The best feeling you can experience is going to your local video store or record shop and spending that extra cash you saved up from working that full-time job. The feeling knowing that you are about to embark in a journey where your curiosity guides you into the finest piece of art without even knowing what it looks or sounds like. The act of collecting something you are truly passionate about is a feeling no one can take away from you... besides your bank if you don't have the money. There is a problem that has been plaguing this experience and is a necessary dialogue everyone must have before indulging into a potentially new past time.
The culture of record collecting has seen its trials and tribulations throughout the history of music. First, records were the best way to listen to your favorite artists back in the 60s and 70s with high quality sounds. Then the market declined heavily due to technological advancements and industry standards making records the obsolete way to listen to music. Record Shops over the years have closed due to the markets decline for 3 decades in favor of streaming. However, there has been a resurgence for vinyl records for the past 8 years despite streaming being such a big part of consuming content. Vinyl records have not only resurged their resurgence with popularity but have made a comeback in unique ways with special record stores and limited addition records that incorporate experimental ideas. Like many media of art there will always be room for experimentation for the common person to be more intrigued by something they otherwise didn't think of at any given point.
Record shops are in every crevice of the world and is a bit hard to venture out to find your local stores, especially if you live in an area where the priority is restaurants and gaining a high volume of tourists. However, record stores are just one click away on your phone or computer because of the rapid rise of social media and the internet. It’s become beyond accessible to find your favorite album on vinyl by just looking it up on google in hopes it’s not a rare record that will cost you an arm and a leg. Either way you are still a part of a community that is still niche, but a lot of people still know about it. Record collecting has become so popular that now major record labels are now releasing or rereleasing albums on vinyl by either doing limited runs on the records or general releases. This is a way of supporting the artists directly as opposed to just simply listening to their music on streaming. According to OneSubmit, Spotify pays there artists $0.003 and $0.004 for every stream they earn and if we do basic math then we can conclude that if an artist gets 1 million streams on Spotify alone they will only get a pay out of around $4,000 but of course we need to factor in how long it would even take to reach 1 million streams. In a business so saturated in up-and-coming musical artists you would be insanely lucky to even get 1 million streams let alone getting that many in a quick manner to notice it hit your bank account. We also have not factored in royalties and ownership of your music, which is a completely different headache a lot of independent artists must face.
Records has been through a lot with the constant change of consumer needs and industry standards which has made it an unpredictable market. However, the comeback for vinyl records for the past couple of years has been nothing but incredible. How did it happen? It’s simple really. The act of collecting within itself is therapeutic albeit expensive. Collecting certain things like DVDs, CDs, Records are all ways to be part of something that you really enjoy and keeping close to like-minded people within that community. Going to the record store is the same feeling as going to a blockbuster or video store and browsing through the catalogue of movies you want to watch with the family. It gives that sense of nostalgia that has been very prevalent in today’s media climate.
apps like Discogs are very harmful for the ecosystem of record shops but you don't have to take my word for it. I sat down and talked with Jonathan Santino who is the owner of a record shop in downtown Orlando named "Uncle Tonys Donut Shoppe". The internet has been a driving force for record shops to market their business to direct more traffic and bring in more customers. I went ahead and asked Jonathan how has the internet affected local record shops as time has gone by for more accessibility.
Jonathan Santino: “What I am hearing from my peers who have been owning shops for a long time… everything is super accessible… This is the age of information… That rare crazy grail that no one knew about, that’s on Spotify now. It helped quite a bit in terms of reaching different audiences around the world.” “What I see a lot happen is that we will have a record for sale in our store and people would go on Discogs and can get the record for $5 cheaper online and will buy it instead of supporting that local business… It’s that amazon attitude.”
https://www.eldonutshoppe.com/
Discogs, while a great app to keep track of your own record collection, is a direct offender to an ongoing problem of collecting records. It is beyond easy to just open Discogs on your phone and look for a cheaper option of the record you’re looking for instead of going to local shops and supporting those businesses. Discogs and other online selling applications take away from the experience of collecting records at your favorite store and connecting with other people.
Jonathan did say that the internet has helped his business saying "There will be times when there will be no one in our shop but people can be digging digitally through our marketplace... I think it’s advantageous in some ways."
Just like many dilemmas that are introduced there are always caveats to these dilemmas. The power of the internet provides marketplaces for these independent businesses but can hinder the personal interaction that you would normally get if you were to go to these shops in person. However, it is more beneficial to buy records from their own marketplaces because you are still supporting the businesses directly. Jonathan also gave some advice on up-and-coming businesses and the process of building his own business venture with the donut shoppe "We opened ten years ago... we got laughed at... but three years later, five other shops opened in Orlando. It’s not a highly paid business, it’s not the most lucrative thing so you really got to have the heart to do this."
Scalpers and resellers have been a part of the collecting ecosphere since the idea of collecting memorabilia. Scalpers or resellers refer to collectors that only look for monetary gain then actually collecting a certain piece of media. The green pressing of Mixtape Pluto for example is sold out on the official website making it impossible to buy now, unless you want to pay double the price for the pressing on eBay or any seller apps. This is a problem because these methods pray on the honest collectors to money gauge their wallets as much as possible. This also happens when these resellers attend certain artists concerts and ask for autographs for the record of the respective artist just for the reseller to immediately sell it on eBay and inflate the price to a ridiculous degree. Artists do combat this by being a bit snarky by asking the person what their favorite song is to fish out the fake fans which are incredibly smart. These resellers and scalpers are still at large and there are no signs of them slowing down because it’s difficult to point them out and it’s not necessarily illegal.
The Weeknd has started his merch rollout for his upcoming album "Hurry Up Tomorrow" which is the most anticipated album of this year. The Weeknd went on to collaborate with Filmmaker Harmony Korine and an experimental fashion brand named EDGLRD to make a limited addition vinyl pressing of Hurry Up Tomorrow with an alternate cover and was only available for 72 hours. Safe to say this had FOMO disease riddled everywhere, and I caught a case of it. I mention this right now if you were to go on eBay and look up this record that hasn't even been shipped to anyone, yet you can see people selling this pressing almost tripled the original price of this record which was only $38.00 not including taxes and shipping. This is especially dangerous because these people are making profit from something that hasn't even be shipped to the public
Just recently a beloved rapper named Kaseem Ryan AKA Ka tragically and unexpectedly passed away and the reason for his passing is still unknown. This news shocked the Hip Hop world including me because of how sudden it was considering he hosted a pop up for his new album "The Thief Next to Jesus" where he was selling merchandise for the album including a limited pressing of the album on vinyl. Of course, vultures would come to the pop up to buy the record just to sell it immediately on eBay to inflate the price. When his death was announced these resellers inflated not only the vinyl of the new album but also previous albums, he has released on vinyl up to nearly $1,000.
This is not only abhorrent behavior but is entirely disrespectful to Ka and the art that he has gifted us throughout his career. This is not the first time this has happened, but it will certainly not be the last time we will see something like this. Resellers being involved with activities like this also expands beyond music and plague markets like tech and other popular markets. Selling art is not a bad deed but when executed in a predatory way then no wonder collectors don't go on eBay often and would just rather wait for the official release of something to come out.
It can be difficult to pick up a hobby like record collecting knowing that you will probably fall into this severe FOMO mindset where every album that gets a major vinyl release you don't want to miss out because it might sell out and you can make a decent profit off the record. That shouldn't be what attracts people into collecting records and should only be a passion of really wanting your favorite albums physically knowing that you own this body of work. Owning a record, you love is like owning your own stock in a company and it’s a great feeling. However, it is getting increasingly hard to cherish records and which records to properly buy now with auction and marketplace websites evolving their machine learning in a way where it is not only extremely competitive but also very daunting to the untrained or inexperienced eye.
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