his new releases in the last few years ....and haven't regretted getting any of them.
I actually think of some of my money going to some of his charitable work so that takes care of the price thing :) Young cares about vinyl and I can tell by the quality of the pressing and mastering of the releases I've gotten the last few years, especially the archive series.
Surely for fanatic Neil Young fans. I recently got to hear his Live At Massey Hall 1971 and sounded just great but I didn't care for the music that much to get my own copy.
..LOL, shame on you!!
Neil Young is THE Man. But you are right about one thing, I don't want to pay 42.00 for his LP either....
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
which I bought by mistake thinking it's the 'Harvest Moon'. ( now I love this album! )There's a German pressing of Harvest Moon but from several owners informed that, it does not sound great so decided not to buy one.
These days, for the new releases, in order for me to splash 40 bucks on a single record, I gotta like the tunes and the production value gotta be pretty high up there.
I don't buy many new rock/pop albums but I've learnt that many reissues are somewhat of a disappointment.
Edits: 05/31/12
if it's the lyrics you like on harvest moon then his archive series release dreamin man has those songs done solo acoustic and live before the recording of the album. i think it's only around 25. it's also well pressed/packaged and i think bellman mastered it
It's great that Neil Young is outspoken about his love for vinyl. ..But if he really wants the renewed interest to hold and accelerate, he (and other artists like Jack White) need to start telling kids to ditch their sound docks and get some kick ass speakers and a receiver...I saw a kid buying a turntable the other day (a good thing, no?) then ask the salesperson what kind of adapter he needs to hook it up to his sound-dock. ..Sheesh. No way the kids interest in vinyl is going to hold up if that is how he's listening to it...
Edits: 05/30/12
Hopefully when it's released, it ca be found at a slightly more reasonable rate. I have no problem paying a premium but not to that extent.
things have just reversed, and it's slowly but surely been heading in this direction.
It's market driven and as always the market will bear what it can. Young's vinyl
issues of the past several years have carried a premium over, say, Scorpio pressings -
especially the Archives Series.
Mostly his vinyl releases are of a high calibre (as described in the WSJ article) and are limited pressings.
I'm pretty sure they all sell out. The ones that are out of print have usually gone UP in value.
Does it suck? Sure. Seem "fair"? No. It is what it is though and that's NOT going to change.
The vinyl market is as much a specialty/niche market as any I can think of, and most business' seem
intent on cashing in on that for as long as possible. The bean counters are still copious and insidious.
From what I've heard of "Americana" it's one of his new recordings I'd actually lay the cash
out for the LP over the CD, as much of a financial hit as it's going to be.
But that raises other, musical issues better discussed elsewhere.
"BEWARE the Blunted Needle!"
Tool.
"I am not part of your 99%. I am a free man, and I speak for myself."
From the article: "When Jack White’s “Blunderbuss” made its chart-topping debut earlier this month, 7% of first-week sales, or 9,000 copies, were on vinyl."
I saw a copy of Blunderbuss in a store the other day; retail was 32.99 + tax. WTF!!?? Let's see: that's 9,000 x $32.99 ... that's $296, 910. If mark-up at retail was 100%, as it often is, and if the copies were bought directly from Third Man, who sell direct to eliminate distributors, that's ~$150,000 right into Jack White's pocket. Wonder what his manufacturing costs were? Doesn't he also co-own the pressing plant?
Couldn't he have cut his vinyl-loving fans a little break and sold the record for $22? C'mon, Jack.
"Your turntables not dead." My A$$.
Hey ... in my mind if new vinyl makes artists rich, and/or record companies - you can bet there will be more vinyl.
The article was dismissive of Vinyl "only" being 2%. From just 5 years ago, it was 0.02% of record sales. 100-fold increase which takes vinyl from near death coma to being healthy and on the road to recovery!
And if it is a major profit stream well outsized to its volume, you can bet there will be more vinyl if they can help it. And likely cheaper prices.
And you forgot the download code they give you with the $30 record. If you iTunes'ed it it would have been $10. So ... $10 for MP3, $20 for the LP.
While I won't be lining my house with new vinyl at those prices, I do think it is fair given the state of things. If LP's are continuing to grow in the coming years, I'd bet yesterdays $30 is tomorrow's $20 or $15...
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad"
It's not on the road to recovery. The US and global physical music markets are collapsing. Total music sales in 2011 were $15.9bn. The IFPI reported that US physical sales were down 10% and global 14.2% in that period. Digital went up 5.3% to $4.6bn and rising - some observers believe it will surpass physical in just a year or two.Over four years, vinyl sales have increased 390% - looks impressive until you factor in that they went from 1 million units in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2011 (per Soundscan.) Compare that to 223 million CD units and 103 million digital albums last year. Overall physical sales accounted for $10.4 billion - down over 14% worldwide from the year before. In short, the increase in vinyl sales means that the format still accounts for only eight-tenths of one percent of the total market of recorded music (albums and track-equivalent of albums) and 1.7% of physical media. The minor uptick in vinyl sales looks more impressive only because the overall physical market is crashing - it's as much a result of fewer CDs being sold as of more LPs.
I love me some vinyl, but figures don't lie. I don't for a minute believe that the 'renaissance' we're seeing is anything more than a fad fueled by hipsters. I don't think my collection is going to be worth much of anything in another ten years. Once the hipsters move on to the next hot thing, the hobby goes back to us old guys, and more of us are dying every day. I imagine that if I leave my 20,000 pieces of vinyl to my son, he will be grumbling under his breath as he tries to figure out how much it will cost him to have it hauled away.
Edits: 05/30/12 05/30/12 05/30/12
I don't think vinyl will go away at this point. 5 years ago you might have convinced me.
Where sound quality is important, I think Vinyl will have a home. I expect it to grow and then level off - but at 5% or so of sales of music (not just a medium). Though the way people "buy" music is changing - it is going to get very hard to measure (Pandora, Spotify, MOG, etc.).
I think these services and MP3 are a bigger threat to radio (AM, FM, XM) than the market LP's play in - which is where convenience is less important and sound quality is important.
I'd expect high resolution files to grow, but I am not at all certain where it will end up - but I do not think it will replace, but complement LP's where sound quality is important.
IN any event - whether vinyl will die a long slow death, or become a preferred medium, or somewhere in between - it is becoming a very interesting world as far as audio goes!
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad"
If the 1990s didn't kill vinyl, nothing will IMHO.
Hmm... I'm not much of one for anecdotal evidence, but here goes. My son goes off to college this summer. When I left for school 37 years ago, it was a big deal deciding who would bring the stereo, and how I would get my albums there (at the time, all 200 of 'em). He's going with a laptop, an iPod, and a good set of headphones. The idea of loading up a turntable, amp, speakers, and boxes of records would strike him as more than absurd, and I would venture to say that there won't be a single member of his class who'd disagree - in fact, I'll reckon that very few of them will even bring CDs. (Peter IV has a stack of discs in his room, and the only time he ever pulls them out is when he wants to rip one into the computer - and he has a nice Scott integrated, a universal disc player, and a pair of classic Advents).
His generation is making the choices that will inform their music consumption for the rest of their lives, and physical media is not part of it. We grew up on vinyl, and we are keeping it alive. But we're getting older, and as people get older, they tend to simplify their lives and shed material things. Then they die.
Yeah, I hear you. But speaking of anecdotal evidence ...
A few weeks ago on Record Store Day I swung by a hipster store near where I live. (Other Music in NYC)
First of all the line was so insane that I didn't even bother. It was mid-day and a guy I asked said he'd been standing in line for 45 minutes. And he was only about half way to the door. There was nothing much I wanted and the line really put me off. I didn't wait.
But the line was all kids waiting to get in to buy records. 20s, maybe a few in their 30s. I realize things can be different in NYC, and that every day is not RSD, but I thought it was very interesting. All those young guys (and some women too!) waiting in line for a long time to buy records.
to sell them on ebay.
It has crossed my mind. Any RSD records worth any serious money? They all seem throw-away. I later got the Bill Evans live blue vinyl 10" (RSD2012) but it turns out it's a sampler for a set that will be out soon-ish, which I probably would have bought anyway.
wilco-whole love deluxe rsd,phish-junta deluxe rsd,flaming lips-heady fwends rsd,grateful dead-dark star rsd.and that's just 4 titles
nt
At the nearest record shop to where I live - specialized in Jazz and Blues LP's - had crowds on RSD (and also on most Saturday Mornings). The clientele is most definitely NOT hipsters trolling for eBay sales. THere are a couple of them, but it isn't the main part of the business. I know the owner, and he told me that in the 20-odd years of being in business, he almost went under 3 years ago, but vinyl sales rising has saved him.
But being 5 hours from NYC ... that's a long distance for someone to get to on a fixie. :)
At least in the hinterlands, in Upstate NY, Vinyl is really coming back. The city I live in has a population of about 700,000 - and we have 6 record stores that either have a large amount of vinyl, or only sell vinyl. 2 have opened in the last few years.
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad"
$42 is beyond my need for that recording...and I do love Young's work.
$42 for a record while the CD is 32 bucks less? Not a fair deal...but as I wrote the above I realized I might be persuaded to buy the CD; I imagine I'm not the only one who feels that way.
My bit and byte reader shows signs of, one day, playing silence rather than music. I love my Audio Alchemy ACD-PRO.
Will I love the Eastern Electric DAC as much with another CDP driving it?
More importantly, will I love one AND be able to buy (afford) it?
Gee, I'll be forced to listen to LPs only...what a shame, I hardly have any LPs (hee-hee).
******************************
Music. Window or mirror?
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