Anyone else get an email promoting Amazon’s new vinyl subscription service? $25 a month for an “essential album”. No indication of unique pressings or any other special frills. I would imagine it will be a way to unload overstock of popular titles.
If this is already posted somewhere, sorry for the repeat (didn't show up in a search or a browse of five pages of new posts). But looks like Amazon took a gander at VMP and thought it wants some of that action: Vinyl of the Month Club: The Golden Era - Vinyl SubscriptionBrand: Amazon Music $24.99/box GET AN ESSENTIAL ALBUM, EVERY MONTH - Join the club and receive one must-own record from the Golden Era of Vinyl (1960s-1970s) each month, handpicked by the experts at Amazon Music. BUILD THE ULTIMATE VINYL COLLECTION - Start or grow an enviable collection with some of the greatest albums ever — Iconic classics from artists like Pink Floyd, Aretha Franklin, ABBA, and more. A great gift for anyone who’s just fallen in love with vinyl. SUBSCRIBE WITH CONFIDENCE – You can skip a month or cancel any time. BE AMONG THE FIRST - Subscribe now and help us evolve our service by providing feedback on your experience.
I should add I received this via email - I tried finding it via the link and it just goes to the Amazon Music page. But I'm not thinking of joining this just because a) I just signed up for VMP like a week ago and appreciate their "deep cut" mentality, and b) I'm trying (and actually succeeding) in minimizing my Amazon purchases.
Smacks of a “me too” of the VMP model. I wonder if they’ll be doing curated and limited releases at that $24.99 price? If not, then I struggle to see the point. Limiting their releases to ‘60’s and 70’s albums does not seem that inspiring to me. It’s easy to hate on Amazon....
It's a total of "me too" of VMP. But I suspect they'll pitch it to basically kids with fairly mainstream tastes who are just getting into records (or music itself for that matter). "A great gift for anyone who’s just fallen in love with vinyl." "Hey kids, do you like ABBA? Do you like records?"
Love this question, provided by aperfecttool's kind link: "Can I return a vinyl?" Oh, Mr. Hoffman. Calling Steve Hoffman. We need to exterminate another use of "a vinyl," please.
I’m about sick of VMPs price increases, subscription model, “limited editions” and practice of offering releases to non-members. If Amazon has a decent selection I would check it out.
I read on a different forums site that the first LP was Pink Floyd The Wall 2016 Bernie Grundman remaster ... So I signed up, but by that point they had changed the first selection to a 2015 Sanctuary reissue of Black Sabbath Master of Reality (even though the Grundman Wall still shows at in-stock). Not nearly as good a deal, since the 2015 Master of Reality LP can be bought outright for around $27 as of this writing. I'm probably going to ride this new subscription for a few months and see if it offers any significant value beyond just buying whatever I want at regular retail prices. At least I don't have any Black Sabbath on LP, so this will not be a duplicate that I'd have to fuss with selling. Hope the mastering is good, though!
It shows up in "Your Orders" Amazon Sign-In near the top of the page (maybe not first if you've placed another order since signing up for the service). My Master of Reality LP says it will ship on Tuesday.
They’re going to select a record and send it to you? Good grief! There’s going to be a lot of returns from forum members...you just know that 8 out of 10 records will be something you’ve already got.
There are plenty of albums that aren't worth $25, even if it's a release I'd want, because you can find them more cheaply. This feels more like something grandma can gift their grandkids than something that a person who knows what they're doing would want to spend their own money on.
This is frustrating. I'd much rather have London Calling (2xLP, right?) than single LP Black Sabbath. Not sure how long I'll stick around with this level of inconsistency and randomness.
I wonder if it is really so random though. Amazon does basically everything based on algorithms and I would imagine that these selections work the same way—they look at your purchase history (because they obvs don’t want to send you something that they know you bought already) and assign you an album based on that, browsing history, etc etc etc. So not entirely random anyway, but it isn’t like they give you a list to choose from either (which would be nice!)
Hmmm, it's possible that they are somehow using algorithms that look at each individual subscriber and try to give them a selection that they predict will be most liked. I realize "random" isn't quite the right word. What word would better describe what I've been able to gather through what other subscribers have described so far?: The earliest reports I've seen said that Grundman remaster of Pink Floyd The Wall 2xLP was the inaugural LP in the subscription series. Several people early on (in different forums around the internet) consistently said they were seeing The Wall appear in their Orders page. So I pulled the trigger and subscribed, thinking "Yeah, Grundman remaster of Pink Floyd The Wall 2xLP for $24.99 is a good deal. I'm in!" But then I was disappointed when what appeared in my Orders page was Black Sabbath Master Of Reality single LP. Several other newer subscribers also reported that they were also seeing that same Black Sabbath LP. Now, the newest subscribers have been saying that they're going to get The Clash London Calling 2xLP. I wonder what brand new subscribers later this week will report that they're getting? Anyway, it seems from the above that the algorithm is not fine-tuned for each individual subscriber, but it could be picking an album from a list of options, assigning it to every new subscriber until some inventory target is reached, then stopping with that selection and choosing a new selection for subsequent subscribers until that selection's target is reached, etc. I wonder what would happen if I unsubscribed and then resubscribed again. Hmmm. I'm not that invested in getting the Black Sabbath LP. ... So I just tried to cancel the Black Sabbath item from "Your Orders" and was warned that cancellation isn't guaranteed: If that cancellation goes through, next I'll unsubscribe and resubscribe to "Vinyl of the Month Club: The Golden Era - Vinyl Subscription," and see if that enables me to get The Clash London Calling 2xLP ... or by then will they have moved on to fulfilling with a different title?
Like everything on Amazon this is run a by a bot that looks at your history and orders. I'd say beware. You can always return it if you don't like the title. They make that process really easy, just drop it off at Whole Foods or Kohl's. They package it and return to Amazon.