My suspicion is that everybody (apart from the artist) has their snouts in the feeder trough on this plus there’s a shortage of vinyl pressing capacity which means according to economic theory that prices will rise when demand exceeds supply.
My suspicion is that the industry are testing the waters with a new pricing model and £35 not £25 will become the norm, at least until either demand falls or pressing plant capacity catches up.
My fear is that the industry will kill the golden goose here and they will be left with collapsing sales of all physical formats. CD is already in terminal decline and only vinyl is still holding up. There can’t be that many of us even in the abnormally affluent confines of the Naim forum who would willingly pay £35+ for a new release chart album just now, I know I won’t. I’ve been combing the secondhand rails of my local vinyl emporium this week and picking up some nice condition 70’s and 80’s pressings of Bob Seger for between £8-£10 which is fair value. I too like Ian occasionally buy from Discogs if there’s something I simply must track down but in truth I quite enjoy a couple of hours combing the racks of vinyl in local shops, that’s part of the fun!
So at these prices secondhand is where it’s at for me right now. Even as a vinyl fan with a serious turntable I can see the bottom dropping out of the market for vinyl when the young get priced out and move on to another fashionable pursuit. That will just leave the middle aged buffs again and they aren’t enough to sustain demand or prices at this level.
Totally agree streaming is exceptional value. For £10 a month we get basically get almost all the world’s music but sadly streaming doesn’t pay the artist much at all compared to physical media sales so artists will suffer.
The price of vinyl today in general really is too damn high. But it isn’t a surprise considering the way streaming revenues have changed the industry - the demand just isn’t there (as it was back in the day) to justify the production volumes required to keep prices low. I wince at paying £20 for a record, but at least when I do its something I know I really want.
Also, check out some of the 7" reggae singles being repressed these days - the “high quality” label names are selling for £15-£20. I even saw some on Honest Jons for £45 (they may well have been originals, but there was no mention of that).
What is silly though (in my opinion) is things like this…
If memory serves there was a recent thread on here about or which veered in to the financial & operational tensions within the Spotify business model which, in financial words, still hasn’t achieved adequate critical mass to generate profitability…and an activity which isn’t profitable will, eventually, succumb to the capitalist laws of gravity.
Compare with the new LDR lp out next week: £36.99
Then again, Gorillaz on red vinyl: £24.99
Same for Pink’s new lp - and iirc she’s the biggest selling female artist right now.
So huge variations!
We all know the money for the artist is in ticket sales; Taylor Swift 2.4 million tickets sold in 24 hours.
I remember when LPs hit £3.99 in 1976. Indexed for inflation, that’s about £25 today. Buying an LP as a schoolboy in 1976 was a big decision. The challenge today is that so many people expect things to be dirt cheap or free - how often to we hear ‘I can access a gazillion albums for £10 a month. That’s fine for the consumer but less fine for the artists who are doing teaching or decorating to make ends meet.
I, like @JonathanG have been really enjoying Daisy Jones, but the only really good song is Patti Smith’s wonderful Dancing Barefoot. Maybe everyone should buy a copy of Wave and support a real artist, rather than a generic fabricated band.
Back around 1970-ish, when a standard price for LPs in my local record store was 37/5 (37s5d), equivalent to £1.87, i was led to believe that in the USA records were a lot cheaper, more like £1. (Pre-internet of course, so not the sort of detail readily checked). The reason for the difference was said to be different duty/tax. The difference between the USA and UK price today seems better than it had been 50 years ago.
As for absolute price, based on consumer price index inflation that 37/5 in about 1970 is equivalent to maybe around £32 or so today. The then mail order only Virgin Records was cheaper. So prices today do seem rather more expensive - but then I guess sales were a lot greater in 1970, so it is unsurprising that cost per unit is more today. It is CDs that are cheap today - they started at about £10 when they came out, abpnd haven’t gone up anywhere near to inflation.
How can vinyl or cd’s compete with streaming?
Especially now streaming sounds so good.
That said my daughter who is 16 asked for a record player for Xmas and buys records when she can afford them - she says the attraction is they are more ‘special’ and well worth the money!!!
I presume you mean online streaming?
For someone starting now with zero or only a small music collection it makes every sense (assuming they have a decent internet connection). It does not make so much sense for people with a decent music collection and who only infrequently finds new music to their taste. And one thing to be aware of is that streaming services have been known to change their stock list, such that some things that may be available today might not necessarily be available tomorrow, next month, next year, or in 10 years time (let alone 50!), so for any music that you want always to be available, in perpetuity, it makes every sense to buy it and not rely solely on streaming online.
My Dad was at medical school in the early 70s and said that the purchase of a DG vinyl represented a whole month’s-worth of disposable income for him. I therefore treat the two I’ve inherited from him with particular care:
Some of the shops I worked in had a cassette player for the store which you could load up. The mechanism would install/eject the cassette and push it around a plastic housing, turning it over in the process. C90s preferred – the 120s often jammed
Ah yes - I stream from a NAS but generally speaking to me streaming is using something like Spotify or Tidal. Personally I use Tidal via Roon and it sounds marvellous. If I didn’t have so many records and cd’s collected over several decades I would be happy streaming.
I only stream online to sample music new to me, using free services - I have a rooted dislike of subscription services, not wishing to be only able to play music if I keep paying (and if the supplier keeps my favourite music available). But then I have a decent collection and don’t have a strong desire for new, and don’t frequently find new music to my taste.
I think new album prices are over inflated but presumably they are selling?
HMV can be ridiculous in their pricing. Rough Trade also.
My local shop who is predominantly a second hand shop has a small range of new vinyl at excellent prices.
A couple of examples Neil Young - Barn £15. Pink Floyd - Animals remix £20.
He is still making money at those prices but it’s not his main income stream.
