Vinyl Me Please Anthology

swamp jazz box set said:
Do you mind if I copy and paste this into the order notes of my next $300 transaction with VMP? I want to let them know I'm through with them and you've captured the sentiment much more succinctly than I could ever hope to.
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I don’t mind at all. The Jerk is probably public domain or something by now anyway, right?
 
So Lloyd admitted to me this was rushed and thought they were going to have more time (why they thought that I am not sure). They added some more eyes to view future ones, eyes that aren't involved in the process of creating it. They learned after having a conversation and well-constructed email from a customer that they needed to make it right (not sure why that needed that feedback). They did take a lot of personally which didn't help even though I don't think most of it was. That is still a place they need to grow (taking things personally). This isn't to say they will do it better next time (I hope they do). This had major issues, I am glad they are fixing many of them. I am still in the believe it when I see it camp.

There are two more in the works (I didn't get any hints or info on what they may be), for the third one they are already looking over stuff (pressings and such), so that does give me some hope that more QC will be done. Again I am in the I will believe it when I see it mode.
 
Enoch said:
So Lloyd admitted to me this was rushed and thought they were going to have more time (why they thought that I am not sure). They added some more eyes to view future ones, eyes that aren't involved in the process of creating it. They learned after having a conversation and well-constructed email from a customer that they needed to make it right (not sure why that needed that feedback). They did take a lot of personally which didn't help even though I don't think most of it was. That is still a place they need to grow (taking things personally). This isn't to say they will do it better next time (I hope they do). This had major issues, I am glad they are fixing many of them. I am still in the believe it when I see it camp.

There are two more in the works (I didn't get any hints or info on what they may be), for the third one they are already looking over stuff (pressings and such), so that does give me some hope that more QC will be done. Again I am in the I will believe it when I see it mode.
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I want VMP to do well. I have no problem with the actual records. The selections are good. The pressings are excellent.

That said, some of the issues go beyond QC however. It’s just sloppiness. Mailing booklets in padded envelopes is not a QC issue. That’s just bad decision making. Honestly, all they need are checks and balances for mistakes, and a bit of common sense. Multiple seasoned eyeballs would catch all these errors. The solution is just patience and due diligence. They need a quality assurance (QA) team. Or at least 2 people to tackle these things. They also need fact checkers for their write ups. Filing the Dexter Gordon record under Post-Bop in the booklet for instance makes this look like amateur hour. Who green lights this?

So yes, the music and records are amazing, but all these little things are an easy fix. If they do that for the future anthologies, then they’ll have a lot of happy campers. That’s it.

Lastly, they shouldn’t oversell what this anthology is. It can stand on its own as a box set. They talked about a community, taking people to jazz school, and a host of other things. We got a heavily policed Facebook group and occasional links to old articles. It would have been better to not promise all those things in the first place. If they don’t have the bandwidth, knowledge, or capacity for all that, then cool. As long as the records are pressed well and they are in high quality jackets without errors, then it’s all good.
 
btf1980 said:
I want VMP to do well. I have no problem with the actual records. The selections are good. The pressings are excellent.

That said, some of the issues go beyond QC however. It’s just sloppiness. Mailing booklets in padded envelopes is not a QC issue. That’s just bad decision making. Honestly, all they need are checks and balances for mistakes, and a bit of common sense. Multiple seasoned eyeballs would catch all these errors. The solution is just patience and due diligence. They need a quality assurance (QA) team. Or at least 2 people to tackle these things. They also need fact checkers for their write ups. Filing the Dexter Gordon record under Post-Bop in the booklet for instance makes this look like amateur hour. Who green lights this?

So yes, the music and records are amazing, but all these little things are an easy fix. If they do that for the future anthologies, then they’ll have a lot of happy campers. That’s it.

Lastly, they shouldn’t oversell what this anthology is. It can stand on its own as a box set. They talked about a community, taking people to jazz school, and a host of other things. We got a heavily policed Facebook group and occasional links to old articles. It would have been better to not promise all those things in the first place. If they don’t have the bandwidth, knowledge, or capacity for all that, then cool. As long as the records are pressed well and they are in high quality jackets without errors, then it’s all good.
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I'm not an Anthology buyer so take what I say fwiw but.. isn't one of the major contributing factors to a great box set being the involvement of people who are heavily invested in the final product? People that care about the records they're putting out. At least it's that way for me and maybe I'm an anomaly. But, again to somebody who doesn't own any of these products but has been watching from the sideline, nothing about this strikes me as being done by people with even a passing knowledge of jazz. Let alone the depth of knowledge and understanding to tackle a Blue Note box set. But what do I know.
 
Clint Howard said:
I'm not an Anthology buyer so take what I say fwiw but.. isn't one of the major contributing factors to a great box set being the involvement of people who are heavily invested in the final product? People that care about the records they're putting out. At least it's that way for me and maybe I'm an anomaly. But, again to somebody who doesn't own any of these products but has been watching from the sideline, nothing about this strikes me as being done by people with even a passing knowledge of jazz. Let alone the depth of knowledge and understanding to tackle a Blue Note box set. But what do I know.
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No argument about that. In an ideal world, then sure. Real world though? It doesn’t always work that way.

I think as long as the workers are competent, then they can do good work. Reid Miles didn’t like or care about jazz music. He was a classical guy. That still didn’t stop him from designing the most iconic jazz record covers in the world.

But yeah, having passion and knowledge for the project you’re working on is always a good thing.
 
Enoch said:
So Lloyd admitted to me this was rushed and thought they were going to have more time (why they thought that I am not sure). They added some more eyes to view future ones, eyes that aren't involved in the process of creating it. They learned after having a conversation and well-constructed email from a customer that they needed to make it right (not sure why that needed that feedback). They did take a lot of personally which didn't help even though I don't think most of it was. That is still a place they need to grow (taking things personally). This isn't to say they will do it better next time (I hope they do). This had major issues, I am glad they are fixing many of them. I am still in the believe it when I see it camp.

There are two more in the works (I didn't get any hints or info on what they may be), for the third one they are already looking over stuff (pressings and such), so that does give me some hope that more QC will be done. Again I am in the I will believe it when I see it mode.
Click to expand...
Oh damn I didn't know you were splitting this into different threads when I responded to your run down of the meeting in the other thread. This is more relevant to my interests than the other post. That said, my main takeaway from this is to laugh that they needed a really well-written email from a customer explaining the importance of executing their jobs correctly and that they took the criticisms personally speaks volumes to their professionalism and maturity.
 
johnpisme said:
Oh damn I didn't know you were splitting this into different threads when I responded to your run down of the meeting in the other thread. This is more relevant to my interests than the other post. That said, my main takeaway from this is to laugh that they needed a really well-written email from a customer explaining the importance of executing their jobs correctly and that they took the criticisms personally speaks volumes to their professionalism and maturity.
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I wasn't purposely splitting it but I thought there was relevant info I could share about something that came up. But yes, the well-written email thing is a ridiculous way to make the decision/needed to make the right move. I agree there is a lot of growing up they need to do and that was something I made sure to bring up.
 
Just got home and saw the mail waiting for me. Thought I would be one of the lucky ones who got the booklet in a proper mailer. Nope, booklet came in an oversized padded envelope. Of course it's bent and creased along the top and sides. It also has loose threading along the edge. Of course. 😡

KNTGDPf.jpg
 
johnpisme said:
Oh damn I didn't know you were splitting this into different threads when I responded to your run down of the meeting in the other thread. This is more relevant to my interests than the other post. That said, my main takeaway from this is to laugh that they needed a really well-written email from a customer explaining the importance of executing their jobs correctly and that they took the criticisms personally speaks volumes to their professionalism and maturity.
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What other thread?
 
johnpisme said:
Oh damn I didn't know you were splitting this into different threads when I responded to your run down of the meeting in the other thread. This is more relevant to my interests than the other post. That said, my main takeaway from this is to laugh that they needed a really well-written email from a customer explaining the importance of executing their jobs correctly and that they took the criticisms personally speaks volumes to their professionalism and maturity.
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Aw I wonder if it was my email that they are talking about! I wrote an entire long thing and then got a stock response back from them hahah
 
MikeH said:
The thing I really don’t understand is that mine came in a VMP cardboard record mailer and it was fine. How did some get shipped that way and the majority of others were in a padded envelope??
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Because nobody that works there knows what the hell they're doing and instead of hiring people that do, they keep apologizing and saying that they are new to this (they aren't).
 
Clint Howard said:
I'm not an Anthology buyer so take what I say fwiw but.. isn't one of the major contributing factors to a great box set being the involvement of people who are heavily invested in the final product? People that care about the records they're putting out. At least it's that way for me and maybe I'm an anomaly. But, again to somebody who doesn't own any of these products but has been watching from the sideline, nothing about this strikes me as being done by people with even a passing knowledge of jazz. Let alone the depth of knowledge and understanding to tackle a Blue Note box set. But what do I know.
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They absolutely chose the wrong label to start off with as a first box set. Jazz collectors are probably the most fickle people out there. I will say I do really like the curation of these albums and the choices are what made me buy in. It’s very possible they chose the albums based on which hadn’t been represses recently and to be fair, BN gave them 12 to choose from so getting 6 good ones isn’t particularly hard. But I like the albums nonetheless.

Billing it as the history of blue note and not really including much in terms of history was a huge error. Calling it “an experience” was the other main error. Those two factors made it worse than expected outside of the pressing errors.

I kind of agree about your assessment of nobody truly loving jazz being involved at least for the experience and history side. But outside of that, they just didn’t have anybody paying attention to the details. You don’t need to love jazz to realize that the cover art is poorly blown up. Or that the catalogue number is incorrect. Or that shipping a pamphlet in a flimsy envelope would be a bad idea (especially since their email said it was being shipped separately to prevent damage). The whole thing seems to stem from incompetence or poor communication where everyone thinks somebody else is going to do quality control and nobody ever does.
 
MikeH said:
The thing I really don’t understand is that mine came in a VMP cardboard record mailer and it was fine. How did some get shipped that way and the majority of others were in a padded envelope??
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i posted earlier that i got my anthology shipment and booklet-in-a-bubble-mailer on the same day. my booklet looks like crenshaw's up there. the funny part (because that's all this can really be labeled at this point) is that the anthology shipment came in one of those 13x13x6 or whatever branded boxes that multiple records often come in. since there were only three records (lucky me with the test press!), the rest of the box was padded with 4-5 12x12 cardboard sheets and a bit of bubble wrap. why the booklet couldn't have simply been put in between the cardboard sheets is the question i immediately asked myself. if they're losing money, it's the little things like this that can quickly add up when you're counting loss streams.
 
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