Vinyl remains officially the least popular way to listen to music albums in the UK

[Frank Dernie]

A £1.50 album bought in 1965 would, with inflation, cost £29.27 today.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

A quick glance at the HMV website shows albums going for about £23-£35, with plenty of offers at £14.

Yes and a computer in 1965 would have cost £ millions (there were only 3500 in the world I believe when I started programming in 1970) and be less powerful than a cheap mobile phone today. Yes £50,000 then is about the same as £1,000,000 now, the financial industry is a catastrophe, but I compare an LP today with the CD at ⅓ the price and find it too expensive.
FWIW a good record deck then was about £15 and a studio spec one about £50. Turntables are stupidly expensive today for what they are when one considers how much easier and less skilled complex manufacturing is today.

 

[MattHooper]

but I compare an LP today with the CD at ⅓ the price and find it too expensive.

Certainly a rational decision not to buy vinyl then.

But the fact you can find music cheaper in a digital delivery system doesn't necessarily entail vinyl prices are stupid expensive in the sense of being price-gouging. I do think there seem to be some inflated prices, but generally speaking, as I understand it, as vinyl became more popular recently it was difficult-to-impossible to even find record pressing machines and hard to find people who even knew how to use them. New record presses being developed now are new and expensive, and there is still a huge backlog for pressing as the industry still can't meet demand. It's essentially an industry that in terms of equipment, know how and personal is being built from the ground up again.

So given everything involved at this point in time, 25 bucks or so average for an LP may not be that excessive pricing. I personally find vinyl generally "worth it" to buy (really great aesthetics and packaging for many new releases!).

FWIW a good record deck then was about £15 and a studio spec one about £50. Turntables are stupidly expensive today for what they are when one considers how much easier and less skilled complex manufacturing is today.

There sure are tons of overpriced turntables, and I own one.

On the other hand, the market has expanded hugely to cater not just to the crazy audiophiles but to the people just getting in to vinyl, or moving on from their starter turntables, and there are tons of reasonably priced turntables out there that seem to perform just fine.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Certainly a rational decision not to buy vinyl then.

But the fact you can find music cheaper in a digital delivery system doesn't necessarily entail vinyl prices are stupid expensive in the sense of being price-gouging. I do think there seem to be some inflated prices, but generally speaking, as I understand it, as vinyl became more popular recently it was difficult-to-impossible to even find record pressing machines and hard to find people who even knew how to use them. New record presses being developed now are new and expensive, and there is still a huge backlog for pressing as the industry still can't meet demand. It's essentially an industry that in terms of equipment, know how and personal is being built from the ground up again.

So given everything involved at this point in time, 25 bucks or so average for an LP may not be that excessive pricing. I personally find vinyl generally "worth it" to buy (really great aesthetics and packaging for many new releases!).



There sure are tons of overpriced turntables, and I own one.

On the other hand, the market has expanded hugely to cater not just to the crazy audiophiles but to the people just getting in to vinyl, or moving on from their starter turntables, and there are tons of reasonably priced turntables out there that seem to perform just fine.

Yes CDs were 3x the price of LPs at first. LPs are forgivable. Record players are not imo.

 

[captain paranoia]

Yes and a computer in 1965 would have cost £ millions (there were only 3500 in the world I believe when I started programming in 1970)

But vinyl is unchanged (technology, materials, production, distribution) since 1965. Computers have changed a bit (Moore's Law, formulated in 1965, coincidentally, gives us a factor of 190e6 change in transistor density).

I remember seeing a film about how a vinyl record is made. I was shocked at how long they spent in the press; it has to warm up, press the gob of vinyl, and then cool down again. That press heating/cooling cycle is quite long; 30 seconds comes to mind. I'm pretty sure the CDs are quicker and cheaper to make (and distribute and store).

Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't buy a new vinyl record (even though they are essentially the same price they were when I bought them in my youth). I don't buy secondhand vinyl records. I don't buy new CDs. I buy secondhand CDs for an average of 75p over the last three years (640 CDs). I'm not going to pay a premium for an inferior distribution medium.

 

[cjm2077]

I can think of less popular methods. Wax Cylinder. Waiting until somebody drives by with their car windows open playing the song you want to hear. Hearing a muffled and highly distorted version through the headphones of the person sitting next to you on public transportation.

 

[anmpr1]

That is part of my problem. I have 4 turntables and have been buying LPs since the mid-60s but a full price LP when I bought most of them was £1.50 and in sales frequently £0.30 to £0.75.
Current LP prices are outrageous IMO, so I play what I have when that is what I want to listen to.

I can't understand music pricing. I went to Amazon to compare a famous Beatles album:

CD $11.39
MP3 download $12.49
LP $20.88 + bonus MP3 download included.

Why would a CD cost less than an MP3 download? On the other hand, subtracting the 'bonus' MP3 price makes LP cheapest, at $8.39. And with the LP you get a poster to hang on your wall, or some cutouts, or something. Who can explain this marketing model?

 

[cjm2077]

I can't understand music pricing. I went to Amazon to compare a famous Beatles album:

CD $11.39
MP3 download $12.49
LP $20.88 + bonus MP3 download included.

Why would a CD cost less than an MP3 download? On the other hand, subtracting the 'bonus' MP3 price makes LP cheapest, at $8.39. And with the LP you get a poster to hang on your wall, or some cutouts, or something. Who can explain this marketing model?

It's so they can sell something physical. That helps at a show/concert in particular. You wait in line. You wildly overpay for a t-shirt or poster. You get the LP to show off. You put it on display somewhere and never use it. You listen to the mp3. I think a lot of new vinyl is being sold like this. The sales of the item does not equal the actual use of them.

 

[Robin L]

It's so they can sell something physical. That helps at a show/concert in particular. You wait in line. You wildly overpay for a t-shirt or poster. You get the LP to show off. You put it on display somewhere and never use it. You listen to the mp3. I think a lot of new vinyl is being sold like this. The sales of the item does not equal the actual use of them.

Very good point. With the collapse of the recording industry, artists tour to make money. That's the primary income source, recordings have become secondary, studio recording is increasingly replaced with home-brew productions.

 

[cjm2077]

Very good point. With the collapse of the recording industry, artists tour to make money. That's the primary income source, recordings have become secondary, studio recording is increasingly replaced with home-brew productions.

The merch table is lifeblood for these artists now. Sticker, t-shirts, posters, lighters, belt buckles, and random thing you can think to sell. One of my favorite live bands, Ghost, sells masks like the ones they wear on stage. Pro-tools and the like have made the basics of recording cheaper, but there just isn't any money for the artist in streaming, and physical media collapsed. It's back to how it was before the Beatles came along, an industry where you make your money from playing live. So it seems like new Vinyl gets collected, but not necessarily played.

 

[Robin L]

The merch table is lifeblood for these artists now. Sticker, t-shirts, posters, lighters, belt buckles, and random thing you can think to sell. One of my favorite live bands, Ghost, sells masks like the ones they wear on stage. Pro-tools and the like have made the basics of recording cheaper, but there just isn't any money for the artist in streaming, and physical media collapsed. It's back to how it was before the Beatles came along, an industry where you make your money from playing live. So it seems like new Vinyl gets collected, but not necessarily played.

It's back to before Caruso arrived, the great Italian tenor the first to reap the rewards of recording.

 

[audiophile]

Current LP prices are outrageous IMO, so I play what I have when that is what I want to listen to.

I agree. Most of my vinyl purchases are under $10 for used vinyl in great condition from Discogs.

 

[cjm2077]

It's back to before Caruso arrived, the great Italian tenor the first to reap the rewards of recording.

I'm sure he did well. But for the industry in general, it was only really the mid 60's to the early 2000s that saw the majority of bands that were successful making more money selling recordings than touring. It was a relatively short golden age compared to the whole history of musical recording.

 

[Robin L]

I'm sure he did well. But for the industry in general, it was only really the mid 60's to the early 2000s that saw the majority of bands that were successful making more money selling recordings than touring. It was a relatively short golden age compared to the whole history of musical recording.

Right, Nilsson and Glenn Gould wouldn't of had their music careers without recordings. Think of the posthumous career of Nick Drake. And there were all sorts of bands created in the 60s and 70s [the "golden age" of vinyl] solely to hit the charts, many very short-lived.