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

Just a thought for @mcherry and @gouis and @Enoch and @everyoneelseinthisthread

First off I wanna thank @Enoch and @chrb98 for sharing their thoughts/experiences with vmp for those who care, it is super cool of you.

I know I am not a super active poster around here but I do a lot of lurking as I did in the other place. Would it maybe be a better idea to keep this kind of stuff in the RIP vmp forum thread? Obviously these are conversations that should happen and that people have a right to have.
However I feel like whenever VMP comes up threads get derailed with negativity and arguing.

If I remember correctly this thread was made for those people who want keep tabs on what vmp releases, meaning those people who follow it haven't sworn off vmp entirely and probably want a positive environment to discuss new releases and announcements. I think the disputes come from people who want to use these threads for different purposes.

EDIT: Not trying to be pushy or a gatekeeper or anything, but I think we all want a place to discuss music with as little negativity as possible. People who dont like vmp want to be able to vent without being told their wrong and people who are still invested in vmp don't like being told their wrong either. I think it would be an easy solution and would reduce confrontations like this.
 
ohcalebbeck said:
Just a thought for @mcherry and @gouis and @Enoch and @everyoneelseinthisthread

First off I wanna thank @Enoch and @chrb98 for sharing their thoughts/experiences with vmp for those who care, it is super cool of you.

I know I am not a super active poster around here but I do a lot of lurking as I did in the other place. Would it maybe be a better idea to keep this kind of stuff in the RIP vmp forum thread? Obviously these are conversations that should happen and that people have a right to have.
However I feel like whenever VMP comes up threads get derailed with negativity and arguing.

If I remember correctly this thread was made for those people who want keep tabs on what vmp releases, meaning those people who follow it haven't sworn off vmp entirely and probably want a positive environment to discuss new releases and announcements. I think the disputes come from people who want to use these threads for different purposes.

EDIT: Not trying to be pushy or a gatekeeper or anything, but I think we all want a place to discuss music with as little negativity as possible. People who dont like vmp want to be able to vent without being told their wrong and people who are still invested in vmp don't like being told their wrong either. I think it would be an easy solution and would reduce confrontations like this.
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This is a good idea, however we like things to be as open and non-controlling as possible. Telling people where they’re allowed to post usually does not go well.

But yes any discussions about the old place should probably go in the RIP thread. If y’all also want to use that to hash out issues with VMP as a whole go to town. It would be nice if this thread could be used as a place to discuss the music in the store.
 
CCKrone said:
You can swap for Joel Ross? I'm definitely going to do that!
Did you just email and ask to do it?
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wingclipper said:
I mean I guess it’s insensitive but I do find humor in how ridiculous people are. Rick & Morty fans sending McDonalds death threats over a sauce, people threatening Wendy’s over spicy nuggets, some idiot sending VMP threats over records. I realize real mental illness exists, but hell, I have to take a step back and laugh at how stupid all of that is.
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I mean there is a reason it only got one reaction dude. A statement like the one I quoted here gets to the heart of the matter and doesn’t come off as just bad.
 
gouis said:
This is a good idea, however we like things to be as open and non-controlling as possible. Telling people where they’re allowed to post usually does not go well.

But yes any discussions about the old place should probably go in the RIP thread. If y’all also want to use that to hash out issues with VMP as a whole go to town. It would be nice if this thread could be used as a place to discuss the music in the store.
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Yeah that is a good point, I don't wanna tell anyone what they can/can't say in a particular place. I just hate to see @Enoch get semi-targeted, I really think he had the right intentions. We are all adults so we should be able to keep it civil. I think its important to not only think about what you say but also how the people reading it will perceive it.
 
I completely agree with @ohcalebbeck but would like to take the opportunity to thank all of those who are not current fans or subscribers of VMP for providing context or other information/cheaper sources about new stuff in the store. For example, I was very happy to save 13 bucks on the Sonny Rollins, and I would not have done that without the info from members of this forum and participants in this thread. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t expect or want this thread to be pure VMP sunshine, but all comments on the store releases - positive and negative, pro and anti VMP - are helpful and I welcome all of them. That’s just my opinion though.
 
ohcalebbeck said:
Yeah that is a good point, I don't wanna tell anyone what they can/can't say in a particular place. I just hate to see @Enoch get semi-targeted, I really think he had the right intentions. We are all adults so we should be able to keep it civil. I think its important to not only think about what you say but also how the people reading it will perceive it.
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Yes but TBF that would likely also happen in the other thread if people want to argue about VMP. However what it would do by moving the discussion there is to let this thread actually serve what it is meant to do.
 
Selaws said:
I've had the R&HH sub attached to my membership since the beginning and haven't cancelled since it started. I only realised it had been taken off because I wanted to see what the swaps were for essentials and happened to notice R&HH was missing.

Strange one for sure and hopefully they can sort it. I want confirmation before the cut off point (which I believe is in 3 days time?) as I am cutting out essentials from my order and want to shift things around.
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Did you try the new chat feature? I got an instant response.
 
Joe Mac said:
🙄🙄🙄

Neither. It’s just stark how unadventurous they are for a company that markets itself on being adventurous...
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I suppose it's a matter of perspective and taste. A lot of yours, for example, from two papers written in your relatively small country and its neighbor, and theirs from whatever their sources are. Neither being obviously wrong or necessarily narrow.

I didn't take them to be selling me adventurous per say. I took them to be collecting some good necessary pieces of vinyl for your collection. I mean, they tell you ahead of time and let you swap. At the end of the day they have to sell records.

I'll add that the N&G recommendations have been great too. I really appreciate that. My bank account not so much.
 
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VMPKJ said:
I suppose it's a matter of perspective and taste. A lot of yours, for example, from two papers written in your relatively small country and its neighbor, and theirs from whatever their sources are. Neither being obviously wrong or necessarily narrow.

I didn't take them to be selling me adventurous per say. I took them to be collecting some good necessary pieces of vinyl for your collection. I mean, they tell you ahead of time and let you swap. At the end of the day they have to sell records. That
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They’re where I go to for reviews. In fact the national paper here is relatively new as I was ashamed at how little Irish music I owned and am actively seeking to support more local artists. I do seek out music on my own and this forum is another resource. I’m far from being a paragon of virtue in the matter but I try and trying is important.

VMP has a platform. It has an audience that buys its stuff whatever, even if they whine from time to time. I get that it will be mostly American from an American company, but does it need to be 90% of their output given their global customer base? I have no time for them on gender diversity, they just aren’t trying. Let’s be real, we should strive for 50/50 (even though structural issues in the music industry mean it’s not likely) so 1 in 7 in essentials and 2 in 7 in classics is quite frankly pathetic.

I’d recommend listening to Emily Eavis’ (Glastonbury organiser) Desert Island Discs on podcasts where she talks about how male dominated the industry is, how hard it was to be taken seriously in those circles when she took over the bulk of the festival work from her dad and how it’s a struggle to get even close to 50/50 representation on their bill.
 
Joe Mac said:
Let’s be real, we should strive for 50/50 (even though structural issues in the music industry mean it’s not likely)
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That this should be a goal of someone selling records is not apparent to me at all. Making sure you don't miss great artists no matter who they are? Sure. Trying to manage outcomes? meh.

And the idea that most great music is by women in this decade by the gentleman who responded, I find to be just an opinion. Not necessarily concrete or important.
 
VMPKJ said:
That this should be a goal of someone selling records is not apparent to me at all. Making sure you don't miss great artists no matter who they are? Sure. Trying to manage outcomes? meh.

And the idea that most great music is by women in this decade by the gentleman who responded, I find to be just an opinion. Not necessarily concrete or important.
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I find this to be a wholly depressing take tbh. Everyone should strive to make things more equitable.

That was also me and yeah it’s my opinion, I can’t give anyone else’s and every comment relating to taste is opinion.

I also think that the fear of missing out on music is bogus, there is a much bigger chance of missing out on great artists who are struggling to get a platform by not forcing the issue to give them a platform.
 
VMPKJ said:
That this should be a goal of someone selling records is not apparent to me at all. Making sure you don't miss great artists no matter who they are? Sure. Trying to manage outcomes? meh.

And the idea that most great music is by women in this decade by the gentleman who responded, I find to be just an opinion. Not necessarily concrete or important.
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I’m not sure it should be a goal of someone trying to sell records, but it was a stated goal of the company and that same company has a very diverse (gender-wise) staff. It shouldn’t be this hard for them to accomplish the goal. However, as with everything they promise, they fail to deliver.
 
Couple of things I thought about over night, the death threat thing came up because I had suggested a get to know the staff thing (I had mentioned that in a rponse to my original statement). He shared they were wary of that because of death threats. It wasn't like he was just like hey we are getting death threats. Even if it was about reminding us they are humans is that a bad thing?

There was a risk for both them and me taking the meeting. Sure they want to keep me as a customer and it is a good PR move on their part to me, but if they say we are going to do x, y, and z and don't, they have now told me to my face something and then didn't. Instant loss of trust. My risk is obviously being swayed by meeting the higher-ups and feeling like I am important. Sure I feel some of that I would be lying if I said otherwise. Overall though I feel they have more to lose because if I feel like they lied to me why would I stay (I know there are several of you that feel that has already happened). The big difference I see this time is them having Lloyd on board.

chrb98 said:
I wanted to touch a little bit on the idea of VMP using somebody well-known in the community to disseminate information that could theoretically make VMP look better; a little while back, I had some phone conversations with Amy from VMP, and a couple of detailed email conversations with Matt, that seem to have essentially been in the same vein as @Enoch 's correspondence with Lloyd - we talked about the general atmosphere and attitude of the subreddit VS the forums, what problems people were taking issue with, what people would give VMP credit for, how VMP could address issues, and how this information could be imparted onto the community. I'm not saying I'm anywhere NEAR as well known here (and previously on the VMP forum) as @Enoch is, but at the time I was the only moderator of the VMP subreddit, so I was essentially single-handedly running that community. I did feel as if I was being looked at as a consultant for how exactly the VMP reddit community (and the forums to a lesser extent) were responding to certain changes and slip-ups, and I offered to Amy and Matt what people on the forum and the subreddit were offering as constructive criticism, much in the way that @Enoch has been listening to our criticisms and bringing them up in his conversations with VMP (again, that shouldn't HAVE to be the only way to get our points across to VMP, but @Enoch I really do appreciate you doing that). This went on for a couple months or so, and their responses were essentially exactly what you'd expect: A whole lot of "we're working on it"s and "We know this is an issue and we're looking for ways to solve it"s. They proposed a handful of ideas to me about what they might be doing in response to people's opinions and suggestions, and most of them were the exact ones listed in Enoch's post, ones that still evidently haven't moved past the "we're working on it" stage.

I guess my issue here, at least personally, is this seems like the exact same situation repeating itself: VMP privately communicating with individual community members who ostensibly have more pull than others in certain communities, using said individual community member as an intermediary and a way to make it seem to the community as if VMP is really committed to solving issues, while being able to separate themselves from the heat of the flames. Do I think that VMP totally ignored what I communicated to them, or are totally ignoring what Enoch is communicating to them? Absolutely not. But I do think this is less "reaching out to individual people because we like to listen to all our customers and really be in touch with our community", and more "We can use this person to get a temperature gauge on the community in response to certain controversies without reallyyy having to go to the community ourselves, and said person will tell the community all about how we're ready to fix things and listen, and since they have such a pull in the community it'll really make us look good". Or maybe I'm just reading too far into things and trying to make connections where there are none, idk

BTW, to go back to my personal experience from the first paragraph: long story short, but the way that that story ends is with me communicating with them for a little while about said issues, offering them advice and insight, inquiring about a career opportunity with them, being turned down, and never hearing from Matt, Amy, or any higher-up at VMP ever again.
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Thanks for sharing. They probably are going after "higher" influential members. But if those members have been around a long time and have pointed out problems those may be the right people to reach out to. Again sure they are trying to sway people, they are business, but as I mentioned above, wouldn't it be worse for them to reach out and then not follow through, now the influential member can use that influence to the other way.

Selaws said:
Out of interest, has anyone emailed CS over the past couple of days and received a response?

I have mentioned it in a couple of threads now but I went to check the ROTM under my membership and for some reason it looks like the R&HH sub has been removed for me. Not sure why I have been 'Kicked Out' but I emailed VMP and still haven't heard back. I also messaged their Instagram account, gave my email upon their request, and was told it had been forwarded directly to CS as a priority. I want to have it all ironed out before swaps close
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I have heard back recently but I was told they are running behind (probably because people have the same problem you have)
Teeeee said:
@Enoch - I have stood up for your right to be in here and to say what you want and for people not to be rude and demeaning to you. The same thing goes for anyone else that wants to post in here. Your posts asking those of us that don't like VMP why we post in here is coming off as confrontational and a gate keeper. I'm not sure if that is your intention or not but I wanted to let you know that is how I am interpretting it.

Short answer why I'm in here: Because I want to be. And I honestly don't think I need to even explain that.

Longer answer: Because I want to be. I find it fascinating how far VMP has fallen. It is like a case study to me. How much lower can they go? How many more ways can they insult their customers? They truly are blazing new trails in customer dissatisfaction and I am here to witness it. I'm not even angry at VMP. I'm amused.

For the people that just want to come in this thread for VMP info and don't want to wade through all the other stuff, ok, sure, I get that. But how is this thread any different from any other thread that goes off the rails? And also, the anger towards anyone that takes usoff the rails is misplaced. This forum is not the official VMP forum. This forum has zero obligation to advertise, problem solve, trouble shoot, etc for VMP. It is extremely gracious that this forum does have any information at all about VMP products. If people want to be angry about not having correct info or easily findable info on VMP products, be angry at VMP. They had a fricking forum that they shut down that had the information. They had a closed thread that was just for exclusives that had no extraneous stuff in it. VMP shut it down. Direct that anger at VMP, not at this forum that is, IMO, far too good to be diminished by mentions of VMP at all.

2 cents and all.
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I am fine with anyone being here, what I am not fine with is people hanging around just to post hostile things about VMP on anything that isn't hostile. You want to be critical of VMP, be critical, I am. Lampooning posts because you are upset with VMP for the sole purpose of lampooning the post has me asking why even be on this thread? Be mad at VMP, don't take it out on others who want to converse about VMP. This action has settled down but I am still seeing it. I went overboard with it last night and I am sorry about that.
 
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