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

I love B

I love Bobo 😜

Fair enough! We all like our own things.

Hands up, instrumental jazz really isn’t my thing, I only really like a couple of bits by the “great” name artists. The bobo feels very much of its time and thus pretty dated to my ears and the pop covers really grate on me. That said if you enjoy spinning it, good for you!
 
Fair enough! We all like our own things.

Hands up, instrumental jazz really isn’t my thing, I only really like a couple of bits by the “great” name artists. The bobo feels very much of its time and thus pretty dated to my ears and the pop covers really grate on me. That said if you enjoy spinning it, good for you!
There’s no way they will hit 100% success rate so I feel like 70% is not too bad all. Especially if you don’t like instrumental jazz which seems to be featured more and more. I agree that I’m not a fan of the Lloyd Miller but that extends beyond the music for me...it’s just not a good recording and I feel they only pressed it because it’s rare instead of how good the music is.

I have mostly been happy with the curation up until the past few months. The main ones I haven’t been excited about are records like Mr Hands where I can get an original pressing of it for under $10 at nearly every record store near me. Also there were a ton of other Herbie albums that would have been more interesting...

I am also not that interested in the next few months...I dislike when they press brand new albums as ROTM (Caroline Rose). And none of the other announced titles have been very exciting. Im running out of records I would want to swap too.
 
There’s no way they will hit 100% success rate so I feel like 70% is not too bad all. Especially if you don’t like instrumental jazz which seems to be featured more and more. I agree that I’m not a fan of the Lloyd Miller but that extends beyond the music for me...it’s just not a good recording and I feel they only pressed it because it’s rare instead of how good the music is.

I have mostly been happy with the curation up until the past few months. The main ones I haven’t been excited about are records like Mr Hands where I can get an original pressing of it for under $10 at nearly every record store near me. Also there were a ton of other Herbie albums that would have been more interesting...

I am also not that interested in the next few months...I dislike when they press brand new albums as ROTM (Caroline Rose). And none of the other announced titles have been very exciting. Im running out of records I would want to swap too.

I don’t expect 100% in fact I was happy with 2/3, so 66% was fine, back when they repressed stuff and there was actual value in the swaps. My issue with jazz last year was that it was almost half of the picks 5/12 and by the time they added 2 new genres (1 salsa and 2 funk) there was actually only 1 soul record, that’s bullshit. If I could swap the godawful Bobo’s and Miller’s for something worthwhile or they were 2 of 3/4 jazz picks and we were getting a fair spread I would agree with you, but with the way they are positioning themselves I couldn’t disagree more.
 
I don’t expect 100% in fact I was happy with 2/3, so 66% was fine, back when they repressed stuff and there was actual value in the swaps. My issue with jazz last year was that it was almost half of the picks 5/12 and by the time they added 2 new genres (1 salsa and 2 funk) there was actually only 1 soul record, that’s bullshit. If I could swap the godawful Bobo’s and Miller’s for something worthwhile or they were 2 of 3/4 jazz picks and we were getting a fair spread I would agree with you, but with the way they are positioning themselves I couldn’t disagree more.
I am also biased because I love jazz haha. I assume they didn’t do a lot of soul because they were prepping for the Motown and Stax anthologies.

Jazz in general is becoming more popular so I see why they are putting more jazz releases out. I also just don’t think VMP knows who their audience or customers are. They are trying to appease the people who just got record players and are building up their collections but then there are also older audiophile customers who care about AAA, have a fairly large collection already and are looking for albums they haven’t heard before.

I’d definitely like them to have more variance in the genres. It appears they are starting to double dip a lot too with the same artists as ROTMs and I do agree with ya that the curation has overall been more lazy this past year.
 
I am also biased because I love jazz haha. I assume they didn’t do a lot of soul because they were prepping for the Motown and Stax anthologies.

Jazz in general is becoming more popular so I see why they are putting more jazz releases out. I also just don’t think VMP knows who their audience or customers are. They are trying to appease the people who just got record players and are building up their collections but then there are also older audiophile customers who care about AAA, have a fairly large collection already and are looking for albums they haven’t heard before.

I’d definitely like them to have more variance in the genres. It appears they are starting to double dip a lot too with the same artists as ROTMs and I do agree with ya that the curation has overall been more lazy this past year.

True but then equally there was a jazz anthology too and that didn’t stop there being a classics from that very label a month or two later! Even if it was probably the best instrumental jazz album they did last year (I still preferred the Blossom Dearie to it). Also if we’re saying jazz is becoming more popular off new artists and the likes of the London scene we have to say the same soul on the back of the neo-soul movement and its explosion in popularity over the last year. What would concern me is that, as good a label as it is, we just get another 3 stax selections this year and not a snap at the bigger picture.

This is all slightly academic for me because whilst this was a huge problem there are much bigger obstacles between me becoming a customer again.
 
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I don't know what to make of this any more. VMP finally sent a shipping confirmation for TLC bundle, but they also sent one for Raising Hell, of which I already received two copies. Thus far, I have received extra copies of all three December essentials (Aretha, BB, and Run-DMC), Cornelius, and Fiona's Idler Wheel. At the same time, it appears almost certain I am not going to receive Juju's Live at the East 1973 and Coltrane's Blue World, and I hope Still Woozy doesn't join that list.

That is wild. And I’m still over here missing my Idler Wheel having been told it’s shipped on two separate occasions. Ugh
 
I don't know what to make of this any more. VMP finally sent a shipping confirmation for TLC bundle, but they also sent one for Raising Hell, of which I already received two copies. Thus far, I have received extra copies of all three December essentials (Aretha, BB, and Run-DMC), Cornelius, and Fiona's Idler Wheel. At the same time, it appears almost certain I am not going to receive Juju's Live at the East 1973 and Coltrane's Blue World, and I hope Still Woozy doesn't join that list.
For what it’s worth I think Juju just got a wide release from Now-Again if it wasn’t pointed out to you already. I know that’s not really the point and you should get what you ordered but at least you can get it from another source!
 
True but then equally there was a jazz anthology too and that didn’t stop there being a classics from that very label a month or two later! Even if it was probably the best instrumental jazz album they did last year (I still preferred the Blossom Dearie to it). Also if we’re saying jazz is becoming more popular off new artists and the likes of the London scene we have to say the same soul on the back of the neo-soul movement and its explosion in popularity over the last year. What would concern me is that, as good a label as it is, we just get another 3 stax selections this year and not a snap at the bigger picture.

This is all slightly academic for me because whilst this was a huge problem there are much bigger obstacles between me becoming a customer again.
Fair enough! I’m trying to think of rhyme or reason but then again VMP seems to have no methods behind the madness haha. Agree with your last statement whole-heartedly. Curation isn’t the only reason not to be a member. My buddy just got his first turntable and signed up for VMP despite my warnings. He ordered Feist and they sent him TVOTR by accident although he’s fine with it as they let him keep it for free.
 
Also if we’re saying jazz is becoming more popular off new artists and the likes of the London scene we have to say the same soul on the back of the neo-soul movement and its explosion in popularity over the last year.
Is there anything original about the new soul bands, or are they just mimicking the sound of previous decades? When I sample a new track from a Colemine band, for example, I always end up thinking "there is nothing original in this". Am I just not paying close enough attention?

It seems like there is forward (read: original) motion in jazz, but not in soul.
 
Is there anything original about the new soul bands, or are they just mimicking the sound of previous decades? When I sample a new track from a Colemine band, for example, I always end up thinking "there is nothing original in this". Am I just not paying close enough attention?

It seems like there is forward (read: original) motion in jazz, but not in soul.

I'm sure there is, look at someone like say D'angelo. But the reason why I like a lot of colemine is because I LOVE new music that sounds like its 60 years old.
 
I'm sure there is, look at someone like say D'angelo.
I personally think of him as R&B rather than soul.
But the reason why I like a lot of colemine is because I LOVE new music that sounds like its 60 years old.
Very cool! I've got a lot of respect for Colemine - the people running it seem top-notch.
 
Is there anything original about the new soul bands, or are they just mimicking the sound of previous decades? When I sample a new track from a Colemine band, for example, I always end up thinking "there is nothing original in this". Am I just not paying close enough attention?

It seems like there is forward (read: original) motion in jazz, but not in soul.

Not in the colemine stuff, it’s enjoyable but not original. I think the originality lies more in the likes of Moses Sumney or Michael Kiwanuka who i would say are definitely moving the sound forward and are probably going to be much bigger artists as a result.
 
I have mostly been happy with the curation up until the past few months. The main ones I haven’t been excited about are records like Mr Hands where I can get an original pressing of it for under $10 at nearly every record store near me. Also there were a ton of other Herbie albums that would have been more interesting...

This may go without saying , but I feel VMP got out of curation a while ago. It’s all about what’s available to them to put out and less on on what is deemed worthy to be in your collection.
Clearly they believe in / like them enough to sell them , but some titles are just being put out because it looks cool but might just be “fine” overall. End of rant.
 
This may go without saying , but I feel VMP got out of curation a while ago. It’s all about what’s available to them to put out and less on on what is deemed worth in your collection.
Clearly they believe in / like them enough to sell them , but some titles are just being put out because it looks cool but might just be “fine” overall. End of rant.
Don't think that is a rant. I just look at what I bought from VMP in 2017 and 2018 compared to 2019 and it is night and day. I think I grabbed 9 exclusives in 2019 and probably 4 of those were swaps. I stopped counting at about 20 exclusives in 2018 that I bought (not including standard issue curated items) and probably only about 4 of those were swaps.
 
Don't think that is a rant. I just look at what I bought from VMP in 2017 and 2018 compared to 2019 and it is night and day. I think I grabbed 9 exclusives in 2019 and probably 4 of those were swaps. I stopped counting at about 20 exclusives in 2018 that I bought (not including standard issue curated items) and probably only about 4 of those were swaps.

100%! After maybe Jan/Feb I felt that every exclusive I grabbed was a colour of a new release or a desperate swaption because the AoTM had yet again missed the mark...
 
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