Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

2e7en said:
When you really think about it, it's a genius move on their part. Memberships will go down by probably 30%ish but they will keep the rest at a way higher price which ultimately means they will still make the same amount of money except now they have a lot less members to yell at them about all of their issues. And they still probably won't fix any of the issues at all.
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If it works that way for them then they just made a very good business move.
 
scotthilk said:
Also, after looking at my old VMP orders since I joined.. a few takeaways...

1) Why did I sell my De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State on Reddit for like 30 bucks a few years ago?
2) It's nice to go back and remember the excitement of the Gorillaz, QOTSA drops.
3) Rostam's "Half Light' is one of my favorite exclusives (/750 yellow)
4) My first VMP was Weezer's Pinkerton
5) Thankful that even though they barely pressed any reggae, they did some awesome exclusives + Madlib's 420
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Mine was also Weezer.
 
gouis said:
Man I love Spoon, but I've never understood having strong opinions about which of their albums are best. Sure there are better ones and worse ones, but the whole point of Spoon is how solid and consistent they are. The vast majority of songs can easily swap around between albums within changing much.
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Agree. I mean, I do have favorites, but that's not the same as "best." I think they're all strong or medium-strong albums. They're great. 🤷‍♀️
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Top to bottom, The top 5 could be mixed in a bag and I would not dispute the order in which they were drawn out.

Gimme Fiction
Kill The Moonlight
Girl Can Tell
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Series of Sneaks
Soft Effects
Hot Thoughts
Telephono
They Want My Soul
Transference
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I think I have Kill The Moonlight at the top. But damn this band is great. I may have to pick up a couple more of theirs soon, been slowly picking them up.
 
radiodead said:
I think TWMS is maybe their weakest album.
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For me, TWMS is in a tie with Transference, an okay album that suffers after coming off the run of great ones. TWMS is something of a "comeback" of the sounds from Gimme Fiction and GAx5 but not enough of its own thing.

I was blown away by Hot Thoughts as I didn't think Britt had it in him to do something so different and interesting from their established template that still sounded like Spoon at its core.

Everything from the 90s is from an essentially different band.

Gimme Fiction
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Kill The Moonlight
Hot Thoughts
Girl Can Tell
They Want My Soul
Transference
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Top to bottom, The top 5 could be mixed in a bag and I would not dispute the order in which they were drawn out.

Gimme Fiction
Kill The Moonlight
Girl Can Tell
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Series of Sneaks
Soft Effects
Hot Thoughts
Telephono
They Want My Soul
Transference
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I agree with this pretty much all around except that it's a top 4 for me, with Sneaks leading the "rest of" group.
 
Ethos99 said:
Everyone else is doing it so why can't I?


Hot Thoughts
Gimme Fiction
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Kill The Moonlight
They Want My Soul
Girl Can Tell
Series of Sneaks
Soft Effects
Telephono
Transference
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If anything this conversation has brought to light that I should revisit They Want My Soul soon. I can confess I never spent much time with it but it seems to be the biggest discrepancy I am seeing when comparing my list to everyone else’s.
 
It sounds like they’re shifting all their focus on the specific segment of their customer base whose spending is unaffected by recessions. I wonder if a large amount of average customers have been cancelling their subs the last 3 months and this seems like the only path through.
 
swamp jazz box set said:
It sounds like they’re shifting all their focus on the specific segment of their customer base whose spending is unaffected by recessions. I wonder if a large amount of average customers have been cancelling their subs the last 3 months and this seems like the only path through.
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One wonders, but I am taken aback by the lack of any big announcements to ease the pain and provide the appearance of value. Like partnership with an in demand label or artist, that the next (several) ROTMs will be AAA or first time on vinyl/out of print titles, etc. Just something to give people a reason other than "F you, pay me"

Like, they could have easily done something similar with the QOTSA announcement. Or if the rumors of Stankonia are true, they could have sold themselves as having an audiophile edition of that classic. Things like basic marketing, even if it is lipstick on a pig or just buzzwords. I'm astounded that there's nothing - are the people in charge this bad at their job?

Wait, don't answer that question.
 
Jan said:
Cash-flow wiseitmight even work for vmp for now with lots of people going yearly keep a discounted price as long as possible. Gives them lots of cash right now. I wonder if new subscriber offers will pop up soon, because it will be hard to get new people in at the high prices.
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Problem will be A) does revenue from the increased year-long memberships truly make up the loss in 1, 3, 6 monthers B) it's basically stealing from Peter to pay Paul, and once the discount period is over, then what? And what do they do for cash flow 6 months from now when they have very little new cash flow with everyone on annual and they've overspent on some other terrible licensing deal.
GritNGlitter said:
People have been predicting the fall of VMP for a few years now. I won't be surprised if this is the end, but I won't be shocked if they're still making (dick) moves in 2022.
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At some point, investors typically like a return on their investment. If they can't get one, they'd at least like their money back.

There's a definitive end of the line for VMP, at some point, if they don't adjust course. We know they attempted raising capital through Kick Further. That tells me a bank wouldn't lend (or at least not at rates they could afford) to them or they couldn't get traditional investors on board. Big red flag for me.
MikeH said:
It’s really not hard to stay in communication with employees when you have a team of 20 people. If you don’t know the answer to something, just ask the person who would know. I’m always amazed at how poorly everyone in the company seems to communicate
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Out of the handful of CS reps I've interacted with as a customer, and based on the limited interaction I've had with others via socials (including Storf, Matt, etc; I don't think I'd ever hire them for a job at a real company. Communication is so critical in any business, and they all just seem so incredibly inept.

Maybe I'd hire Pauly, actually. Dude knows how to hold the company line and take on for the team, that's for sure. I feel really badly what he has to put himself through for the job.
2e7en said:
When you really think about it, it's a genius move on their part. Memberships will go down by probably 30%ish but they will keep the rest at a way higher price which ultimately means they will still make the same amount of money except now they have a lot less members to yell at them about all of their issues. And they still probably won't fix any of the issues at all.
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Typically, finding yourself in a situation where you have less customers is a bad thing. Likely to end up with inventory issues if they don't scale down, and losing scale will hurt on costs. Regardless of whether their revenue is flat, it is a dubious business "strategy", at best.
 
Btsvinylfarm said:
Problem will be A) does revenue from the increased year-long memberships truly make up the loss in 1, 3, 6 monthers B) it's basically stealing from Peter to pay Paul, and once the discount period is over, then what? And what do they do for cash flow 6 months from now when they have very little new cash flow with everyone on annual and they've overspent on some other terrible licensing deal.
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This seems to me to be a problem, too. If the only people who stay renew for a one-year, which (as a few people on here have stated) means that they will actually pay less per record than what they currently pay, how is that going to help cover VMP's rising costs? VMP may get a large influx of cash that they can use to dig themselves out of the hole for records that are already in the works, but they won't have that cash on hand when they need it to produce the records they've just promised the people who signed up for the discounted annual subscription offer. Somebody there is very selectively going through DIscogs and saying, "Look at what people will pay for these records. We can get new customers to sign up for $40+/month, no problem!" but I just don't see that happening. And if new customers don't sign up at something close to the full price, I don't see how VMP survives.

The promos they've run in recent months were short-sighted acts of desperation that may come back to bite them, not just in forgone revenue, but in hurting the perception of the value of their product. I really didn't think VMP was worth $30/month, but I signed up on two consecutive 3-month promotions where I paid $20/month or less, which only convinced me that $20-$25/month is what their service is actually worth. Now they're telling me it's worth twice that? Yeah. I don't think so. Maybe the occasional LP they put out is worth $40, but that's certainly not the average value of their records, at least not in my eyes. The $20-$25 seemed about right.
 
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