Discogs Community's decline of "sell and trade"
this was originally published in a facebook post as a follow-up to an earlier post on a specific label where I didn't want to go too much off-topic about prices and the decline of the vinyl collector community that runs discogs (entries, updates etc.) similar to Wikipedia authors but also sell and trade - the specific part I was growing concerned over.
This text has been manually converted to reStructuredText aka .rst to provide cohesive sections, text-style and footnotes to the document.
AUTHOR: azet@azet.org | https://www.discogs.com/user/azet
LICENSE: CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
First off: if you're - like most people - unfamiliar with vinyl disks or audio recording & mastering, or just interested in getting more in-depth knowledge on the subjects to follow, you might be interested how vinyl recordings are made and actually work in practice, why they're still around and being collected by so many, and stay relevant even though we've used digital technologies since the 1970ies. how analog sound is transferred & stored on vinyl disk, how you're able hear the sound of an analog record being picked up in stereo by the stylus moving in the grooves of the disk and played back to the speaker(s). This 'Real Engineering'-clip on vinyl vs. digital will give you most of the background needed as well as a recap of the history & details behind analog vinyl- versus modern digital audio recording. Why you can lose information with digital audio formats rather than analog and where analogs recording limitations lie - but of course there are advantages to digital recording formats; which you're most likely familiar with due to every-day use via streaming services like YouTube, Spotify. MP3- & car CD players or the multitude of dolby sourround sound options via (Blu-ray) DVD and in movie theaters.
For people not familiar with Discogs - it's like Wikipedia just for highly detailed information on any kind of music recording, containing different types of information from variations of records produced to etchings in vinyl made during the mastering process or at the pressing plant. It has a big community that keeps information current, adds new releases and updates them as deemed necessary by the contributors. The community are enthusiasts that collect records. Buy them, sell them, many trade them as well. Buyers and Sellers have ratings. Submissions for changes to entries get reviewed and users get ratings and stats based on submissions as well as selling and buying behavior. There are general guidelines on what constitutes good or bad shapes of records and everything in between. There is no limit to what a seller may have as an asking price or trade offer for any item.
And all that brings us finally up to my Facebook Post's prologue aimed at my friends and peers:
here goes my two cents on the discogs/used-records & vinyl community (or should I rather say business?) -- so as not to go too much off-topic in my earlier post -- I've written this as a follow-up on the now-defunct small record label havok out of manchester, it's unique sound and style -- consequently resulting in the very limited availability of their releases -- hence often astronomical prices like with similar labels or specific records:
unfortunately vinyl prices - especially with well sought after, rare or limited pressings - have skyrocketed since I stopped regularly buying records some ten years ago. --even back then some records were already incomprehensibly expensive with most used items for sale by collectors. nowadays we're talking multiple hundred euros/quid for a banging 12 inch that may even not be in the best shape, missing the original cover or sleeve and some sell them at 90% of that cost even though the record has scratches all over, custom markings or stickers but complain if labels or independent people repress their favorites. it's gotten to a point where the discogs community has banksyized their passion. rip out a piece of wall and sell it at sotheby's - sell a 12" you got for a few bucks from a friend 15 years ago and played it to death at parties as near mint on discogs for 150-200. Especially with certain electronic sub-genres this is extremely common practice. You might have heard of the White Album by the Beatles - but I promise you, some record you've never heard of- or seen will be sold for more on discogs and worth it for some person. It's usually people that hate represses too. If you're not into vinyl let me explain: doesn't matter if its Sony/EMI or a small indy label that only did 400 records in the first run; if there's enough demand and records get sold and traded more and more at higher prices over time as they get unavailable in stores (now via the internet usually), the record company/label or the musician might decide to do a re-run (called re-press due to hot vinyl lacquer being pressed into shape by two master plates - one for each side per disk. If you're interested in how this process is done specifically watch this amazing in-depth look into a vinyl production plant). Represses are great for people that want a record and could never afford it. They suck for someone that just paid 500 bucks for the original. On the other hand many people prefer only to own the original pressings, this can get very OCD with some collectors. It's a sub-culture market that exists outside of shops: music forums, local vinyl meetups/fleamarkets et cetera. but at the same time record stores go out of business everywhere. we've just lost another very well known one for electronic music that's been around for a long time, and along with their owners hosting parties in venues throughout my city brought drum and bass to vienna. from early jungle days to dnb going full-mainstream with pendulum playing on pop radio stations like prodigy used to. fuck all of that.
AFX's1 (Richard D. James2 aka. Aphex Twin3) ANALORD45 series comes to mind (it was released like a sub-label but is in fact a series put out on the independent label 'Rephlex'6 - co-founded & ran by Aphex Twin7) - I've also collected all of them except for one or two records (ANALORD10 which now sells at a median price of 643.90USD - the eventual color-disk repress "only" sets you back 80-100USD. Considering that I bought most of the ANALORD series vinyls for less than 10EUR pp., I haven't finished my collection in more than 12 years -- not bought the missing record -- yet. It's still up there on my wantlist.) which nowadays cost upwards of 400EURs in "medium" to "near mint" condition, which has to be utter bullshit if you've ever owned any record of the series - you'd know they don't come with covers and just come in a weirdly shaped, very thin plastic sleeve with a sticker on it that will eventually break, rip, melt and most certainly be bent in multiple places. it's also one-of-a-kind. I don't own any other record series from any label that looks and feels that way. so it's cool regarding the artistic purpose but bullshit if you're trying to sell it as mint condition: look up what mint actually means -- discogs put out an article on grading items -- see for yourself if you think what I described above would come even close or not.
Thanks for your attention.
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