Loading ...Record Labels Keep Finding New Ways To Fuck You
By Evan ~ April 24th, 2008. Filed under: rant.
I just re-watched the Vinyl documentary, and have since burnt a copy of it for one of my bosses, so of course I feel compelled to speak about record collecting today. I’m not going to discuss the process of acquiring new albums, or the analyze the psychology of someone who attempts to fill holes in their life with material goods. I’m going to rant about how more and more bands and record labels are engaging in “limited edition” releases as a last-ditch effort to make dwindling audiences more greatly appreciate their recorded output.
When it comes to intent to rip off collectors, the biggest offender has to be Southern Lord Records. A quick glance at their website is all one needs to understand how guilty they are of shamelessly robbing customers. The first news item on their front page contains the headline, “Boris Smile CD+DVD (special 2 disc set LTD. edition mailorder version)”. The release is “limited” to 3,000 copies. If you click through to the label’s web store, you are bombarded with different options and configurations of this package that range from $13 – $45. Then there is the “Boris w/ Merzbow – Rock Dream 3xLP”, which is “ultra-deluxe,” limited to “a little over 3,800″ copies, plus, the vinyl version contains a bonus track and costs $32. A few years ago, when fans were paying ridiculous amounts of money for the imported Japanese version of the Boris album Pink, Southern Lord decided to do a limited edition pink-splatter vinyl version of the record. Those quickly sold out, and several months later they decided to re-issue the colored vinyl version (on different colored vinyl), quickly cashing in on the demand for those two versions of the album. I’m all for re-issuing OOP records, but wouldn’t a 180g black vinyl reissue be less costly for both label and consumer while still meeting the marketplace demand with more supply? One must look no further than the pressing info for the much ballyhooed (and much boring, at least to these ears!) Boris/Sunn O))) collaboration Altar to understand how disgustingly greedy the label is when it comes to suckering folks into buying overpriced “limited” (but not really) releases. There are exactly ELEVEN “limited” versions of Altar, sets of which were printed in runs of anywhere from 500 to 2,000, on various colored vinyl combos, plus a picture disc LP. Is a pressing of 10,000 total records really “limited” at all?
The Boris-owned Inoxia label is equally guilty. If you want their deluxe “limited” version of the Rainbow album (the US version of which is already overpriced at $35), you can expect to pay about $265 for it. What do you get for your money? Two extra tracks, a video clip (not even a full-length concert DVD?), and a box that won’t fit on your record shelf.
Hydra Head Records has slightly better prices (they range from $10-$22) for a standard release — although $18 for an unlistenable Jesu EP is excessive — but they too are guilty of terrible business policies, especially when it comes to releases from Pelican, Jesu and Isis. All are available in “limited” colored-vinyl configurations. None sell. It’s fucking retarded. You could walk into a certain large Hollywood record store today and find twenty copies of the new Pelican album proudly stating how “limited” it is. The colored Jesu releases were still sitting on shelves nearly half a year after the original release. Pelican is by far the worst Hydra Head offender, because they don’t even have an audience to cash-in on, yet they continue to try and exploit their non-existent collector fanbase with these “limited” releases. There are at least four different versions of Australasia, all of which are easily located in used bins across the country. Hydra Head even went so far as to re-issue what was originally a tour-only vinyl version of March Into The Sea in an attempt to squeeze more money out of fans. Priced at $11, you can tell no one is chomping at the bit to obtain a copy.
It started with these labels, and now it’s spread to countless others. As of maybe two years ago, Temporary Residence began offering limited color vinyl pressings of every single release. To their benefit, they don’t overcharge for those limited runs, they are simply first-come-first-serve. In fact, they probably have the best mail-order service of any label I’ve ever dealt with. Sure, everything used to cost $10-12, and now they range from $12-18, but that’s very fair when compared to most labels. Matador Records (ugh, fucking Matador!) has absolutely no idea how insane their prices are. The new Stephen Malkmus album? $18. The new Cat Power album? $24. Their standard mail-order prices make Southern Lord’s look cheap. The new Dead Meadow album was, naturally, offered in a limited run of 500 copies on colored vinyl. Those “expanded” Mission Of Burma reissues (the originals of which can be found at most used record stores) each cost $24.
Even Elliott Smith, whose albums XO and Figure 8 were originally pressed by micro-indie Bong Load, have been revamped and reissued in “limited” quantities, all of which are 180 gram vinyl, and some of which are numbered, color-vinyl editions. At most they retail for less than $20.
All of these infractions serve only to hurt consumers and devalue the music inscribed in those grooves (or polycarbinate plastic, in the case of CDs), which is, after all, the most important aspect of purchasing an album. Granted, I don’t own a record label during this tumultuous economic era, so I don’t know exactly which labels are struggling the hardest to stay in business. All of my evidence comes from my own job, and conversations with friends and associates who are more entrenched in the business than I am. I just think that hard economic times for everybody call for business models that allow music fans to buy the records they want without having to succumb to the will of increasingly-less “indie” labels. A record label consciously trying to manufacture a market for its releases by raising prices and limiting the number of available copies is to the detriment of people who want to support bands. It used to be that labels pressed a certain number of records based on expected sales, and if those sold out the market for second-hand copies created itself. This era of cutting back spending in order to charge more and create higher demand for a product is sickening to witness.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:27 am
Oh, please. We barely make any profit on vinyl. We press out RTI on HQ180 vinyl, and manufacture gatefold sleeves at Stoughton – the costs are huge. Those Burma records – the originals of which are extremely hard to find btw! – were remastered all-analog, live from the original master tapes, without a computer or any digital processing, at Sterling. Do you have any idea how time-consuming and expensive that is? In addition, there are extra tracks not on the original vinyl. We are actually LOSING money on the Burma reissues – they’re a total labor of love. Sorry, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:01 am
I have to agree with Patrick here. If you are the fan, you’re always going to obsess over the records. I’m a record collector, I should know. But when it comes to pressing up records as a label head or as an artist, it involves much more than just playing the music, mixing, and mastering it. While I have not been involved in any heavy reissue programs like Matador (but would love the opportunity), it’s a way of getting that old music out there to old and new fans, and it costs money. I released a series of four 12″ singles a few years ago, at a low pressing of 100 copies each. I wanted it to be limited not to sell and meet the demand, but to have my music out there on a format I always enjoyed listening to. It was roughly $750 each for a pressing of 100 records, including the UPS shipment of four boxes with 25 records in each one. It’s not cheap, but when you are in the business of “selling” records, you want to make it appealing so fans can come back to it. The great thing about downloading music is that it’s free. The bad thing about it is that for a lot of people, it eliminates the need to see and know the effort that was put into making that music available in the first place.
Otherwise, any of us who make music would be playing congas at local parks with a donation hat in front, hoping for the best.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:28 am
HA, just because people like to buy or collect things doesn’t mean they have holes to fill. I am a huge music fan, I love buying vinyl and I have been for about 12 years. Yeah limited vinyl is big these days, maybe its part marketing, but your clueless.
Oh, I also run a site, limitededitionvinyl.com, how about that, I must have a lot of holes to fill.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Joel,
With all due respect, you’re clueless. I work in a fucking record store. I’ve been buying vinyl for a long time, too. When I talk about “holes”, I’m talking about the people in the documentary that I referenced in the post. Watch that movie and tell me those people aren’t trying to substitute a lack of personal relationships with large record collections. And don’t make a dumb fucking assumption about me after reading one post on a blog with almost 1,500 posts. You don’t know me.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I agree totally with Evan, as an owner of several record labels over the past 15+ years and now manager of several indie bands, this limited edition business will consume the market and soon there will be no demand for this format of ripping people off. The other interesting point is that labels are trying very hard and succeeding to sell every release directly from their online store, we did that but we could not expose the bands as well as certain distributors could, and technically if they(the label) have proper contract with the artist, royalty percentage are paid on dealer price and the label is making twice more money that it should because they can not be the label and the dealer(the record store) at the same time. The money that the distributor and store would make, the labeling is taking all those profits and basically with no overhead of distributors and record stores. Some labels have silenced artist by giving them records to sell at their shows, limtited tour only edition, this is insane, the label is suppose to prepare the band nurture it and take it to the next level, they are not a merchandising store. Indie labels use to bitch at the majors but it seems like they have taken page right out of theirs. keep vinyl alive buy second hand and always wait, you wil find what you are looking for.
September 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
1. Supply and demand.
2. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
September 14th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“I just think that hard times call for a plan that allows music fans to more easily procure albums.”
exactly, genius. thats why you find multiple releases from the “offending labels” mentioned above. do you honestly think your average indie label has the working capital to “manufacture” a market for limited vinyl? records are limited because money is limited. recording, mastering and pressing a release requires a substantial amount of money upfront, which your average band or label MUST see a return on. from a business standpoint it makes much more sense to release an initial run, sell though the copies, and then release a second pressing. any music fan should embrace this. it keeps the labels in business, bands on the road, and DOES make the vinyl format easier to enjoy by not forcing fans into the secondary market where their favorite record may be going for 4 and 5 times the original price.
as for prices going up – between lopsided exchange rates, hikes in raw material cost, and smaller production volumes, not to mention the huge leaps in presentation and packaging, its pretty amazing you can still purchase a record for 15 bucks.
anyway, great job on knowing nothing about how independent music works.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:55 am
While I do find it irritating when a new release comes out on multiple colors simultaneously, I don’t agree with a lot of what you wrote here.
EVERYTHING costs more these days, a lot of it related to the fact that the price of oil and gas has tripled in the past few years. This has caused everything to go up. The price of manufacturing and printing and shipping, etc has all been driven up in the past couple years. Labels cant’ afford to press up small or large amounts of vinyl and sell a LP for 8 bucks anymore in most cases.
If an LP comes out and it costs me $15 bucks but comes with a code to also download the MP3s for my iPod, I think that is a good deal because I get the best of both worlds – vinyl and music to listen to outside the home on a portable device and I don’t have to buy the thing twice.
I have a label myself and do work for a couple of other labels and I can tell you between what they pay me for doing the layouts, then printing, mastering, pressing, shipping, etc, their markup to distributors isn’t making them buckets of cash. They make a little bit, which usually goes back into the label.
Vinyl is on the upswing but still most of these labels are only selling somewhere between 500 – a few thousand copies of any given release and since CD sales are WAY down, it’s not like the profits from that are supporting taking a loss on vinyl anymore like it did 10 years ago. As much as it pains me to dig deeper in the wallet, the prices had to go up.
I do wish labels like Hydrahead would stick to 1 color of vinyl at a time when they put out something new though. Then if it sells through press it again on another color instead of making 4+ at once.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Seriously? The run-up in oil alone has resulted in significant price increases. Anybody who makes a point of buying up every pressing of every Southern Lord album either has enough disposable income to do that or will soon die penniless in a gutter. I don’t get the mentality of people sometimes; in a day and age where physical music products are disappearing altogether, it’s not a matter of gouging. Nobody’s got a gun to your head. Consumers can decided for themselves if they want one copy of a record or eight. I only own multiple copies of one album, but it’s one of my all-time favourites and has a lot of sentimental value for me.
People aren’t as dumb, shallow, or vacuous as you seem to think.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
A lot of you seem to be missing the point.
Temporary Residence has pressed to high quality vinyl for YEARS, and they're still only charging $12 for a single LP and $15 for a 2xLP. They've just very recently gotten into the whole 2×180 gram LP + CD "set" mentality, and some of their prices are a bit absurd (30-40), but their prices for straight HQ LP+CD combos are still more fairly priced than Southern Lord and Hydra Heads.
Matador, on the other hand, completely bungles their vinyl pressings, and always has (I just yesterday had a conversation with someone who worked for Matador for almost 8 years). Their prices are exorbitantly high, even as oil prices rise and costs rise for production and artwork and packaging. Just look at what you get for your money with a Matador record vs. a Temporary Residence or Touch & Go record. T&G provides customers with download codes (or CDs, if you buy a Shellac record) for $12-15, and with TRL you get a CD and LP for $12-18. Matador gives nothing. I think that say something about how they value their customers less than they value the almighty dollar.
September 17th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
You seem to be missing the point yourself.
“Consumers can decide for themselves if they want one copy of a record or eight.”
Again, no one is forcing you. Of course a label will press eight different colours if they can sell them. A record label sells records.
I can’t believe you went after the Mission of Burma reissues. Have you held those in your hands? It feels like a baby. Remastered. Extra tracks. Huge inserts. DVD. Download code.
September 17th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
It costs roughly $2.20 to press one record (180G HQ) at RTI. If Matador is charging $25 for a Cat Power record, I’d like to know the breakdown of incurred fees to see how much they’re actually profiting on each unit sold. That’s all.
September 27th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Yea, $2.20(180G HQ) at RTI to press a record. Then you have to have jackets printed, artwork done, lacquers created for the records to even be pressed and shipping for all of this. Depending on the band-label contract, the label may even pay for recording and mastering. Yes it seems that $25 for a single record is a bit expensive. “Consumers can decide for themselves if they want one copy of a record or eight.” A record labels job is to sell record, if they don’t sell records they can’t put more out simple as that. Don’t like it don’t buy it.