Needles & Grooves

I bet it goes higher

Yep. They've chosen their market and intentionally pared away any subscribers who weren't willing to drop $100 a month.

It has seemed to me for a while now that vinyl is being targeted at more, for lack of a better word, "elite" audiences and broke bitches like me just have to sit and watch as vinyl prices rise and manufacturing delays turn what used to be a relatively stress-free hobby into a nightmare.

I've seriously considered giving vinyl up completely because it really doesn't feel worth it to me anymore. I don't have the disposable income to put up with all this bullshit.

I took 2-3 years off due to constraints of my LA apartment and am looking to pick it back up once I'm in Chicago... but am having second thoughts.

That said, the real answer is just selective buying habits. Sucks that I can't collect colored vinyl or afford certain releases from bands who I love but don't to see the issue in their tactics (hello Mars Volta), but I can still grab a Caribou album for $20 or that 3LP re-issue of Sevens Travels for $26

I miss the days of $17 VMP add-ons...or was it $19? Either way, I miss those days.

I cut waaaaaaaay back on vinyl buying a couple years ago due to expense, and it's honestly lovely mostly listening out of my existing collection and occasionally springing for a new favorite or personally important reissue. I still want everything, but it's okay to want things.

Kinda going through this right now. I'm trying to make a much more conscious effort to hold off on buying vinyl for so many releases. So many records are overpriced now - though there are still a good handful of bands I like who keep things at a reasonable price. But yeah I'm surprised VMP is still going on with their horrible prices. And like the price of this new Adele record? Why?

People just aren’t selling like they used to either. They’re still holding on to albums they don’t listen to and aren’t willing to take the buyback prices they used to and inventories at used shops are still the same titles they’ve been for the last 20 years. Guessing a lot of that is how much the sticker price has gone + manufactured scarcity where everyone can’t imagine losing a dollar on what they paid.

This sounds like a non-issue, but it’s really part of the overall vinyl ecosphere. Labels hate the secondary/used market though, so it’s not really in their (immediate) interest to play to the volume-not-margin model.

I’m just glad someone else sees vinyl collecting through the prism of class warfare (like I do).

Can you imagine if they kept the forums open after the whole we’re not your friends to the price hike?

@Lee Newman When did they hike it to $40? When I left it was at $30 for one month, $27 for 3.

I don’t know. I cancelled when they axed the forums.