Vinyl Me Please Anthology

wmeugene said:
It's odd. I usually have exceptional mail service. During this time about half to 2/3 of my packages have been delivered as normal (and quite quickly) and the others have languished for days. I know that's normal for some, but that never happened before COVID-19, so it's clear the system is overwhelmed and its just random what gets through unscathed.
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I think it's less about being random stuff coming through and more WHERE the mail is travelling through. Jersey City's hub has been extremely overwhelmed. I live in NYC and anything going through the JC hub has often just been sent out to other hubs all over the US to get processed, then eventually ends up back in JC and then to me. Watching the tracking on some of these packages has been crazy.

I have gotten some things within 3 days of buying, others have taken 3 weeks and have travelled all over the US. It's less about the time and more about the increased possibility of damage that I'm worried about. But also...with working from home I also just get impatient even though I have more than enough to listen to hah
 
Would anyone be surprised if Herbie Hancock wound up being the final Anthology before a 'hiatus due to covid-19' that turns into a swift phasing out of the concept altogether?

It seems like they only sold out of the Blue Note Anthology. There is just no way this is a profitable enterprise for them if they are left with all this unsold inventory.
 
RobbieBobby said:
Would anyone be surprised if Herbie Hancock wound up being the final Anthology before a 'hiatus due to covid-19' that turns into a swift phasing out of the concept altogether?

It seems like they only sold out of the Blue Note Anthology. There is just no way this is a profitable enterprise for them if they are left with all this unsold inventory.
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It's so weird to me that they say all of the boxes "sold out" when they clearly did not. I think the new partnership with Acoustic Sounds will be fruitful for them. They already sold the Stax leftovers through them. Herbie will absolutely sell out unless it's crazy expensive. I think they might start to do less per year, which wouldn't be shocking. I still think 3 or 4 at year makes sense if they can keep the price around $200 and curate some good options.
 
They needed to put an adult in charge and I don't think they have any that work for them. You're selling a premium product at the highest price possible and still playing silly guessing games? Be up front, tell people what they get for their money, if you want it to be an "experience" put a fucking effort into it! I have no doubt they'll push the price on the Herbie box as high as they can because they feel like they can and people will still pony up. I always thought they should use this to highlight some lesser known labels or genres but make those a little more exclusive (less pressings) and save 4-5 MASSIVE popular boxes for the real money grab! I don't know, this is my first experience and it's quite underwhelming
 
RobbieBobby said:
Would anyone be surprised if Herbie Hancock wound up being the final Anthology before a 'hiatus due to covid-19' that turns into a swift phasing out of the concept altogether?
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I think this is right on the money.

4080 said:
I always thought they should use this to highlight some lesser known labels or genres but make those a little more exclusive (less pressings) and save 4-5 MASSIVE popular boxes for the real money grab! I don't know, this is my first experience and it's quite underwhelming
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I am really on the fence about the Herbie Boxset. He is the type of important musician that deserves a full boxset/reissue series, not just a overview of 60yrs of art in 8 records.
 
4080 said:
They needed to put an adult in charge and I don't think they have any that work for them. You're selling a premium product at the highest price possible and still playing silly guessing games? Be up front, tell people what they get for their money, if you want it to be an "experience" put a fucking effort into it! I have no doubt they'll push the price on the Herbie box as high as they can because they feel like they can and people will still pony up. I always thought they should use this to highlight some lesser known labels or genres but make those a little more exclusive (less pressings) and save 4-5 MASSIVE popular boxes for the real money grab! I don't know, this is my first experience and it's quite underwhelming
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They stopped doing the guessing games thing now. The Zamrock box announced all titles in it, although they still have the silly "unboxing" thing inside where each album is in a sleeve you have to rip open to reveal the album. Seems like a silly waste of packaging.

I agree. I think it would have been awesome if they highlighted some lesser known labels and subsidize that with the "bigger" more popular boxes. I'd love some of the less popular but equally awesome jazz/soul labels like Flying Dutchman or Black Jazz and I think they would actually sell out...But doing something like subsidizing lesser known stuff with big boxes would mean they care more about music than profits and they just clearly do not.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I am really on the fence about the Herbie Boxset. He is the type of important musician that deserves a full boxset/reissue series, not just a overview of 60yrs of art in 8 records.
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I think it would be cool to get 8 lesser known Herbie albums. I actually really like what VMP did with the Blue Note records dating back to before Anthology. It was awesome to get lesser known Blue Note albums that haven't been repressed in awhile. The pressings were all awesome even including the Anthology box. That Ambrose Akinmusire album gets frequent spins from me.

With Herbie, you cannot do a career spanning box set at all IMO. He has WAY too much stuff. I think the angle of doing lesser known albums from each distinct era of his catalogue has a lot of potential though. I'm very cautious about it too and depending on price might skip out but I'm not totally checked out on it yet. Will be very curious to hear more about it when it gets closer to release date.
 
MikeH said:
I think it would be cool to get 8 lesser known Herbie albums. I actually really like what VMP did with the Blue Note records dating back to before Anthology. It was awesome to get lesser known Blue Note albums that haven't been repressed in awhile. The pressings were all awesome even including the Anthology box. That Ambrose Akinmusire album gets frequent spins from me.

With Herbie, you cannot do a career spanning box set at all IMO. He has WAY too much stuff. I think the angle of doing lesser known albums from each distinct era of his catalogue has a lot of potential though. I'm very cautious about it too and depending on price might skip out but I'm not totally checked out on it yet. Will be very curious to hear more about it when it gets closer to release date.
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The funny thing, though totally typical for VMP, is that they have shown doing this is a viable model. Select lesser-known artists or release, do a high quality pressing and give people an educational experience and people will buy the product. Sadly VMP proves time and again there are just too greedy and too lazy to do this. They have the industry clout to do this, but I totally expect them to walk away from it after the Herbie boxset.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
The funny thing, though totally typical for VMP, is that they have shown doing this is a viable model. Select lesser-known artists or release, do a high quality pressing and give people an educational experience and people will buy the product. Sadly VMP proves time and again there are just too greedy and too lazy to do this. They have the industry clout to do this, but I totally expect them to walk away from it after the Herbie boxset.
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I agree with ya...it's so frustrating. They shoot themselves in the foot so many times.

It comes down to Matt's credo: if it isn't making me extra money, don't put effort into it. They can't see the forest for the trees sometimes. If they invested some more money into the educational aspect, I do think these things would sell more. But the "exclusives" are really just podcasts that anybody can listen to. I only saw the Zamrock doc is out because I follow the guy who worked on it. There's little to no correspondence from VMP on any of it.
 
marshall said:
Mine is stuck too. They aren't lost. USPS is totally overwhelmed right now. I talked to a local postmaster yesterday. For example, the main hub here in Detroit is down to a skeleton crew for various reasons. Last week there was 1 person at the counter and just a few people sorting. People lined up down the street to drop off packages. Containers are backed up.
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Same. in "pre-shipment" since April 30th.

That's interesting to know about the Detroit hub, which is where all of my packages go through. I figured they would slow down solely because I just stated last week how quick they were with all of my boxes. Before this week, once something hit the Detroit hub I knew I'd get it in a couple days. Murphy Law made sure that the day after I said that I would have 3 records sitting in that hub for over a week.

Of course, it could be worse. I ordered Ready to Die off of Discogs and that has been in Pennsylvania since April 20th. Shipped from Washington, skipped the Midwest and decided to make roost in Pennsylvania. 5 more days and I can contact USPS, though, so I got that going for me. Not sure what that'll do, but it'll be past the magic 30 day period for Media Mail, so....
 
MikeH said:
There's little to no correspondence from VMP on any of it.
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I asked Paul afterwards if there was going to any specific email coming about the changes to Zamrock, considering all emails and the packaging say its going to be a weekly thing. He hasn't replied yet.

Edit: And the moment after I sent that, an email from Anthology came in.
 
MikeH said:
I think it would be cool to get 8 lesser known Herbie albums. I actually really like what VMP did with the Blue Note records dating back to before Anthology. It was awesome to get lesser known Blue Note albums that haven't been repressed in awhile. The pressings were all awesome even including the Anthology box. That Ambrose Akinmusire album gets frequent spins from me.

With Herbie, you cannot do a career spanning box set at all IMO. He has WAY too much stuff. I think the angle of doing lesser known albums from each distinct era of his catalogue has a lot of potential though. I'm very cautious about it too and depending on price might skip out but I'm not totally checked out on it yet. Will be very curious to hear more about it when it gets closer to release date.
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You hit the nail on the head for my overall frustration. I was notoriously positive about the Anthology concept after Blue Note, because to me, the records were of fantastic quality and I saw the potential of what they were doing. I just ran through the entire set throughout the day yesterday and it sounds incredible. To me, right up there with MMJ releases. Its also cool that these are lesser known albums that are exclusive to the set.

That being said, they are overcharging. I think the 2 sets I received (Blue Note and Stax) are probably the best bang for your buck (still overpriced) , but the others have been massively overpriced - especially Ghostly, which is essentially a premium box of color variants for otherwise easily obtained records. If there is no exclusivity other than the color wax, and the experience aspect is half baked at best, what exactly are you paying more for? Same with Zamrock. I'm happy for those who ordered it and are excited, but how many of those records are not getting a wide release? Is it even cheaper buying that box versus buying the albums individually? If not, for what exactly are you paying extra?

I am sure the Herbie box will be high quality and I may even purchase it depending on what's included, but the whole thing is just frustrating. Anthology could have been really cool and a concept that continued on for years, but they cheapened their own product through greed and laziness.
 
RobbieBobby said:
You hit the nail on the head for my overall frustration. I was notoriously positive about the Anthology concept after Blue Note, because to me, the records were of fantastic quality and I saw the potential of what they were doing. I just ran through the entire set throughout the day yesterday and it sounds incredible. To me, right up there with MMJ releases. Its also cool that these are lesser known albums that are exclusive to the set.

That being said, they are overcharging. I think the 2 sets I received (Blue Note and Stax) are probably the best bang for your buck (still overpriced) , but the others have been massively overpriced - especially Ghostly, which is essentially a premium box of color variants for otherwise easily obtained records. If there is no exclusivity other than the color wax, and the experience aspect is half baked at best, what exactly are you paying more for? Same with Zamrock. I'm happy for those who ordered it and are excited, but how many of those records are not getting a wide release? Is it even cheaper buying that box versus buying the albums individually? If not, for what exactly are you paying extra?

I am sure the Herbie box will be high quality and I may even purchase it depending on what's included, but the whole thing is just frustrating. Anthology could have been really cool and a concept that continued on for years, but they cheapened their own product through greed and laziness.
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The Zamrock thing is up in the air in terms of exclusivity because the Now-Again records will supposedly get wide release but I'm not sure the Strawberry Rain ones will...will be curious to find out but even price-tag wise for that one, it's not that far off from Now-Again's pricing of some of their other Zam Rock releases.

If they want to truly sell out, they do need to lower the price. At 200 or under, I probably would have purchased all of the box sets so far outside of Ghostly.
 
Skeletonframes said:
Same. in "pre-shipment" since April 30th.

That's interesting to know about the Detroit hub, which is where all of my packages go through. I figured they would slow down solely because I just stated last week how quick they were with all of my boxes. Before this week, once something hit the Detroit hub I knew I'd get it in a couple days. Murphy Law made sure that the day after I said that I would have 3 records sitting in that hub for over a week.

Of course, it could be worse. I ordered Ready to Die off of Discogs and that has been in Pennsylvania since April 20th. Shipped from Washington, skipped the Midwest and decided to make roost in Pennsylvania. 5 more days and I can contact USPS, though, so I got that going for me. Not sure what that'll do, but it'll be past the magic 30 day period for Media Mail, so....
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Zamrock appears to be moving for me now.
 
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