Don´t kill record dealers
Many music blog tend to abuse on the volume of music they post.
Well let me tell you that many record dealers selling out-of-print music in vinyl suffer a lot from that, and many are closing down already
Is it what we want? No. Professional record dealers are the one who keep alive the flow of out-of-print music on the market.
For that reason I inform you that Sounds of the 70s will reduce its posts to once a month.
please read coments too
Posts
11 comments:
The reason may be quality related, or "save the record dealers" related. Not both. You contradict yourself, with all due respect to you, your blog and your music this is not a sound argument. I mean, let's put it this way, if all of that music was available as high quality mp3s it would benefit everybody, as the record companies AND the artists won't see any profits from those sales, which often takes lots of $$$ for some records, all goes to the record owner. The music remains rare and unheard, and this contradicts the entire point of the vinyl music blog sphere. I'm not trying to be blatant but it's good that not everybody thinks the same way as you. I also hope you will leave this comment online.
I have to agree somewhat with the above post. Look, most mp3s on blogs like yours are on out of print l.p.s &45's. Now, I am a huge vinyl collector, I also like to download tunes on blogs like yours to sample what else is out there, or to satisfy my curiosity. If its something good then it goes on my wants list and I actually search for it and buy it. I think that most collectors do the same, folks like me are a record dealers' bread & butter. I'm certainly not losing any sleep over a dealers lost revenue due to folks like me who want to buy and hear good music.
DOM7 :
I agree with the money factor. My blog is made of $$ lps or cds, hard to find and sometimes over-priced. It´s good to be a Robin Hood when it comes to sound too and replace music where it should be : in the air, not on shelves.
I agree with the fact that record companies should make EVEN NOT SO COMERCIAL music available, online or not.
Does it mean that will never happen? Not sure. If it happens, are you sure self-discipline will prevail?...One thing is sure : what record company would embark on such project when this music is immediately distributed for free by individuals...It´s the serpent that bites its tail.. Let´s take an example : the FANIA DJ SERIES. This is a re-issue of out-of-print sound at affordable price, nicely remastered. Would you buy it if it was online for free?..
ANONYMOUS :
I do the same as you do i.e discovering a lot on blogs and then digging in vinyl or cds even more underground stuff. At my scale though I cut by half my spending in records since music blogs are there ... And I´m not the only one...I know a few records dealers who went broke in the last 2/3 years, hence my post. Indeed at this pace it won´t be interesting enough to sell out-of-print records as a job, so how would you buy the records you mention??? Directly to individuals on ebay? To the condition that people are ready to spend the time it takes to sell on ebay and financially need to do it.. AND HERE WE ARE : MUSIC WILL STAY ON SHELVES AND WONT CHANGE HANDS SO RAPIDLY AS A WORKING OUT-OF-PRINT MARKET CAN ALLOW.
OR: Maybe inviduals will one day have posted ALL the music that exist so that no second hand market would be needed... but believe me not everybody is that generous and I doubt we will live old enough to see that!!
My friend Justin from JTHYME just closed his blog for the reason I invoked by the way..
Copyright issues are not simple, especially when it comes to material out-of-print. The only thing I can see is that the market will dry if nobody has enough motivation to be on the floor.
1 vinyl or cd in the hand is better than 10 from the blog. Physical possesion is the pride of the ownership.
Hence the 1 post per week mainly at Licorice Pizza. First I don't have the time to post every day. And then again I fear glutting the market which will dry up the aftermarket OOP sellers.
Although some of my best finds have been from antique or thrift stores to the casual acquaintence saying "Oh you like records I have a box of them I got from my gramma when she died. Do you want it?"
You bet I do.
Lp
ownership is for the few... culture is for the many
this is an interesting discussion you are spawning. especially so because we are talking about cultural commodities. and there’s the moral question. if it really is moral, can it be a matter of degree? like you say, basically, “let’s put out rips more slowly, so the used-records dealers don’t suffer too much.” from the kantian perspective of categoric imperative, this is certainly not valid. it is either moral or immoral to do what you (and many others, to a greater or lesser degree) do.
is the focus on the tradeoff “cultural dissemination/fun/showing off what fab music you got vs used-record dealers’ bread and butter” the right perspective to start with, then? is it even a question of morale? i doubt it.
to me, the work of the many music bloggers around is akin to the role of cultural preservation that museums have in the area of fine arts. they collect art and present it to the public, for a symbolic price or entirely free. they even get funded by the state, that is, by all of us, for this. do museums harm artists? do they drive art dealers out of business? if there had been no museums until recently, this might indeed be the case at first.
in fact, when museums were introduced during enlightenment, it was a revolutionary act. nevertheless, we need museums, just as we need enthusiastic music bloggers that make the interested public aware and knowledgeable of the great works of acoustical art that will otherwise fall into oblivion.
we also need record collectors that rip their treasures with the highest possible quality. and here, the situation has improved a lot. while four years ago, when it all started, most rips came in 128 kbit, quality has been improving steadily, along with connection bandwidth. i hope and expect that in another four years 320 kbits and lossless formats will be standard.
you ask: “let´s take an example: the fania dj series. this is a re-issue of out-of-print sound at affordable price, nicely remastered. would you buy it if it was online for free?”
the answer is: yes, i would. actually, i do buy music. the fetish character of commodities comes into play here. and also, thanks to all the fantastic bloggers out there, my knowledge of music has increased tremendously. meaning that i now see many more records i want to buy than before.
consequently, of course, i feel less inclined to pay top euros for any single one. this is probably what record dealers notice. the effect should be at least partially compensated for by my broadened interests.
additionally, the internet has opened up a new way for sellers to maximise their revenue: web auctions. by addressing a potentially world-wide audience, they now are able to achieve significantly higher prices than when selling a record locally. could this be another reason for the disappearance of shops? who, then, really suffers?
i presume that it is mainly self-appointed gatekeepers of cool and rare music, who see the value of their specialist knowledge diminish when every tom, dick and harry can collect it now. possibly, also the market price of their collections is affected (the troll problem of two years ago is largely history, but i would not be surprised if most of the deleters had been record collectors themselves). so what? is the world in its ideal state when i have to cough up 500 euros to listen to an exciting piece of music? does it help the flow of rare music onto the market? does it improve our culture? you know the answer.
that said, keep up the good work! do more where you can! i have snatched a number of excellent releases from your site over the past year or so, which i would have never known otherwise. thank you very much, indeed.
Dowloading files will never be as good as a solid vinyl, a least it's a draft that can make possible to know that these records exists so that we can by them...This is my point of view.
Times are changing and changes are often painful but I think they are very interesting and overall necessary...
Nice page by the way
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I am one of the administrators of the blog 4 Brothers Beats 2.0. All respect to you and your fine blog, but I could not disagree with you more.
How can record dealers suffer if what they carry is "out of print" and "rare"? That means that there are limited available copies in the first place. So if those few are bought by bloggers and/or vinyl hounds, the dealer has already made his profit. But then what happens to that music? Is it really supposed to sit on someone's shelf until they die and it gets sold at auction?
The function of the music blog is so that everyone can enjoy that music! I have been blogging for about a year now and I am amazed at the seemingly limitless wealth of incredible, unheard music. It would take YEARS to cover it all and by that time, you could start all over again from the beginning with a whole new generation. And who the heck knows if ANY of the fragile vinyl copies would survive that many years?
Plus your argument misses a few important facts:
1. Music links go dead everyday. Not all blogs keep their links active.
2. There is ALOT of repetition of certain artists and albums among blogs. You could see the same album posted on several different blogs over the course of a year.
3. Many blogs repost stuff they posted earlier. So though it may SEEM like alot, the amount of "new" posts could actually be HALF of what it appears to be.
Aside from those things, I think it comes down to ownership. Someone had to buy the music at SOME point. If I purchased it, am I not free to do with it what I want?
Record dealers have certainly exercised their freedom, as many of them have used it to charge astronomical prices for their wares, way before music blogs even existed. Yet no one has suggested that they lower their prices to accommodate their customers. So why the double standard? My suspicion is that many of these establishments are destroyed by their own greed.
There are many music lovers that cannot afford to pay $100 for an lp. Does that mean that they should not have the opportunity to discover as much music as they can? Life is too short to be stuck with the current crop of cookie-cutter crap!
On a final note, a short while ago, we received a letter from a VERY well-known and powerful producer. He has been in the business for 5+ DECADES and has worked with just about every major artist known to man!(it's not hard to figure out who I'm talking about.) Was it a letter of "cease and desist?" Nope. He praised us for what we were doing because he feels it is important that his music is introduced to new generations and that hopefully, they will be inspired. That was all I needed to hear. I'm not saying that all record dealers are shysters, but everyone holds their breath for "sticker shock" when they look at the price tag on vinyl.
Music needs to be HEARD, not traded for your first born. And the blogs help to make that happen. I believe that record dealers should be supported as they offer a valuable service. But they also bear the responsibility of being fair to their customers. And when it comes to selling used goods, any business man worth his salt will tell you that it is simply an issue of supply and demand. And that will always be in constant flux.
I don´t know that rare record dealers are affected by these blogs, most collectors don´t focus on these things, they want the og vinyl, end of. The market has become more serious over the years, with many heavy collectors coming on the scene. As someone has pointed out, the revenue from this market doesn't go to the artists anyway, not that I would want dealers to be put out of business, far from it, they do a lot of the essential legwork that goes into tracking down unknown tunes.
However, I would be more worried about the future of compilations, artits do get paid royalties when these are put out, even if it´s a small run they provide a form of legitimacy which the industry will pay attention to, this can often lead to new gigs etc
Music blogs might hurt this market, not sure, just a thought.
Music we -can- hear today,is a result of mostly cooperative,creative activity of both artists and the record companies..and the customer
Or;hearing contemporary music is made possible via the foresaid.
In essence Music is sharing..
Before there where media to capture and distribute media,people just played freely and/or artists were being paid for concerts(classical music,for instance)
Or Musicians,musical groups toured the country in exchange for food..
Music and sharing music is a natural thing,
The future existence of musicblogs in cooperation with artists and record companies is thus developing...
Copyright is in fact a debilitated afterthought..I mean think about it
Does the sun come up twice a day?
After the initial salesagreement I can do whatever I please with the product.
Is there a copyright on your Bicycle,Painting by Picasso,a bottle of Wine,A tune that I might hum...
Me speaking as a musician who has recorded on albums,who even had a national hit,
My 2 cents,
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