Anyone else receive their 1st VNYL subscription LPs package?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by FMills, May 13, 2015.

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  1. troggy

    troggy Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow

    Location:
    Benton, Illinois
    Waxidermy does something like this every year. I've never participated but it seems to work pretty well.
     
  2. Vinyl Addict

    Vinyl Addict Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA

    I wouldn't be happy if I did. I have all the Floyd albums, and all the beatles I care to own.
     
    troggy likes this.
  3. Arkay_East

    Arkay_East Forum Resident

    Location:
    ATX
    Live and Let Die
     
  4. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    I wouldn't either but it seems this model is aimed for those trying to build collections , all that I was implying, If I said I enjoyed Ministry and ended up with Nitzer Ebb, Die Warzau I'd be happy, but those records from that type of genre weren't massed produced so it's highly unlikely I would receive any
     
  5. Brudy

    Brudy Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland
    I did the Polyvinyl one last year and it was so-so as well.
     
  6. Vinyl Addict

    Vinyl Addict Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    They need to BRING BACK COLUMBIA HOUSE!
     
  7. Brudy

    Brudy Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland
    I think I could do this if I knew the person well enough.

    Going the other direction the problem would be that since I'm a music nut you'd have to dig really hard to find something I hadn't at least heard of by this point, and most of the records that would be true surprises are too pricey or rare to be part of this. I think this guy meant well but is over his head. However, I'd be totally pissed if someone sent me Pablo Cruise.
     
  8. Brudy

    Brudy Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland
    Actually, the real innovation here would be to make your customers sign up for discogs and have them load in their existing collection. The human curator looks at that and then bases suggestions off of that. It would be much more reliable than answering a few questions and then letting a human recommendation engine take over.
     
  9. Brudy

    Brudy Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland
    You'd need to have some way to measure someones "adventureness" for lack of a better word. I'm happy listening to an ECM album one second and Metal Blade the next, but not everyone is like that.
     
    Scroller likes this.
  10. Maybe this is just some angry old white guy who has finally found a way to monetize his anger at the internet, the new economy, and hipsters.
     
    Lost In The Flood and Leviethan like this.
  11. EddieMann

    EddieMann I used to be a king...

    Location:
    Geneva, IL. USA.
    I am the most forgiving guy in the world. In fact, if your dog makes a mess on my lawn, as long as you clean it up and promise to never do it again, you can come back tonight and repeat the whole deal. But what makes me NOT believe the guy's innocence in this matter is the complete lameness of the titles he sent out. To start a venture of this kind you absolutely must have a certain hipness when it comes to music. No one I've ever met in 45 years of buying music is that pathetic to think a Dan Ford Coley lp is desirable.
     
    Blender, noyoucmon and danner like this.
  12. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    If I were the guy who set this thing up, and if I had good intentions but got thwarted by my lack of understanding of the law after I did my Kickstarter, there would only be two options:


    1) Apologize that the business model I'd proposed wasn't tenable and return the money
    2) Buy some good albums with the money I had raised and send those out. The cost/value of the albums, plus the shipping ($4) would be equal to what people paid.

    I'd go with (1), since it's the most stand-up course of action. (2) would make some people happy and it might retain the ability to continue on as a business entity, but it would still piss off some customers and wouldn't generate any profits.

    The fact that the guy did (3), i.e.

    3) Maximize profits and screw anyone who's sent in money

    indicates he's a crook.
     
  13. FMills

    FMills Member Thread Starter

    Over on Twitter, for both the @getvnyl and #vnyl, there has been a sudden influx of positive testimonials. And I do mean sudden - the timing is suspect enough to presume, even if wrongly, that the VNYL folks were told to quickly start beating the bushes for satisfied customers, and if that proved difficult, start manufacturing 'em.
     
    Blender and Kristeva like this.
  14. ibanez_ax

    ibanez_ax Forum Resident

    I wouldn't trust anyone to handpick albums for me if they were sitting at my computer looking at my JRiver library.
     
  15. noyoucmon

    noyoucmon Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    He was making a Paul McCartney lyric joke.
     
  16. noyoucmon

    noyoucmon Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    I've read the Stereogum article and this whole project strikes me as a service for dopes, by dopes. Their marketing material suggests to me that the proprietors fit in the column of people—and there are many out there, some of whom I've argued with on this forum—that vinyl for the sake of vinyl, regardless of content, is a worthwhile pursuit, and that all vinyl is worthwhile and desirable. It's not.

    Maybe if a person is housebound or lives in a town where there is literally not a single bin of dusty records to paw through, a service like this could be worth it for them. But if the guy's survey results are to be believed, and that 80% of subscribers "wanted to support vinyl as a medium," the people signing up are as daft as the guy taking them for a ride. I acknowledge that some people signed up who are smarter than this and did so out of curiosity. If you've got the money to spend, why not. But as the original poster indicates, truth will out.

    The dude running this business obviously has no sense of history or scope when it comes to music (and, again, I've been argued with here by people who don't know what I mean by that; if you don't, then by all means, sign up for VNYL). Anyone who could look at a bundle of cutout garbage and still think, from that pile of crap alone, that "vinyl is beautiful, I just have to support this medium," is a novice and makes as much sense as a guy with no mechanical aptitude whatsoever trying to run an auto repair shop simply because he believes in the art of the automobile.

    Add to this the guy's foolish failure to check the legality of his business model, the apparent absence of a rubric for their bizarre classifications (#dinnerparty, anyone?), and the ramshackle way that he has operated thus far, and you have one hell of a mess.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2015
    Jim N., patient_ot, Gumboo and 9 others like this.
  17. noyoucmon

    noyoucmon Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    This qualifies as praise for the service? (from the Stereogum article):

    "Backer Vincent Chang had some positive comments to share: “Personally, I think almost every record in the world is amazing or horrible; it all depends on what we are listening for.”

    Okay, Vincent. Enjoy your bargain-bin albums.
     
  18. danner

    danner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham, AL
    I still don't even understand the appeal of his original idea. As much as I like vinyl, I can't wrap my head around why people would want to rent it. Netflix made sense because DVDs are relatively durable, small, and cheap to mail. Vinyl, on the other hand, is the least convenient format possible for such a business. If you simply want to sample new music, Spotify is as good of a source as you're going to get. Why people absolutely have to sample this new music on vinyl is beyond me.
     
  19. noyoucmon

    noyoucmon Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    That too!!
     
  20. Arkay_East

    Arkay_East Forum Resident

    Location:
    ATX
    Absolutely.
     
  21. noyoucmon

    noyoucmon Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    And here's VNYL's apology? This sounds like a service for people 15 and under. What adult wants this?

    "It ****ing sucks when we disappoint our members. We honestly feel incredibly sad when a member doesn’t like what we sent. That sucks for them and also for us. It’s like you just spent all this time planning out what you think is an awesome surprise gift idea for someone and then they can’t mask the look of disappointment when they open it up right in front of you. It’s completely deflating. Unfortunately, this comes with the territory of being a human curated service.

    With time, VNYL will only improve. As ****ty as it feels when someone doesn’t like our choices, when we do get it right, it’s a total rush. There’s nothing more rewarding for me or our curators when we see someone tweet or Instagram their open box of vinyl and are debating which one to spin first."
     
    turnersmemo likes this.
  22. DBMethos

    DBMethos Forum Resident

    Bro! Dude! That, like, totally sucks!
     
    c-eling, noyoucmon and KDubATX like this.
  23. Kristeva

    Kristeva Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    This is just the funniest thread - so funny it's worth reposting an earlier quote from VNYL sent in the form of a note included with said mentioned LP's to a subscriber:

    'Took a peek at your links, saw a ton of artists I love as well, like Spiritualized, Beach House, and LCD Soundsystem, along with plenty of others! Hope you dig these great records by Lionel Richie, Michael Quatro, and a sweet ’70s hits compilation while you spend time with someone special.'


    So let's just get this straight - he likes Spiritualized, Beach House and LCD Soundsystem - so you gave him this:

    [​IMG]

    you couldn't make this s h * t up. lol :)
     
  24. Kristeva

    Kristeva Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Dude, I'm now employed by VNYL, and based on your comments I'm going to recommend you this:

    [​IMG]

    enjoy it with someone special, (and don't forget to send me your subscription money)
     
  25. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Well, to quote myself from the first thread on VNYL that appeared in SteveHoffman.tv in January:

    http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...d-vinyl-me-please.405146/page-2#post-11663554

    This can't work.

    Vinyl is fragile and is not suited to a mass rental model.

    You don't get to pick titles only moods?? I expect they will stock a lot of whatever they can get cheaply and/or whatever the labels give them kickbacks to stock.

    I wonder how quickly they will turn around returns and if they will cap monthly returns. Shipping an LP back will cost, minimum about $2.50. Times three (if not shipped together) that's $7.50 for each group of 3. $15 rental fee per month won't cover that very long.

    And let's not forget that the whole point of vinyl--especially if you are only going to listen to it and not own it--will be superior sound quality to CD. As soon as these records start to get damaged through rentals that's going to evaporate very quickly.

    On the whole, it sounds like a TERRIBLE business model.

    In fact, it sounds like what it probably is: Some guys looking for an angle that incorporates a sales market that's getting a lot of buzz (vinyl).

    But the reason that we didn't have Netflix like businesses in the '70s and '80s is that analog formats don't lend themselves well to that kind of approach. They still don't. Netflix reflected a new world order based on the relative stability and compact nature of the delivery format (DVD originally).

    "A Netflix for vinyl records" is a 2 second soundclip that will get you 5 minutes in front of some VCs or press in Rolling Stone. But it's not the description of a viable business.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2015
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