Finally caught up on this thread after a month of
neglect self-control.
I think it’s worth noting, since we’re in the pre-order thread, that sometimes it’s hard to be “all about the music” when that music hasn’t been released yet. It feels kinda silly trying to decide between multiple versions of an album that I’ve maybe only heard one single for, so your focus naturally fixates on whatever details are shared about the thing you’re buying. I don’t think that means that you’re buying it for the wrong reasons. And even when we’re talking about music that has been released already, since we’re dealing with vinyl pressings, there’s the matter of how good the pressing will sound. Customers are pitted against each other as competitive shoppers many times because they’re trying to get something that sounds decent. Like with the Kid A Mnesia repress last year, I got the deluxe book version not because I intend to sell it, but because it was limited, and I hoped it would be the better-sounding (or at least not bad-sounding) option. Since it was limited, I didn’t want to wait for the non-deluxe version to ship and see if I was happy with it because by that point, the deluxe would be sold out and I wouldn’t have that option.
I also don’t think customers or artists or labels can be blamed for creating this situation. It would be easy to simplify things and blame artists or labels for doing things this way, but the reality is that most of them can’t afford to press an infinite amount of records without gauging the demand via preorders first, especially not in a world with rising costs, supply chain disruptions and backlogs at pressing plants. Adele and her label can afford to swing for the fences and absorb the extra cost if they overestimated the demand for her new album and have to pay to store the unsold inventory or sell them at a steep discount but most other musicians and labels cannot. So they limit the volume to an amount that they feel confident will sell out. While some retailers like VMP might play up the scarcity in a shitty way, even they have been left in situations numerous times where they took a chance on a less popular artist and overpressed things that they’re still trying to offload years later.
That said, when they do market something as “limited”, that’s a choice on their part. They know what they’re doing, so it’s shitty and dishonest of them to change their tune once they’ve taken enough orders to feel like they’ve guaranteed themselves a profit and feel like they want to make more money. I’d be annoyed if I made it a priority to order something right when it went live, if I felt like I had to do that so I wouldn’t miss out and then they turned around and said “just kidding”, if for no other reason than they wasted my time and attention, not to mention $$ that I could have spent on other things and then picked up the album later down the road.
At this point, though, I feel like saying something is “limited” is pretty meaningless - there are too many examples of shadiness with this that I take it with a big grain of salt when I see it. Most things will get repressed eventually if there’s a demand. And the future pressing will likely be a better package to entice people to buy it. You just have no idea how long you’ll have to wait for it.
I'm not familiar with Heavenly vinyl, do they make great quality records?
Heavenly put out the Magic Numbers RSD release a couple years ago. It was a a good value ($19 for the 2Lp and bonus 7”) but nothing fancy or audiophile.
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Official preorder for Backstreet Boys' A Very Backstreet Christmas. Buy vinyl records, music, merchandise, t-shirts and more.
bsb-christmas.rosecityworks.com
I read this as “A Very Blackstreet Christmas” and now it feels like something that really should exist.
stores.portmerch.com
emerica.com
majesticmountainrecords.bigcartel.com
