Vinyl Me Please Anthology

zombie.modernist said:
IDK, for me Motown is incredibly hard to collect for if you value mono mixes, good sound and clean surfaces. Over here the majority of heavy hitters (Supremes A Go Go, Reach Out etc) are certainly $5 records for the most part, but good luck finding one that's not riddled with regrind, pressing bubbles etc. Even then you've got to account for the wear to the grooves and surface, which was incredibly common as these records were partied down. Beyond all this, for the most part, the majority of 60s Motown / Gordy / Tamla just sounds like shit in my humble opinion. Some are too sharp, some too muddy, and almost all are just not good. Some folks prefer the UK Tamla/Motown pressings, which are certainly on quieter wax but those don't do a whole lot for me either, at least the ones I've come across in the US.

Currently I think the best Motown stuff on vinyl are the US 80s reissues, despite the preference for stereo mixes. They're pressed on clean vinyl, and sound pretty decent, but I fear the secret is out as the prices are up. Essentially for Motown stuff — sure it's cheaper than Blue Note, but if you want audiophile keeper grade copies, good luck not spending $30+ on multiple copies looking for "the one". It's not the worst label to collect for (looking at you King) but not a great one either.

One caveat here which may be a hot take, but I do agree the price is steep for both the VMP anthology bracket and the label's own AAA mono box. The reason why is that these albums are short, and sometimes a bit heavy on the filler. I don't really know how many Motown records are actually worth $30 to me.
Click to expand...
Motown Records are worth $30 to me in an audiophile format. VMP doing it, not so much.
 
Lee Newman said:
Motown Records are worth $30 to me in an audiophile format. VMP doing it, not so much.
Click to expand...

I want to avoid the anthology myself after last time’s drama.

$30 is no problem to me as normal releases go, but the box format is what kills me. For the a Motown Mono Box to work I think it would have to be exhaustive, and I feel like this just a weird sampling of well regarded Motown LPs. To be fair, how can you reduce f-ing Motown down to 5 or 6 LPs? VMPs will likely be similarly bizarre (unless they pick some of the glaring omissions from the mono box). Honestly I wish the box charade would end and they would put them out individually.
 
Joe Mac said:
Here’s my take. Record Labels aren’t important. Acts are. Celebrating Blue Note or Stax or Mowtown is bollocks. I only get artist box sets, label ones are senseless cash grabs that put the customer last. I wonder why VMP are there...
Click to expand...


I don't know about this take. These three labels are hugely important in this history of American music. They each had a different contribution to culture. The people that ran them were more than just businessmen. I get this take with the more faceless major labels that are focused on dollar bills.
 
Joe Mac said:
Here’s my take. Record Labels aren’t important. Acts are. Celebrating Blue Note or Stax or Mowtown is bollocks. I only get artist box sets, label ones are senseless cash grabs that put the customer last. I wonder why VMP are there...
Click to expand...

I agree with your insinuation that VMP has transitioned from a club to a profits first business, as it clearly has.

I gotta disagree with you that record labels aren't important though. As my bookshelf can attest, I find the history of record labels fairly interesting. Blue Note, Stax, and Motown came about at a transitional time in music and the music industry and were hugely influential in creating the sound of Soul and Jazz as they are now. I thought the idea behind the Blue Note Anthology was pretty good, just VMP's execution of it was lacking. I listened to the six albums chronologically and while none of the six are genre defining albums, it was interesting to hear the evolution of the jazz sound at Blue Note.

Now, would I have enjoyed a Wayne Shorter Anthology more? Probably. So I've just made my own.
 
Dtknuckles said:
I don't know about this take. These three labels are hugely important in this history of American music. They each had a different contribution to culture. The people that ran them were more than just businessmen. I get this take with the more faceless major labels that are focused on dollar bills.
Click to expand...

TCell said:
I agree with your insinuation that VMP has transitioned from a club to a profits first business, as it clearly has.

I gotta disagree with you that record labels aren't important though. As my bookshelf can attest, I find the history of record labels fairly interesting. Blue Note, Stax, and Motown came about at a transitional time in music and the music industry and were hugely influential in creating the sound of Soul and Jazz as they are now. I thought the idea behind the Blue Note Anthology was pretty good, just VMP's execution of it was lacking. I listened to the six albums chronologically and while none of the six are genre defining albums, it was interesting to hear the evolution of the jazz sound at Blue Note.

Now, would I have enjoyed a Wayne Shorter Anthology more? Probably. So I've just made my own.
Click to expand...

Ok so maybe my point lack nuance and was a bit flippant, to be honest I wasn’t really looking to tease it out but I suppose now I will.

Personally I don’t see the label as being the story. I see the artists as being a set of stories. A label is a conduit. It provides a platform, through money, contacts, release etc.

Where I lie I suppose is that beyond that I don’t really personally see a label as something I care about massively. I care about the artists. I would never buy something based on the label it was on. It’d be based on the artist/reviews/recommendations/sampling the music.

I just find the whole idea of throwing 6 different albums by different artists whose only similarity is that they released those albums on the label into a box to be repulsive.
 
Joe Mac said:
Ok so maybe my point lack nuance and was a bit flippant, to be honest I wasn’t really looking to tease it out but I suppose now I will.

Personally I don’t see the label as being the story. I see the artists as being a set of stories. A label is a conduit. It provides a platform, through money, contacts, release etc.

Where I lie I suppose is that beyond that I don’t really personally see a label as something I care about massively. I care about the artists. I would never buy something based on the label it was on. It’d be based on the artist/reviews/recommendations/sampling the music.

I just find the whole idea of throwing 6 different albums by different artists whose only similarity is that they released those albums on the label into a box to be repulsive.
Click to expand...

This is fair to a degree but I do think there are labels that had an overall aesthetic vision and stuck to that vision. Maybe not always, maybe not through all different ownership, but Blue Note in particular was putting out a very specific music in a very unorthodox way. They didn't make a ton of money and didn't sell millions, but looking back, Blue Note was hugely important to the development of Jazz from the late 50s through the 60s, mostly because the label emphasized giving certain musicians space to work.

Whether that can be applied to any other labels, I don't know honestly. But I do think an argument can be made for a few different labels that it was the aesthetic vision of the label in general that allowed a certain kind of music to coalesce and gain a wider audience. Sometimes that was purely commercial and sometimes it wasn't.

But then there are labels that were just pure commercial hit machines with all different styles and aesthetics under one roof, so that would make much less sense.
 
Joe Mac said:
Ok so maybe my point lack nuance and was a bit flippant, to be honest I wasn’t really looking to tease it out but I suppose now I will.

Personally I don’t see the label as being the story. I see the artists as being a set of stories. A label is a conduit. It provides a platform, through money, contacts, release etc.

Where I lie I suppose is that beyond that I don’t really personally see a label as something I care about massively. I care about the artists. I would never buy something based on the label it was on. It’d be based on the artist/reviews/recommendations/sampling the music.

I just find the whole idea of throwing 6 different albums by different artists whose only similarity is that they released those albums on the label into a box to be repulsive.
Click to expand...
I'm on board with this take. Label anthologies take the focus off the artists and are more about a business celebrating other businesses, in my view. The history of a label can be an interesting thing from an academic point of view, but I don't think a handful of albums is the best way to represent that. I still think that if an Anthology is going to be a mix of artists, I'd find it more interesting to make the nexus point be the producer, or the city, or something like that, than the label. That's probably harder to curate & execute...but it's more interesting (to me).
 
But Blue Note is a singular label in a lot of ways. To say that they were just a platform to provide money & contacts dosen't really give the entire picture of what they did.

By doing what they did they highlighted a specific type of music and presented it in a way that made people take is seriously as an art form.

Joe Mac said:
Ok so maybe my point lack nuance and was a bit flippant, to be honest I wasn’t really looking to tease it out but I suppose now I will.

Personally I don’t see the label as being the story. I see the artists as being a set of stories. A label is a conduit. It provides a platform, through money, contacts, release etc.

Where I lie I suppose is that beyond that I don’t really personally see a label as something I care about massively. I care about the artists. I would never buy something based on the label it was on. It’d be based on the artist/reviews/recommendations/sampling the music.

I just find the whole idea of throwing 6 different albums by different artists whose only similarity is that they released those albums on the label into a box to be repulsive.
Click to expand...
Indymisanthrope said:
I'm on board with this take. Label anthologies take the focus off the artists and are more about a business celebrating other businesses, in my view. The history of a label can be an interesting thing from an academic point of view, but I don't think a handful of albums is the best way to represent that. I still think that if an Anthology is going to be a mix of artists, I'd find it more interesting to make the nexus point be the producer, or the city, or something like that, than the label. That's probably harder to curate & execute...but it's more interesting (to me).
Click to expand...
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I'm on board with this take. Label anthologies take the focus off the artists and are more about a business celebrating other businesses, in my view. The history of a label can be an interesting thing from an academic point of view, but I don't think a handful of albums is the best way to represent that. I still think that if an Anthology is going to be a mix of artists, I'd find it more interesting to make the nexus point be the producer, or the city, or something like that, than the label. That's probably harder to curate & execute...but it's more interesting (to me).
Click to expand...

I agree. Part of me still prefers individual artist boxes, however, if you must do that but I can certainly see significant merit in the idea of a box set showing the progression of Phil Spector, to take the most painfully obvious example, developing his sound over a series of different artists albums. Or a compendium of Bacharach and David Songs all recorded by different artists.
 
Joe Mac said:
I agree. Part of me still prefers individual artist boxes, however, if you must do that but I can certainly see significant merit in the idea of a box set showing the progression of Phil Spector, to take the most painfully obvious example, developing his sound over a series of different artists albums. Or a compendium of Bacharach and David Songs all recorded by different artists.
Click to expand...


This would be a licensing nightmare!!!
 
Dtknuckles said:
To say that they were just a platform to provide money & contacts dosen't really give the entire picture of what they did.
Click to expand...
Right, but that's exactly (or at least my) point: Anthology can't paint the entire picture of a label. The entire picture of a label can be an interesting story, I just don't think this is a good medium to tell it.
 
Dtknuckles said:
But Blue Note is a singular label in a lot of ways. To say that they were just a platform to provide money & contacts dosen't really give the entire picture of what they did.

By doing what they did they highlighted a specific type of music and presented it in a way that made people take is seriously as an art form.
Click to expand...

Ah now calm down. They were a small independent specialist label that focused on one genre. There have been hundreds of similar labels that specialise in all different genres in the history of music. Lots of them did lots of cool things. They would still be nothing without the artists.
 
Joe Mac said:
I agree. Part of me still prefers individual artist boxes, however, if you must do that but I can certainly see significant merit in the idea of a box set showing the progression of Phil Spector, to take the most painfully obvious example, developing his sound over a series of different artists albums. Or a compendium of Bacharach and David Songs all recorded by different artists.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I mean if the point of these is "tell a story," as VMP is fond of saying, then the story should be one that can actually be told by the product, IMO. The scope of Blue Note, as has been discussed here ad nauseam, is too broad for what the final product turned out to be. Same for Motown. But if you were telling the story of, say, Rick Rubin? Dave Fridmann? Josh Homme or Mark Lanegan? *That* you can maybe do in 5-6 albums, and if you find somebody who has a strong association with a label, then maybe you can even tell the story of the label through the lens of that individual.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Yeah, I mean if the point of these is "tell a story," as VMP is fond of saying, then the story should be one that can actually be told by the product, IMO. The scope of Blue Note, as has been discussed here ad nauseam, is too broad for what the final product turned out to be. Same for Motown. But if you were telling the story of, say, Rick Rubin? Dave Fridmann? Josh Homme or Mark Lanegan? *That* you can maybe do in 5-6 albums, and if you find somebody who has a strong association with a label, then maybe you can even tell the story of the label through the lens of that individual.
Click to expand...

I think also that the story of a label is the story of various personalities too. I mean how do you tell the story of Berry Gordy through Mowtown albums? Especially a small selection. Similarly with someone like Don Wass and Blue Note?

To take an example of a label I’ve liked a lot of releases by and had a chaotic and exciting history, creation records. The dvd documentary was brilliant and worthwhile and gave a real insight into the time and place. Would a collection of the key creation records albums even hold together, never mind tell that story, even though they are from a broadly similar genre and all from across the U.K. & ireland. No, because while I’d enjoy the albums but it’d fail as a concept.
 
Joe Mac said:
Here’s my take. Record Labels aren’t important. Acts are. Celebrating Blue Note or Stax or Mowtown is bollocks. I only get artist box sets, label ones are senseless cash grabs that put the customer last. I wonder why VMP are there...
Click to expand...
Motown also defines a style, though. Same with Stax. And in a certain era of the label, the artists were marketed together. Sent out on revues, singles marketed to distributors in bundles. With the same set of songwriting teams and session musicians, backup singers, and the frequent interchangeability of these components to make the best song possible, a Motown set can actually be meaningful in demonstrating the contributions of the label. And in terms of the effort in the 60s to get Motown artists recognized and played by mainstream radio and other media, Motown was a force of nature.
 
mcherry said:
Motown also defines a style, though. Same with Stax. And in a certain era of the label, the artists were marketed together. Sent out on revues, singles marketed to distributors in bundles. With the same set of songwriting teams and session musicians, backup singers, and the frequent interchangeability of these components to make the best song possible, a Motown set can actually be meaningful in demonstrating the contributions of the label. And in terms of the effort in the 60s to get Motown artists recognized and played by mainstream radio and other media, Motown was a force of nature.
Click to expand...

But can even an era, never mind that whole story, be effectively told by 6 albums in a box?

Edit: I do get the point that these hit factory labels, where teams of songwriters/session musicians/producers worked on whole groups of releases by different artists, are a bit of different case in terms of having a unifying aesthetic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top