| If you look at it as the more people that know about vinyl, the more regular vinyl becomes, and the more vinyl will stick around, then I guess it’s a good thing that you can buy vinyl at Cracker Barrel. |
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Vinyl circa 1930.
(Bettmann/Getty Images)
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“If you look at it as the more people that know about vinyl, the more regular vinyl becomes, and the more vinyl will stick around, then I guess it’s a good thing that you can buy vinyl at Cracker Barrel.”
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Gold (and Silver and Brown and Orange) Records
ABBA crowded out ADELE who's crowding out ED SHEERAN and woe be you if you're a small dance label trying to get a few hundred copies of your new 12-inch single pressed by next summer. That's the underserved and overloaded state of the vinyl production business, which was already having a hard time keeping up with the growing demand for records—actual, tangible, 12-inch records—before the global supply chain crisis happened. And before SONY MUSIC decided it would need half a million vinyl copies of Adele's "25" pressed up and in stores by Nov. 19.
In a reported piece for Variety, CHRIS WILLMAN lays out how the need to have all that Adele vinyl in TARGET, WALMART and other stores on release day has exacerbated the problem of getting vinyl made for everyone else, including other acts on Sony. This comes in the wake of story after story after story of how vinyl's supply chain crisis, which predates everyone else's supply chain crisis, but which has been affected by that too, has caused delays, frustration and lost opportunities and revenues across the industry, from major label acts to DIY indies. The New York Times' BEN SISARIO recently reported on how the turnaround time for a vinyl record has increased from a few months to as much as a year, "wreaking havoc on artists' release plans." And touring plans, too, for bands relying on those boxes of records to support them on the road. Some of those delays are to make room for pop acts whose vinyl is largely being collected as souvenirs but not necessarily listened to. In DJ MAG, WILL PRITCHARD notes that dance labels trying to capitalize on a hot sound, like amapiano in summer 2021, can't get their records made until summer 2022. And now here comes Sony, telling Adele she has to turn in her album a currently-unheard-of six months in advance of release date, and then booking every vinyl production plant it can find.
Even while they're pointing out Adele's records and new pressings of 45-year-old FLEETWOOD MAC albums are keeping them from getting their own new records manufactured, the indie bizzers who talk to Variety's Willman make a point of neither blaming nor complaining. If they were Target, they'd go for the surefire seller, too. "The reality," says SEAN RUTKOWSKI of INDEPENDENT RECORD PRESSING in New Jersey, who's been running around trying to source hard-to-find gold, silver, brown and orange vinyl pellets for special orders, "is that these frustrations are frustrations because people are embracing the format." RECORD STORE DAY co-founder CARRIE COLLITON notes that "what big boxes do is see what’s cool and sell it to people,” and "it really sucks that what’s cool is what we specialize in at record stores," before noting that if might not be such a terrible problem to have. It means more and more people are getting into vinyl, which is, presumably, exactly what Record Store Day was designed to do.
And still one wonders what everyone's thinking underneath their breath. Will Ed Sheeran's fans actually play the vinyl of his that's taking precious capacity away from indie labels? Will they still be interested in vinyl two or three years from now, or is it just this year's shiny object? ("With the amount of exclusive [color] variants we press on one record," Rutkowski tells Willman, "I wonder if I’m making Beanie Babies sometimes.") How much production and sales will indie artists have lost by the time the fad for all those colors fades away, and will they survive those losses? Will the newer pressing plants who cater to pop and catalog blockbusters be able to survive when the blockbusters go away? Can vinyl itself survive a vinyl bubble? Is it possible it isn't in fact a bubble?
Bonus Track
Oh, and speaking of the wider supply chain crisis, did you know rising lumber prices affect the vinyl record industry? It turns out, as Willman reports, that they're causing builders to install vinyl flooring instead of wood flooring in new homes. "And it’s a hell of a lot easier to sell vinyl pellets to the flooring companies" than to record pressing plants, Record Store Day's Colliton says.
Rest in Peace
Jazz guitar innovator EMMETT CHAPMAN, who popularized two-handed tapping and invented the Chapman Stick... Columbia, Capitol and Hollywood Records promo exec JOHN FAGOT... Session guitarist SHAUN CARRINGTON... Brazilian classical pianist NELSON FREIRE.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Variety |
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| Adele’s ’30’ Sends Vinyl Pressing Plants Into Overdrive, While LP Shortages Leave Many Artists Chasing Pavements |
| by Chris Willman |
| Adele may be immune to many of the mortal concerns that trouble musical non-deities, but there's one thing she has in common with the most modest indie rocker: She had to finish her forthcoming album, "30," early if she wanted vinyl available on the same day the release hit streaming services. |
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Water & Music |
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| The creator economy is growing much faster than music streaming |
| by Cherie Hu |
| Looking back at industry discussions in the last year, it’s been practically impossible to avoid the term “creator” — which could be loosely defined as anyone who creates something online that someone, somewhere, finds valuable and wants to pay for — as the universal signifier of what’s to come, culturally, technologically and financially. |
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Penny Fractions |
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| There is No "Creator Economy" |
| by David Turner |
| For all the talk about the community that swarms amongst many of these spaces of DAOs, Web3, and NFTs there’s very little context given for what exactly is the community that is so eagerly pumping money into these ventures. |
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Billboard |
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| Cameo for Songs? This ‘Shark Tank’ Startup Wants to Dominate the Personalized-Music Market |
| by Chris Eggertsen |
| Songlorious, a startup selling personalized songs, is looking to use its big "Shark Tank" win as a springboard to greater success. |
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Vulture |
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| Wale on the Lost Art of Playing the Long Game |
| by Craig Jenkins |
| “What is the upward trajectory in this space right now? I don’t feel like we really know for real.” |
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The New York Times |
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| Shadows of the Klan, the Ghost of Hendrix, and Fans Who Think I’m White |
| by Tom Morello |
| Since I integrated my hometown as a baby, I’ve been wrestling with issues of race. |
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Haute Macabre |
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| Goth is Dead. Long Live Goth |
| by Clint Catalyst |
| Remembrances of a New Grave Past in San Francisco. |
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Stereogum |
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| Stereogum's 40 Best New Bands Of 2021 |
| by James Rettig, Chris DeVille, Tom Breihan... |
| “New” is a subjective term. Some of these artists have been around for a while, and are only now capitalizing on the release of a few promising EPs or some under-the-radar albums. Others only have a handful of songs to their name. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Injury Reserve Get Back Up |
| by Dylan Green |
| In the face of incalculable loss, the remaining members of the Arizona hip-hop group dug in their heels and forged a new community. |
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The Bitter Southerner |
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| On the March: The Soul of the HBCU Marching Band |
| by Karen Good Marable |
| Some folks come to the game just to see the band. In this tribute to the sights and sounds of her childhood, Karen Good Marable (who grew up in Prairie View, Texas) explains why. |
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Forbes |
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| Wall Street Is Buying Up Music Rights: Cities Should Too |
| by Shain Shapiro |
| What if local pension funds, or other local community investment frameworks, established pots of money to invest in local writers and their works, by which a circular economy approach was implemented so if a song was successful, a portion of the rights would be returned back to the community. This is standard practice in other sectors. |
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The Limnal Space |
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| The Changing Landscape of Music Publishing |
| by Dan Fowler |
| Can new money coming into the industry via Private Equity Funds genuinely impact the Major Publishers? |
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DJ Mag |
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| DJ Mag's 100 most important dancehall tracks of all time |
| by Seani B. |
| Initially an offshoot of reggae, in the ‘80s, the use of electronic production tools spawned the digital dancehall age, helping define the sound and putting it on the path to world domination. Dancehall DJ, Grammy-winning producer, label boss and BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter, Seani B, counts down 100 tracks that have had the biggest impact on the progression of the genre. |
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The New Yorker |
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| Thirty Films That Expand the Art of the Movie Musical |
| by Richard Brody |
| They’re not all musicals in the conventional sense, but all enrich the cinematic experience of song and dance. |
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The New York Times |
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| Should Classic Rock Songs Be Toppled Like Confederate Statues? |
| by Jennifer Finney Boylan |
| It’s time to reconsider our pop culture icons. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Remember selling out? A new book clocks the last generation of indie bands that went big |
| by Jim Ruland |
| Dan Ozzi's 'Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore' tracks the fortunes of Jawbreaker, Jimmy Eat World and others. |
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Marketplace |
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| How NFTs could change the music industry |
| by Matt Levin |
| The Grammys’ NFT announcement is the latest example of how the technology underlying the brave new world of crypto is influencing how musicians make their money … for better or worse. |
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No Bells |
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| Return of the Swag: Getting Silly with Soundcloud’s Up-and-Comers |
| by Jude Noel |
| Jude Noel explores the deep fried, Myspace-era stylings of new-gen SoundCloud rappers like Tisakorean, Bear1boss and Dani Kiyoko. |
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JAZZIZ Magazine |
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| Growing Up Ira: Ira Sullivan was a legend in the jazz world, but to Brev Sullivan, he was Dad |
| by Bob Weinberg |
| "I had been in a very lucrative rock career — still am — but I was getting to the point where I was starting to get interested in what my dad was doing. And I wanted to spend more time with him.” |
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JazzWax |
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| Tony Bennett: If I Ruled the World |
| by Marc Myers |
| Readers frequently ask what defines a great jazz vocal. I typically reply that it's a combination of the singer empathizing with the song's lyrics, vocalizing the song in such a way that the listener feels the delivery emotionally, and knowing where to improvise to give the song a personal, sophisticated touch. I now have a video that captures all three of these factors. |
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| Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech |
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“REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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| Jason Hirschhorn |
| CEO & Chief Curator |
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