Vinyl Me Please Classics

You guys are almost as obsessed with Storf as Storf is with Stax. There are no more Stax selections this year. He got access to their catalog because of the Anthology and David Porter encouraged him to press the Bar-Keys album. If it's between another Stax album and possibly Al Jarreau, give me the Stax album.
 
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mdmost said:
You guys are almost as obsessed with Storf as Storf is with Stax. There are no more Stax selections this year. He got access to their catalog because of the Anthology and Robert Porter encouraged him to press the Bar-Keys album.
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Or we just read a magazine article that was released today from the club that we subscribe to by the person largely responsible for selecting Classics. But sure. Obsessed works too.
 
mdmost said:
You guys are almost as obsessed with Storf as Storf is with Stax. There are no more Stax selections this year. He got access to their catalog because of the Anthology and Robert Porter encouraged him to press the Bar-Keys album. If it's between another Stax album and possibly Al Jarreau, give me the Stax album.
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That's exactly the problem. Some of us actually want them to press Classic releases instead of Stax leftovers or Al Jarreau.
 
dhodo said:
Yep, great pick. I'm not sure what that has to do with complaining about the others or criticising Storf's claims of getting VMP to press stuff just to fill in holes in his collection.
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Yeah this why my initial reason for sharing. Storf has gone on record saying he picks records that he’s personally interested in which is well and good if the record can be objectively solid for the majority but when you get access to Miles Davis and your instinct is to press Sorcerer because you don’t have it we begin to venture into seriously unprofessional curation ethics. Now we know why Stax has been overly saturated the past few years because Storf has been on a personal mission to collect every Stax record ever! Like come on, curating should be focused on the people, the users, and keeping the picks fresh not to fulfill personal collection goals.

I don’t understand why they let him publish things like this as it reflects rather poorly on the company as a whole.
 
Ghost said:
Yeah this why my initial reason for sharing. Storf has gone on record saying he picks records that he’s personally interested in which is well and good if the record can be objectively solid for the majority but when you get access to Miles Davis and your instinct is to press Sorcerer because you don’t have it we begin to venture into seriously unprofessional curation ethics. Now we know why Stax has been overly saturated the past few years because Storf has been on a personal mission to collect every Stax record ever! Like come on, curating should be focused on the people, the users, and keeping the picks fresh not to fulfill personal collection goals.

I don’t understand why they let him publish things like this as it reflects rather poorly on the company as a whole.
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"Seriously unprofessional curation ethics"? Really? I've been lurking here since the beginning, and it's great when you guys have recommendations of albums and pressings, but there sure does seem to be a lot of personal animosity towards Storf. Dude could use a copy editor (but I've read plenty worse), has a pretty inexplicable (but maybe endearing?) affinity for Stax, and could occasionally come off as a bit of a jerk on the old message board.

But come on. He's paid to pick records. He's basically a glorified record store employee posting top ten recommended lists on the counter of a really big online record store. Do you walk into your local and confront the clerk for his or her "unethical" list of recommendations? No. You just chuckle to yourself and refrain from buying the records. Talk about how disappointing a pick is if you want, but why is there such a compulsion to attack the guy making the list?
 
grendel627 said:
"Seriously unprofessional curation ethics"? Really? I've been lurking here since the beginning, and it's great when you guys have recommendations of albums and pressings, but there sure does seem to be a lot of personal animosity towards Storf. Dude could use a copy editor (but I've read plenty worse), has a pretty inexplicable (but maybe endearing?) affinity for Stax, and could occasionally come off as a bit of a jerk on the old message board.

But come on. He's paid to pick records. He's basically a glorified record store employee posting top ten recommended lists on the counter of a really big online record store. Do you walk into your local and confront the clerk for his or her "unethical" list of recommendations? No. You just chuckle to yourself and refrain from buying the records. Talk about how disappointing a pick is if you want, but why is there such a compulsion to attack the guy making the list?
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I think the problem is that the point of the Classics Channel for VMP is to pick classic albums and get them pressed in the "ultimate pressing of the album" (VMP's words not mine). When the picks are chosen, the understanding is that they are supposed to be top tier albums in that format and not to solely fill the gaps in the curator's collection. It seems very self serving and not to the intent of the channel, which is to serve its members.

Perhaps "unethical" was the wrong word choice, I don't think it's the best wording but I also see it fitting to some extent. Either way, I'm not a fan of how records are being selected and I'm likely going to stop subscribing for good because of it. I also know that I am not alone in this.

I'm glad that you are joining the conversation, I think you'll find that you'll get more out of it by contributing and not just lurking :)
 
grendel627 said:
"Seriously unprofessional curation ethics"? Really? I've been lurking here since the beginning, and it's great when you guys have recommendations of albums and pressings, but there sure does seem to be a lot of personal animosity towards Storf. Dude could use a copy editor (but I've read plenty worse), has a pretty inexplicable (but maybe endearing?) affinity for Stax, and could occasionally come off as a bit of a jerk on the old message board.

But come on. He's paid to pick records. He's basically a glorified record store employee posting top ten recommended lists on the counter of a really big online record store. Do you walk into your local and confront the clerk for his or her "unethical" list of recommendations? No. You just chuckle to yourself and refrain from buying the records. Talk about how disappointing a pick is if you want, but why is there such a compulsion to attack the guy making the list?
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This is quite literally the only time I’ve ever weighed in on Storf, I have no issues with him other than he shouldn’t be half-assing ROTM curation so he can fill personal holes in his collection. I don’t understand how that can’t be interpreted to be unprofessional business ethics? He’s been employed to curate records for somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 people and forgoing that responsibility to make sure he personally has a cool copy of sorcerer or every STAX record ever is nothing less than grossly incompetent and disturbingly selfish behavior from a company representative.
 
I'm going to assume the pick isn't Al Jarreau and acknowledge I'm being very unfair to him and his music. It's just not my cup of tea and I would swap out if it's the pick. I blame Tommy Davidson for making fun of him back on the Robert Townsend comedy special I watched back in the late 1980s.

Go to 1:45


 
grendel627 said:
"Seriously unprofessional curation ethics"? Really? I've been lurking here since the beginning, and it's great when you guys have recommendations of albums and pressings, but there sure does seem to be a lot of personal animosity towards Storf. Dude could use a copy editor (but I've read plenty worse), has a pretty inexplicable (but maybe endearing?) affinity for Stax, and could occasionally come off as a bit of a jerk on the old message board.

But come on. He's paid to pick records. He's basically a glorified record store employee posting top ten recommended lists on the counter of a really big online record store. Do you walk into your local and confront the clerk for his or her "unethical" list of recommendations? No. You just chuckle to yourself and refrain from buying the records. Talk about how disappointing a pick is if you want, but why is there such a compulsion to attack the guy making the list?
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That comparison with a record store employee is a huge stretch. People are subscribed to a service (mostly multi-month) to get a curated pick to their doorstep every month. Curation should be a big part of VMP's business, so pushing a record you wanted to fill your personal collection onto the shelves of 10-30k people is not the best practice. We can all agree or disagree on curation, but the motivation behind sending such a huge amount of people an album shouldn't be "I needed it to fill a gap in my Kallax".
 
Turbo said:
I concur with all this.. the ROG Baby Huey sounds amazing, whichever way it was made.
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I have a much earlier pressing that I picked up in the 90's (maybe), which had a warp when I got it. I loved the album always thought it was great. I ended up getting 2 copies of the RSD Run out groove version, one for my brother, I paid too much and import taxes but really wanted a nice flat pressing. I still think it's the stand out RSD release for me, it sounds amazing & is a great album. You can immediately notice the difference in sound quality.

I've played Hard Times to death over the years, but guarantee I'll pick that out and listen to again from time to time.
 
agutierrezb said:
the motivation behind sending such a huge amount of people an album shouldn't be "I needed it to fill a gap in my Kallax".
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That just about sums it up for me too. Just because he can't find a clean copy of an album on discogs for $20 doesn't mean that VMP has to press "the definitive version" of it. He has stopped curating to introduce people to music, which is his job, and made it all about himself somehow.
 
mdmost said:
Send your requests to TCell since he seems to be the Storf Whisperer.
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Yeah, I don't know that we're best buds, but I do get questions answered and RotM hints from him occasionally. He's a good dude. I don't think he picks to fill out his collection except Sorcerer (and maybe some of the Willie Nelson picks). To be fair though, I don't know if I'd like the internet picking apart my music picks either. If you don't like his selections, we all have the ability to unsubscribe, or swap, or even swap for credit. I mean I've passed on 4 of the last 6 Classics.

And, fwiw, I've only ever gotten two albums that I "requested" (and they were surely already planned and not because of me): Wayne Shorter - Schzophrenia and Immortal Otis Redding.
 
supahypeag said:
"So here I sit, at 271 out of 277, with the six albums left split between “too expensive for me to purchase without selling off other parts of my record collection” and “Vinyl Me, Please will be reissuing these at some point.” "

More Stax....yay
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at least they wont be until next year


if we want to start a rebellion against storf we need to protest
 
TCell said:
Yeah, I don't know that we're best buds, but I do get questions answered and RotM hints from him occasionally. He's a good dude. I don't think he picks to fill out his collection except Sorcerer (and maybe some of the Willie Nelson picks). To be fair though, I don't know if I'd like the internet picking apart my music picks either. If you don't like his selections, we all have the ability to unsubscribe, or swap, or even swap for credit. I mean I've passed on 4 of the last 6 Classics.

And, fwiw, I've only ever gotten two albums that I "requested" (and they were surely already planned and not because of me): Wayne Shorter - Schzophrenia and Immortal Otis Redding.
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Fair enough! I probably wouldn't like it either. But I also wouldn't write an article about how the only Stax albums I'm missing are ones that I'm getting my company to repress because I'm missing them hah.
 
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