Yea I said the music is the one thing they got right, but if all you care about is the music why not save yourself a ton of money and download flac files since that's the best way to listen to music. The whole point of vinyl is that it's something more and Anthology got that part completely wrong.
You could say this about any vinyl purchase ever though...why do any of us buy ANY vinyl when you can almost always get a FLAC for way cheaper? If a FLAC is $10 and the vinyl is $25+ is it worth buying the vinyl? Some would say no, others would say yes. Saying they
only pressed and mastered the records very well is a bit disingenuous to me, that's all. That's the main reason why I buy records. Nice album art and quality packaging is awesome too but the main thing for me is that I enjoy sitting down and listening to a record and giving it my undivided attention and flipping it over when a side is done. Yes--it's silly, but so is vinyl collecting in general when looked at through a certain lens. I realize that I am probably in the minority but I'm also the type of person who doesn't mind seam splits or whatnot on used records if the vinyl itself is in good condition. I probably read liner notes once and then the sleeve goes back on my shelf. The Anthology sleeves are not nearly as nice as MM or Tone Poets even, but the mastering and pressings sound better on a lot of them. They are some of the best sounding records I own. That's important to me. I know there shouldn't be a trade off of quality of jackets and vinyl though when you are paying $38 for a record so I do acknowledge that part is disappointing, but I'm just saying it's not the end of the world for me. The Dexter Calling jacket was the only egregiously bad cover for me and they are reprinting those.
Ultimately, people don't like to acknowledge when they've been ripped-off. I get that but, this was a rip-off.
It was on the high priced side definitely, but again, I wanted these albums on vinyl (and have for quite some time) and the alternative was to spend way more money on older pressings that are hard to find in used condition, let alone good used condition. And Ambrose has never been on vinyl. Do I think Anthology was a bargain? Not at all. Am I furious that I paid $38 for each of these albums? Not really.
I went into Anthology wanting good pressings of Blue Note albums that I have had trouble tracking down in the wild for years now. I went into it saying I wanted to pay less than $40 shipped per record based on a variety of factors before they announced the price. I didn't go into it expecting to learn about the history of jazz or any of the other vague promises that VMP set up because I knew they wouldn't deliver on those. So for me, I'm not as disappointed as a large variety of other people. If people who got Anthology only like 1 or 2 albums, I could see people thinking it was a rip off. If you went into it not knowing much about jazz and were hoping that this would be a "game-changer", I get the disappointment. Maybe I just had lower expectations going in than most...I got the albums I wanted. They sound fantastic. I'm not happy with the whole roll out or various other parts of the release. VMP dropped the ball on a lot. It ultimately doesn't affect my enjoyment of listening to the music. The other aspects (in addition to other practices from VMP) have changed my opinion on VMP though as a whole.
I don't think VMP consciously went into this project saying "ooh we can rip people off with this!" But I am afraid that after how VMP has acted with other pressings as of late, raising their pricing on exclusives, repressing albums that are widely available (with no remaster or change in pressing plates) and charging $32+, upping the price on old stock, etc. that the profit motives have been pushed more and more lately and they are trying to cash in on the vinyl bubble before it bursts. That's why I'm not buying anything from them lately.
Anywho, don't want to turn this into an Anthology or VMP thread so I'll leave things at that and get back to the preorder links.
