Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

PineapplePhantom said:
Probably start repressing or just teasing represses of their more sought after ROTMs "Hey instead of buying De La Soul for $150 on discogs get it straight from us for the low low price of $52" (or whatever the domestic US price is exactly). They have enough high resale value albums in their past that they could probably rest on their laurels with such a strategy for a little while
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Yeah I agree, but doing this past a certain point also will undercut the FOMO that they’ve built their business around.
 
Bohnjaggs said:
Interesting. I'm a huge Spoon fan. They Want My Soul is in my top 3 albums of the decade but Hot Thoughts is probably my least favorite Spoom album overall. 🤔
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I love me some Spoon too but I made an arbitrary rule when evaluating best of decade albums that the artist could not have put out better albums in previous or successive decades. So that would eliminate the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, Radiohead, The National, etc... from the best albums of the 2010 decade discussion in my book. Obviously that’s my own silly rule.

FWIW I actually prefer Hot Thoughts to They Want My Soul or Transference.
 
Bohnjaggs said:
Interesting. I'm a huge Spoon fan. They Want My Soul is in my top 3 albums of the decade but Hot Thoughts is probably my least favorite Spoom album overall. 🤔
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I like “They Want My Soul” too - it’s in my top 5 for the decade. I feel like “Hot Thoughts“ has more of that punchy pop tension though. It’s like almost a dance record - it makes me clench my fists and roll my wrists and neck around.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I love me some Spoon too but I made an arbitrary rule when evaluating best of decade albums that the artist could not have put out better albums in previous or successive decades. So that would eliminate the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, Radiohead, The National, etc... from the best albums of the 2010 decade discussion in my book. Obviously that’s my own silly rule.

FWIW I actually prefer Hot Thoughts to They Want My Soul or Transference.
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I'd go TWMS>>Hot Thoughts>Transference myself. I think Transference and Telephono are the only albums of theirs I don't have and I don't have a compelling desire to pick them up. Not surprised that Hot Thoughts is divisive either.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Slightly related I saw Discogs did a Spoon primer...

blog.discogs.com

Discogs Digs | Discogs

Discogs Digs is the place to start your journey of music discovery. Explore recommendations, unique stories, guides, and more.
blog.discogs.com blog.discogs.com
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When I clicked on that and started scrolling down, I was thinking "Damn, I would have a hard time narrowing it down to 3 or 5 or whatever this list would be," since I think they are so consistent. Come to find out, they included every LP. :ROFLMAO:
 
dhodo said:
I'd go TWMS>>Hot Thoughts>Transference myself. I think Transference and Telephono are the only albums of theirs I don't have and I don't have a compelling desire to pick them up. Not surprised that Hot Thoughts is divisive either.
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This is actually my ranking too. As much as Hot Thoughts didn't really click for me (and I tried), I probably like it better than Transference.
 
dhodo said:
I'd go TWMS>>Hot Thoughts>Transference myself. I think Transference and Telephono are the only albums of theirs I don't have and I don't have a compelling desire to pick them up. Not surprised that Hot Thoughts is divisive either.
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I am missing the same plus They Want My Soul. I was inspired by the Silk Screened album art on the Remastered Soft Effects EP to finally pick that up (I am a sucker for stuff like that). I am sure I will end up grabbing the Telephono remaster here shortly and eventually add the other two, a MOR is still a really good album.
 
Bohnjaggs said:
This is actually my ranking too. As much as Hot Thoughts didn't really click for me (and I tried), I probably like it better than Transference.
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Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I like Hot Thoughts. I saw them on that tour and thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't at all regret pre-ordering it. But, it's probably in my bottom 3. That ain't bad for Spoon's discography though.
 
Also, after looking at my old VMP orders since I joined.. a few takeaways...

1) Why did I sell my De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State on Reddit for like 30 bucks a few years ago?
2) It's nice to go back and remember the excitement of the Gorillaz, QOTSA drops.
3) Rostam's "Half Light' is one of my favorite exclusives (/750 yellow)
4) My first VMP was Weezer's Pinkerton
5) Thankful that even though they barely pressed any reggae, they did some awesome exclusives + Madlib's 420
 
Jan said:
It's still my main problem with them and it was the common thing between all their problems so by now I have to assume it is on purpose: they simply refuse to communicate in a transparent and upfront way to their customers. they only communicate issues or changes to their customers after a shitstorm
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It’s not even just communication between VMP and their customers. It is very clear that nobody in the company talks to each other and has been that way for years. Storf doesn’t know if an album is mono or stereo. He doesn’t know whether it’s AAA or a digital remaster. He writes copy on the site saying they don’t want to spoil the art print for BVSC but the picture is right above that copy. CS doesn’t know anything about inventory. It’s really not hard to stay in communication with employees when you have a team of 20 people. If you don’t know the answer to something, just ask the person who would know. I’m always amazed at how poorly everyone in the company seems to communicate and that trickles down to customers. I’ve had CS issues where I talked to 3 different CS agents who all told me different things: they would send a replacement, then another person said no replacements existed and I could have another ROTM for free and a third person mailed me a replacement.
 
MikeH said:
It’s not even just communication between VMP and their customers. It is very clear that nobody in the company talks to each other and has been that way for years. Storf doesn’t know if an album is mono or stereo. He doesn’t know whether it’s AAA or a digital remaster. He writes copy on the site saying they don’t want to spoil the art print for BVSC but the picture is right above that copy. CS doesn’t know anything about inventory. It’s really not hard to stay in communication with employees when you have a team of 20 people. If you don’t know the answer to something, just ask the person who would know. I’m always amazed at how poorly everyone in the company seems to communicate and that trickles down to customers. I’ve had CS issues where I talked to 3 different CS agents who all told me different things: they would send a replacement, then another person said no replacements existed and I could have another ROTM for free and a third person mailed me a replacement.
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Yes. The only time I've been truly burned by them was the Buckley "Grace" pressing. I mailed and asked what master they had, was it the Kevin Gray. They checked around and confirmed that yes, it was the Kevin Gray. Got the album and of course no it was not the Kevin Gray, and it was the most crappy poppy pressing ever. Like... I'd almost understand getting a "I don't know" but they actually checked and confirmed it was. WHO CONFIRMED THAT? Like... how...
 
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scotthilk said:
Also, after looking at my old VMP orders since I joined.. a few takeaways...

1) Why did I sell my De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State on Reddit for like 30 bucks a few years ago?
2) It's nice to go back and remember the excitement of the Gorillaz, QOTSA drops.
3) Rostam's "Half Light' is one of my favorite exclusives (/750 yellow)
4) My first VMP was Weezer's Pinkerton
5) Thankful that even though they barely pressed any reggae, they did some awesome exclusives + Madlib's 420
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My biggest takeaways

  1. Joined with Main Source - Breaking Atoms which came with a skip, requested a replacement and the replacement had the skip as well lmao classic VMP.
  2. BBNG. Apparently I got it but I can't find it in my collection and I honestly don't remember ever seeing it in person. It's messing with my brain.
  3. It definitely is nice to remember my joy in securing that Gorillaz pressing.
  4. I lost my job and went broke and had to cancel during the year all the De La Soul releases came out and I'm still depressed about it.
 
Jan said:
It's still my main problem with them and it was the common thing between all their problems so by now I have to assume it is on purpose: they simply refuse to communicate in a transparent and upfront way to their customers. they only communicate issues or changes to their customers after a shitstorm
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Jan said:
That's why i think it's intentional. It's a choice they make not to contact the complete costumer base by email in case of issues, delays, price changes etc. When they know of the issue. Instead they let people deal with cs first or someone gives a statement on Twitter, reddit or elsewhere. Transparency is not something they want. And I don't mean it in a way some want it. I do not need information about company internal stuff like what they financial situation I or why they parted ways from someone. But if an exclusive was delayed I usually know about it from a cs reply someone posted here ( weeks before, if at all) an email goes out. Same with their bigger issues. And that's why i don't trust them on any promises.
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Yes, I think it's definitely intentional. While I know their internal communication is absolutely tragic, ultimately they still over and over again decide "we'll say something when we have to, and not until then." I think they have no respect for their customers--they long ago decided everyone is going to freak out no matter what they do, but keep buying anyway--so they try to minimize drawing attention from the customers who mostly don't pay any. So they repeatedly make things worse than they have to be, which they take as proof that there's no point communicating with their customers because it all gets blown out of proportion anyway.
 
Man I love Spoon, but I've never understood having strong opinions about which of their albums are best. Sure there are better ones and worse ones, but the whole point of Spoon is how solid and consistent they are. The vast majority of songs can easily swap around between albums within changing much.
 
GritNGlitter said:
Yes, I think it's definitely intentional. While I know their internal communication is absolutely tragic, ultimately they still over and over again decide "we'll say something when we have to, and not until then." I think they have no respect for their customers--they long ago decided everyone is going to freak out no matter what they do, but keep buying anyway--so they try to minimize drawing attention from the customers who mostly don't pay any. So they repeatedly make things worse than they have to be, which they take as proof that there's no point communicating with their customers because it all gets blown out of proportion anyway.
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When you really think about it, it's a genius move on their part. Memberships will go down by probably 30%ish but they will keep the rest at a way higher price which ultimately means they will still make the same amount of money except now they have a lot less members to yell at them about all of their issues. And they still probably won't fix any of the issues at all.
 
gouis said:
Man I love Spoon, but I've never understood having strong opinions about which of their albums are best. Sure there are better ones and worse ones, but the whole point of Spoon is how solid and consistent they are. The vast majority of songs can easily swap around between albums within changing much.
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I think that's generally true for say Girls Can Tell to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or maybe Transference (except I think it sticks out as not being as good), but I think if you took a song from the other 4 and dropped them into those it would stick out pretty well. I love two out of 4 of those, so the only ones I can easily rank are top 6 vs bottom 3. Order is very hard for me in the top 6.
 
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