Agreed, but once that ball starts rolling it's not like the "majority" of us have the strength to say no.
Well, I think what's happening with a lot of artists and maybe more as time goes by, is just that, why the hell should I let the label make all the money? I can't remember who the artist was, but he was pressing his own albums and charging out the ass for it because it was going to be a limited run and he felt his "art" was worth it. Not to mention, he saw what flipper prices were and decided that this was the way to combat it.
It's not just major labels doing super shiny editions. A lot of artist self publish now. Decemberist, Gillian Welch, Sturgill Simpson have all released live, reimagined, lost songs from the archive recently.
Just adding theres more to the story than the greedy music industry.
Edit: and don't think when you see "only available at the artist website" that they aren't getting a special chunk of that release.
@Joe Mac, have you had your coffee this morning
No, nothing your saying is wrong, but it's a discussion and now poor Paul is only worthy of a CD purchase, lol. It's all opinions, this is the VMP "discussions" all over again. I get it, but who is doing what for what reason doesn't matter, we all have our own choice to make and we can blame the "dealer" all we want, WE make the purchase and keep coming back for more, that's all I'm saying.
In the long run, no, I do not think it would make them more money. Keeping something in print costs money. It's warehouse space plus shelf space for record stores, etc. That doesn't even include the whole customer retainment side of it. Music Matters gets away with what it does because of the records being high quality and limited, plain and simple. They raise their prices as inventory gets low, which makes people experience FOMO and purchase them despite the shitty price hiking. This isn't something unique to vinyl at all. Look at something like streetwear/sneakers. Places like Supreme make things in very limited quantities, making them more collectible and giving the purchaser some kind of street cred/clout. It happens with vinyl too--limited records, especially when there is not really a comparable release quality-wise, are desirable, so people are willing to pay more for it. I know I'm guilty of spending too much on some records because I simply wanted a high quality version of it. The MM thing is interesting because ultimately, Blue Note realized they don't need a third party to do high quality releases. The Tone Poet quality is nearly identical to Music Matters (same team of Joe and Kevin behind them), but their MSRP is $35 (and I don't think I have paid more than $25 for any of them) while MM's starting price is $35 and goes up to as high as $80 or $90 when they get low in stock.
I'm happy to support artists and have purchased probably way too much stuff for things like bandcamp fridays. For some reason, the whole livestream concert thing doesn't interest me in the slightest, and I love seeing live music.
Isn't the Chet Baker a repress/COVID issue - i.e. if but for COVID, it would have been repressed by now. I remember the same thing happening with Wayne Shorter's Etc. and one or two others right at the beginning of the series.
Sam Rivers - Contours as well.
