I hardly buy CDs these days because for one, you can take
MP3s and make the CD yourself, and two, it rarely comes with anything that
makes the physical media worth purchasing. I’m a fan of them not using the
plastic cases as much, but the cardboard ones don’t protect the CD worth a
damn, so what can you do. If you’re not going to include a booklet, you can at
least make your packaging something to look at. And why the hell do people
include a booklet with no damn lyrics? Who does that? Instrumental bands and
that’s about the only ones with an excuse. It’s pure laziness, like me not
writing blog entries every day, cramming on a work day when I’m bored and have
nothing to do, only to then backdate them like you are the one not paying
attention (or Blogger has some weird server issue and isn’t releasing my
entries.)
But the inflated price of vinyl is pissing me off even more.
I get that they cost more to make. I also get that they cost more to package
and ship. Also, with so many small shops trying to compete with the larger ones
(and failing, because they don’t pick up a niche,) it makes it rather difficult
to get what you want, especially at a decent price. The internet helps with
that, to a degree, but I’ve noticed certain bands from the United States, small
ones that no one has ever heard of (the bands, not the states), releasing vinyl
albums in other countries and that’s that. You heard me right. A lot of bands
will release their album on vinyl in a country like… we’ll say Turkmenistan. We’ll
pretend that they’re more into vinyl, have a factory there that can produce
them cheaper, and they sell better there. I’m find with that.
What I’m not fine with is these bands not putting forth any
effort to get these records here in my own country. I don’t live on a remote
fucking island; I live in the country that more or less invented pointless
consumerism, and I’d like to buy your vinyl record for a reasonable price. Instead,
these bands put links to the label that produced the record for them. In this
example, the band, who I will not name, but am certainly tempted to, wants me
to purchase their album for 20 euros. Sounds like a decent price. Okay, no, it
doesn’t, since this is their debut album and comes with nothing special (not
even a gatefold, and it has one, two-sided insert). 20 Euros is damn near 30 dollars, and it’s
going to cost me almost 17 to ship the damn thing here, and a lot of countries
love FedEx, which doesn’t ship to PO Boxes, or my door, half the time, so I’m
not paying 50 bucks for a crap shoot on getting a record from some nobody band
that doesn’t have the decency to hook up with a domestic distributor. Take your
CDs and shove them up your ass.
Of note, however, is the fact that I can get the album I
want for about half the above mentioned price from a few markets. I’ll take
this time to single out a few of them. Rarewaves-Imports can be found on Amazon
and eBay. And Marvelio can be found on their own site and Amazon. These guys
had the album I mentioned above for a reasonable price, and usually do. You’ll
get no hipster inflation here.