Looking on the bright side - it's a really good time to get back into CDs before those prices rise which often sound just as good when you consider that most modern recordings are digital anyway.

You can defeat supply and demand by not purchasing overpriced vinyl. Thus, demand decreases and potentially prices (might) decrease...I shop for the best price and if I can't find a good price I patiently wait until I find a fair price and condition.

I have about 30 feet of LPs I bought before they stopped selling them in 1989. Back when I went to college in the mid 1970s the price of records at the nearby campus record store was $3.99. Then Pink Floyd Animals came out and the price of new records became $4.99 while records issued before Animals remained $3.99. I used an inflation calculator and it said $3.99=$21.70 today, $4.99=$27.14 today. $27 isn't much less than $30 so records aren't that much more expensive than when I went to college. The big jump in prices came when they discontinued records and went to CDs which were 3+ times the price of records.

I've been collecting (in earnest) since the early 70's. There's a lot of reasons for vinyl costing "more" including the price of petroleum, _even in manufacturing._ Remember, many LP's these days are 180g, that's more than 50% more vinyl than the typical 90-110g of typical albums. To put things in perspective, I've got an import Psychedelic Furs album I bought in 1980. The price on the poly sleeve from Tower Records says $10.99. In today's dollars, that's about *$39.* Hmmm, all of a sudden what's the big deal? Sure, a US pressing was about $7 ($24 today), but the vinyl was terrible in many cases. We never had audiophile anything until the late 80's renaissance. Today, a typical 180g repress/remaster/reprint goes for $21-25. A relative bargain, considering what I spent on imports (even import CD's) in the 70's-90's. Yes, some popular LP's are priced insanely (like $40 for a Simon & Garfunkle), and all I can say is _vote with your wallet._

Thanks so much for the info! I always wondered when the prices will eventually if ever drop.

I was an avid vinyl listener in the 70’s as a teen . Now I’m trying to get back to vinyl in my 60’s .. vinyl LP’s are too expensive. The industry should expand production to places that don’t charge excessive taxes (NV, FL, ND) . We need more production .l I hate to say ‘send it overseas like all other products ‘..but I can’t afford $30 for a vinyl record , when I want to collect over 100 records in the next year .. also , turntables are too expensive and cheaply made. We should have access to UK, and overseas market directly

When adjusted for inflation, modern records cost the same (or slightly less) than what they did in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1967, Sgt. Pepper would've cost roughly 40 GBP so I don't see the big deal

It really annoys me when a reissue album comes out as a “double album” when I clearly shouldn’t be. Three tracks per side, you have to keep flipping the darn thing over every 15 mins. You might say “that’s super easy, barely an inconvenience “ but I think it’s done so they can hike up the price. I’m not convinced it makes the record sound any better.

I don’t have any real issues with single vinyl I do however feel that Box sets are getting ridiculously expensive!

I've been buying vinyl since the late 70's. I couldn't afford a CD player, or the CDs when they were initially launched, so continued buying vinyl, along with cassettes. I finally bought a CD player in the late 90s and, if memory serves me, my first two discs were Tubular Bells and DSOTM. I got rid of all my cassettes when I got into minidisc, but as that medium never really took off, I transferred to CDR and sold off all my minidiscs. I now buy mainly vinyl, although I'm more selective in my choices, i.e. only purchasing what I will play, so that has reduced outlay and I buy CDs when there is no vinyl version of the album I would like. No one is forcing anyone to purchase at the current prices. The only way prices will drop is if interest in the medium wanes and there is no longer a market for them as happened when everyone jumped on the CD bandwagon, but that will mean the value of your collection will also drop, so will leave you in negative equity. It's market forces and will always be so. As others have pointed out, realistically, prices are generally on target with inflation, although when you look at price comparisons of new releases, the UK nearly always comes off as being charged the most for the same item!

The golden age is long gone:-(. I remember from around 2006 to 2014 here in China, you could get great records for about $2 US John Coltrane, Fela Kuti, Sex Pistols, Blondie, Moodyman, Pink Floyd, Clapton, Creedence Clearwater, whatever. I once went to Shenzhen to go digging with a friend and my girl. It was heaven. That was back when people were dumping their record collections in bulk. It was coming to China as trash. They were melting it down. We were literally racing through 10,000 to 20,000 records cause somebody was coming to buy it by the pound probably to be melted or sold for decorations. We said we would continue to buy records, but somehow stopped. Same thing is happening with film Kodak is not prepared for the resurgence of film and film stocks are hard to come by or he77a exepensive.

When I go into say an antique shop, where they have lots of records, I go through and pick out the ones I want not worrying too much about how much they’re charging! The ones who are charging exorbitant will find out soon enough when no one buys their stuff! Other ones I sit down and tell them and teach them about Discogs, and what value the older records have! Many times they have them priced at the rare, pressing, and or not understanding condition, is everything on both the record and the jacket! Help them understand or don’t shop there if they have no room to haggle and don’t want to learn! Let them go out of business!

What are you using for display records on the wall? Seems neat. 👌🏻

I get 100% of my vinyl records through parallel imports. In Australia the prices are ridiculous for no reason, especially from certain labels. Take Metallica's latest album 72 seasons. $110 here. That's equivalent to $75 USD. However, I can parallel import it for $69 (~45 USD). Tool's Fear Innoculum is $150 locally. I can import it for $99. (67 USD)

I cruise Walmart and Best Buy and look for discounted or marked down records for 19.00 or 19.99 usd where I have found a lot of classic rock, country and alternative music that I like and have purchased!

For $40 you can buy usually buy a hi def digital master. Essentially the same thing as owning the master recordings that these records are made from. The last time I had a turntable was over 30 years ago at the end of the 1980s and records were so cheap (all second hand but they were generally very well made). I switched to CD because it was easier and I did not have the room to devote to a nice turntable setup. I still have most of those LPs but they are in storage.

Prices are getting so high, it's getting harder to resist the temptation of cashing out.

In Canada. I stopped buying vinyl in 2010 when for the first time i saw local record stores selling 'used' vinyl for $15 -$20. The 1990's was the best time to buy vinyl. It wasn't popular anymore because CD's ruled the world. 1990's: Average used vinyl was $5.99 & more popular titles were $9.99 1990's: New sealed vinyl cost between $17.99 to $19.99

Your a young man. Back in the hay day of vinyl records. Lets tag that at like 1966. The distribution system of LP's was a very well oiled process. LP's were distributed basically the same way magazines were. That being the magazines were put on the display shelves, left there for a while then removed and recycled. LPs were the same. The LPs were put on display ( in the bins ) and if the LP(s) didn't sell they were returned to distribution. Many times distribution would return the LPs to a recycler who would remove the LP from their sleeve. The sleeves would go though the same paper recycler as newspaper and cardboard. The LP itself would have its center label punched out then the vinyl sent to recycle. That helped to keep costs down. Your original Beach Boys LP probably is using recycled vinyl. New term for you. "Virgin Vinyl". That being Vinyl that had not been reprocessed. That would find its way into the Audiophile market. The art of making decent LP vinyl is all but gone. Never to return. No one is going to invest in new LP pressing plants. The market is way way too small.

I’ve been frequenting this used records store, but they always seem to have scratches and the cover has been abused or neglected

I would like 2 See's deprecated vinyl record price soon. I've heard there was 2 record pressing plants inn the USA & now there is 65

I remember buying Sgt Pepper for 3 quid back in the early 90's in a second hand record shop and it was in very good condition.

Great overview that covers all of the big bases and even some of the smaller ones. When I first started getting into vinyl records about two years ago, I was surprised to learn that CZ manufacture 85% of the world's vinyl records back then, and that bottleneck has likely only increased given the, still lacking, number of domestic manufacturers. The current, niche nature of vinyl means that such will always be an issue, unlike the glory days when it was a dominant music medium and enjoyed all of the accordant infrastructure to help keep costs low. I don't have too much to add beyond that we vinyl enthusiasts need to voice our feedback with regularity to labels, bands, etc. that we support so that there may be more of a concerted, organized effort to lower costs without compromising quality. We, as consumers, have to ensure that the big business end knows of our interest as they will shape their actions accordingly, at least to some degree. Anchoring purchases with feedback does more to qualify sales data that's just undifferentiated. Similarly, if you have a dedicated sub-genre that you enjoy such as video games, definitely keep in contact with those you purchase from as it's much easier to have targeted feedback be more effective on a smaller scale.

Buy vintage and save tons of money and get stuff you cannot get now. The thing is always carefully inspect what you are buying for wear and damage. Then it pays off greatly buying clean sharp vintage.

We need to get the general public interested in CDs again so they stop buying our precious vinyl!!😆 personally I still have the records I bought as a teenager in the seventies. I never got rid of them. My interest was rekindled during the lockdown. Still have my turntable too!

Thanks for the video. I agree as well that supply chain bottlenecks have been an issue, but I'm starting to see quite a swell in the number of records in my local record shops. I do think more growth in quality production facilities are needed as well. There is some price gouging going on though. A video shown by another KZfaqr showed one shop selling records for almost double the retail price anywhere else. Yes 180 gram records are a very big thing these days, but at the same time, record jackets have become almost see through, and there aren't as many manufacturers using poly lined sleeves as they should in my opinion. The record industry has a good thing going here. Let's hope they don't price themselves back into oblivion. They'd probably sell more volume, and have more customers, and hence more profits if prices were lower. Just my opinion though

Is $40 too expensive or is it more than what people want to spend. It’s inflation like anything else. As mentioned in the clip, there aren’t enough pressing plants to keep up with demand. Plus the lacquer? factory burning down with only 2-3 other facilities available? This gives a great breakdown as to why vinyl costs what it does. People who complain records aren’t $20 have no idea of what it costs to make/ship a record or what facilities are available to press

You have some valid points. The cost of materials and transporting product has been greatly affected by rising fuel prices. Especially in the U.S. What has also been happening in the U.S. is the rising minimum wage. They have been trying to raise it into the living wage category. So, then retail prices have to go up to compensate, including food prices. Then supply shortages blamed on COVID has added to that. In my home State of California, raises in minimum wages have been even higher. Current minimum wage here is close to what I was making in the skilled labor hi-tech field I retired from in 2018. Continuing rising taxes, especially in fuel, hasn't helped either. What people may not understand, when minimum wage goes up, all other wages go up. Many jobs wages are based on a percentage above minimum wage depending on skill level. Ofcourse unions don't help either in controlling prices. A union autoworker gets paid to screw bolts together more than many in administration who tells them what they have to do. Many of the larger record mastering facilities normally kept a large stock of lacquer mastering discs and are still using those from the factory which was destroyed. They haven't had an immediate need for new discs so taking time to replentish stock, now coming from Japan hasn't been a problem. There are lots of record pressing facilities in the U.S. and some are idle. It's not like before, but even back then major record labels didn't have their own pressing facilities. CBS, EMI and Universal(MCA) had record pressing plants and they did a lot of the pressing for the labels with didn't have facilities. Record companies started getting out of the manufacturing business decades ago. Most don't even have recording or mastering facilities anymore. They have just become offices where orders are made. I doubt any have any intention of getting back into manufacturing or recording businesses. Then there are the pressing facilities which have closed down, and not for lack of business. Awhile back a huge California pressing plant closed down, Rainbo Records. All their equipment and inventory was acquired by United Record Pressing. URP had not intentions of expanding, they just bought the equipment to keep it off the market so it couldn't be used for competition. Then, we have to consider greed. It's funny that a pressing facility like QRP can press records for Universal, who puts around a $20. US price on them, but if the record has a Analogue Productions moniker on them, the prices is close to $40. US. Although they don't have their own record label, the same happens at RTI. Both pressing companies use the same equipment for whatever they press. Quality is not much different. For the more premium records pressed they use a higher grade of vinyl, but we are talking about just pennies in price difference. I would say that rising record prices are mainly greed, but cost of materials and labor is surely a factor.

I wouldn't bet on prices coming down, they don't need to -- because sales keep going up. Not only that, but a lot of man hours and production costs go into making a record that don't go into making CDs or mp3s.

Time to go back to CDs.

Do these record sellers not realise the the higher the price, the fewer people there are who an afford them. Eventually, they will be SO costly that NOBODY can afford them and so the sellers will go out of business due to no sales. Do they not realise that this is slow economic suicide? Surely it is better to make a few pennies profit per sale on a lot of sales than to make a pound/dollar profit per sale on a few sales? The lower the price of something, then the more people can afford to buy them. And why do some bands insist on putting out the same album on up to 15 different colour variations or more?

If we stop buying them and sales decline by a large amount, then they will be forced to lower the prices. These companies are selling them for whatever people are willing to pay for them.

I just want VMP to rerelease Fiona Apple - Tidal. The Discogs price is nuts.

I do not see prices coming down on new releases although target and wal mart do put a lot of their title's on a deep discount from time to time. I picked up Dr Dres' Chronic 2001 for 9.89 at target. As far as used records, so many stores think anything old is rare and that's insane. I just shake my head and move on. I do still get lucky at goodwills and flea markets, you just have to be patient and dig alot. I've been digging for 40 plus years but I have a nice collection to show for it

If you run the average MSRP for an LP in the late 1970s/early 1980s through an inflation calculator, it comes out to be just under $30.

I have been collecting vinyl almost 30 yrs. Almost all of my albums are originals, some are vintage reissue.

Considering the buying power of top currencies (dollar, pound, etc.), record prices are not particularly high. Of course they don't affect me much because I buy mostly used stuff for a dollar or two per title.

Even at a gig one will be paying £20-5 for your favourite Band’s album.

I've been buying from big box store, when on sale incredibly inexpensive. Sales happen often, so check frequently. They even carry some MoFi , AP titles, etc. Free shipping, fast shipping, and easy returns. I have only had 2 warped lp's, same title, easy return. Still buy the occasional OneSteps & UHQR , and yes, the difference is day & and night, but so is the price.....Aloha

i cant believe it takes 9 months to recieve a batch of vinyl . i get my vinyl records within 9 to 10 weeks . thats with test pressings also . it costs me £ 1,900 per batch

I used to buy vinyl before the CD came out. Back then the price of vinyl was about $6.00 or so, and CDs were about $15.00. That has been about 40 years. Things are much different now. The price of CDs has held or actually come down, while the price of vinyl has skyrocketed. CDs sound much better anyway. When are you ever gonna learn?

They are only 'expensive' because we pay the price asked. If we feel they are good value then we will continue to pay. A $38 album today was $7 dollars back in 1975 when all the classics were around. It is all relative. if there is a general feeling they are not good value then do something about it. What do we do? Worldwide we pick a month, we stop buying for this month and watch the shops reaction.

I wish they would make 45 or 33 versions of at least 2 best songs. Flip to b sides were so much cheaper.

I paid about $8 for an album back in 1981 when I was 13 and I had to mow quite a bit of lawn to get that much money for an album lol.

There is another aspect to this which isn't really discussed in the video. A vinyl record itself applies three additional effects to the music at point of playing: a) it adds compression, b) it applies a fairly large low cut and high cut filter and c) it adds some distortion. These are the main reasons why people say vinyl sounds "warmer" than a straight .WAV file for example. Back in the day this was taken into account when recording, mixing and mastering records. In particular both low and high frequencies were boosted significantly at the mixing stage to compensate and produce more beef in the bass and sizzle at the top end. What this means is that you have to mix a song differently for vinyl than you do for a CD or for Spotify, both in terms of levels and in terms of EQ. Also relevant here is that since people like the sound of the slight distortion you get from vinyl (for basically the same reasons they like the holy grail "edge of breakup" guitar sound through a tube amp) as well as, especially for rock/jazz and R&B/soul produced with "real" instruments, the heavy emphasis on the mid-range frequencies vinyl delivers, today these effects are added to digital mixes using a variety of distortion, EQ, compression and filter effects. In other words records today are deliberately being downgraded from perfect CD quality to a more vinyl like sound. What this means is that if you print a mix to vinyl that was originally aimed at a digital format you are going to get a double doze of these effects, which would usually mean too much. It also means that modern records will not sound any better on vinyl than they do on CD (unlike with CD versions of classic records which sound awful compared to original first vinyl pressings). The bottom line is that a mix that sounds good on vinyl won't sound good on CD and visa versa. This means that, going forward, as well as the obvious huge additional costs vinyl involves in terms of material, production, transportation and retail costs you are adding the cost of producing two mixing and mastering processes for each record, one for vinyl and one for digital formats. My own view of this is the vinyl craze is largely based on folks discovering that first pressings of classics like Kind of Blue, Led Zep IV, Exile on Main Street or Rumours sound unbelievably fantastic on a decent record deck (because they were mixed and mastered specifically to sound brilliant on vinyl) and the problems are going to set in when the supply of these treasured first pressing dry up as they inevitably must. The only way forward from there is to reproduce new and perfect facsimile first pressings of these classic records on vinyl which is very expensive and will only get more expensive. Hence I would say that when the prices of decent copies of original vinyl LPs head north of $200 and in some cases $1000 vinyl will be in the same sort of situation that reel to reel tape is in already. Exorbitantly expensive equipment and specialist media available for a few rich hobbyists.

it is a shame what they are doing with those prices...pure greed...i am surprised how many people are trying to find excuses for such behavior! thing is, 99% of brand new records are of POOR quality...cracks, pops, scratches, skips, smudges, that's what you are paying for 40-50$ or Euros! awful, awful, quality, and that 180g vinyl is only making things worse: they were made of poor plastic and they are magnet for static electricity...vinyl "quality" has never been worse like today!

Quite simply, supply/demand and consumers' FOMO.

"lets get straight into the topic" - yeah just after the 1 minute intro we all know about already because it's all in the title haha.

No kidding! When I was a kid they were 6.00 for a Brand new release

Naaah, stay that way.....meanwhile I'm picking up cd's by the boatloads for dirtcheap. 🤣🤣🤣

Scalpers are the ones benefitting of this chaos. Limited pressings immediately hogged and resold at higher prices. I'm not buying any more records right now. I will wait until things improve or just quit the hobby again. I'm sure that the sales numbers won't be that good next time.

Vinyl is what records are made from, they are LP's, records, albums etc. Do you also collect clear polycarbonate plastic substrate, with a reflective metallic layer, and a clear protective coating of acrylic plastic ie cd's?

I wish people would stop calling them Vinyl. It's so trendy now. Their called records...albums...lp's

I think it is down to them being relatively rare, certainly vinyl records in good condition are. The costs of production are more than double that of the CD. The song 'Skyfall' is in especially high demand and supply is very low, and the cost of that one in mint condition is several hundred pounds/dollars/euros.

Its because "collectors" are willing to pay too much money for something. Its no longer about the real enjoyment of music. There are so many ways to hear the music in good quality if that is all you really care about. What often galls me is the taste of the buyers of albums that become rare. Paying a fortune for a stupid Journey album pressing that every one already has on digital seems really idiotic to me.

Record companies know how to fleece you. They can turn any new trend into massive profits. I believe that this is the case. is it quality of the medium ? Is it some other reason ? Well The Quality of the medium is not better than CD or 24 bit Downloads. However you get a physical medium that no other format can offer with a vinyl. On top the facilities producing vinyl are few still. For the record companies this is WIN-WIN... produce less, with less costs while making huge returns on each release. The real value of these records will not maximize for collectors until 20 years down the line or even longer. Where vinyl beats other mediums is in the hands approach of a record album. The feel, the nostalgia and the size of the covers and liner notes makes them pieces of Art !!!!!

Biggest issue now is the sheer lack of pressing facilities compared to the 70's and 80's add in the modern passion of many big firms to scam as much money as possible out of the public while blaming every thing you can imagine bar GREED. So much great music about second hand to not have to worry about new vinyl given how poor most modern music really is the cost out ways the reward..........

Thank you for this video - this is a subject I am monitoring myself each week and this is very useful. Would you like to be a guest on my podcast? Phil

Before, they tried to produce a new format that would have copy protection, now they have got the vinyl disc that does not need any copy protection. And they can charge well. without worrying too much about the vinyl being copied to the computer. and do you want to chill or develop into a premium product

As others have commented, the basic price for a 140g LP in a simple jacket (ie: equivalent to what I purchased in the early 1980's for around $8.00) is now selling for $20 ~ $25 dollars, which is exactly in line with basic inflation of the last 40 years and the sound quality, imo, is relatively equivalent. As also pointed out, premium issues / reissues in heavier weight with nice gatefold or boxing will add to the cost, hence current retail pricing in the $35 ~ $50 range. I will also offer, the manufacturing of an LP is really no different than it was 40 or 70 years ago and there is no real way to increase the throughput on a press, it takes the time it takes to heat up the PVC, press it and cool it... so there are no cost reductions available there and simply adding more pressing plants will NOT bring down the prices of LP's (they have the same physical pressing costs and those plants will need to be paid for from the profits of the LP's they make), though they would allow more titles to be made (as soon as another lacquer plant or two are spun up). Where I am going is, current pricing doesn't seem that out of line with general inflation and the desire for higher quality products.

I don't mind paying (arguably high prices) for vinyl but this is often not commensurate with quality. Take my latest purchase. I'm having to return the first two (brand new) records because of poor pressings. Quality control has been a steady slide since the 60s from what I'm hearing.

Then surely the vinyl record has an opportunity for a record company to charge more for the music? it would be interesting to see the profit margin per vinyl disc in relation to per cd disc. and from, unlike the 70-80s or 90s, the record companies probably don't have to be so worried about us now records being copied onto cassette tapes. and that people Copy vinyl records to the computer and publish them on Torrent pages is probably not that common either? . the record companies expect and perhaps also that people who want vinyl records are prepared to pay more. That it's kind of vinyl lovers

Vinyl is not any more expensive now than it was in the 1960s. Where have you been the past 3 years? Do you know how much gas, food, rent or anything else has risen? You expect records to stay the same price when it costs more and more to make them? Lowering the cost of records has nothing to do with the record industry and everything to do with the purposeful inflation that the US and other countries around the world are forcing on the masses. A record in 1966 cost $3.60 on average. Inflation has risen OVER 800% from 1966 to 2022.... that record would now cost about $30. Not taken into consideration is that in 1966 many, many more millions of records were made and at a lower level of quality that what is produced now... so the profit margin now is much, much less.... while still selling for close to the same price.

If you adjust for inflation we are paying the same price as we were in the early 70s .

They need to focus on quality control -- which seems barely existent. Also, many producers of vinyl know that the batches going out are faulty, but they don't care. On top of that, they don't seem to know enough about pressing vinyl. Record shops seem to be fully aware and resigned to all these issues, yet faulty, expensive pressings are being willfully and knowingly passed on to the customer with maybe the hope that they won't notice, or if they do won't bother with the hassle of having to return them.

Taylor Swift is probably mostly responsible for the increase this past year with almost 1 million copies of midnights sold on vinyl. And I do not see the average price of vinyl between 30 and $40. More like 20 to 30 for me. The average of what I buy being in the low 20s

Record Fares seem to be my saviour for new vinyl, £10 to £15 for a new record ain't to bad, just need to watch out for bootlegs. Some of the quality control on recent releases is terrible however, chipped vinyl, misalignment of the centre holes, warps, dirty and so on.

Vinyl is so expensive because it's part of a pretentious hobby, where people believe listening to music from a turntable is somehow superior to other delivery sources.

Vinyl is hobby for rich people. I'm not rich so I prefer cd.

Ok maybe I'm wrong here but based on wages being paid to an average worker, the cost of an album (vinyl) really isn't anymore than they were in 1989. Let me explain. In 1989 minimum wage was $3.80 an hour in my state of the US. An LP cost between 7.99 to 12.99 depending on what store you shopped at. So it took at least two to three hours of work to afford to buy one. Now fast forward 30+ years and minimum wage in my state is 13.00 an hour. Albums range in price from $19.99 to $42.00 once again depending where you shop so once again it still takes two to three hours of work to buy one. If you do the math the price is still the same. If you can't do the math in your head find someone to explain it

....and used lower condition quality LP's are too pricey ,glad I loaded up on records while they were not popular ...$ 1 -$ 2 now I need to unload ,lol too many ....now I see CD's at that low price ...mmmmmmm..reloading ?!

what expensive ! the production costs with packaging are just 80 US dollar cents ($0.80)... the rest is greediness of distributors and producers....

Typical click bait, do your homework As a retired investment manager I created a "portfolio" of 2000 albums, including new audiophile, used classic rock, new jazz, old jazz, new records in different genres etc this enables me to create a market index similar to the way a mutual fund is priced. Prices have been stagnant since May/June this year they are currently falling by 0.15% (on average) per day with the occasional uptick. The peak may be past There have already been some significant market corrections. The only sectors to have maintained value are the pure audiophile records i.e. Analogue Productions. A market shows reality, manufacturers live on the buyers wishful thinking and wallets

Record prices will come down when suckers stop paying the inflated prices.

Sorry to say it, but it sounds like you've fallen for the bullshit the record labels have put out to justify gouging what they see as a captive market, just like the supermarkets (announcing before Xmas they were doing everything possible to help customers with the cost of living crisis, before announcing last week that although sales had fallen their profits had risen by a record amount). If Olly Murs record label can put out a no.1 album on vinyl, as he did four weeks ago, that sells for £25 and also includes the full CD version AND a signed cardboard 13" poster with protective sleeve and a picture inner sleeve then how come he can do it and not lose money with all these other factors that the labels are trying to use to justify their never-ending greed? Answer: his record label aren't greedy and are happy with a reasonable profit instead of price gouging what they see as a captive market peopled by gullible idiots with more money than sense. Next month Slade release a 10 x 7" singles box collection with an exclusive promo record and a very nice box for £30 but in the same week we've seen a picture disc of David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane" announced at FORTY FIVE POUNDS (does ANYBODY seriously think this costs much more than a few quid to produce and could be sold at £10 and still make a profit?) and a "deluxe" version of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of The Moon" which has HALF the music the previous "Immersion" deluxe release had, NONE of the videos that release had, but is being sold at THREE TIMES the price (£250 for one album - talk about taking the piss out of gullible, stupid fans!) I nearly purchased the new Nik Kershaw deluxe limited vinyl set which seemed a bargain at £40 for three lps in a nice set - again proof other record labels are being greedy and screwing over customers. But then I saw the exact same music could be bought on 3 CDs from Amazon for £5! People need to wake up and smell the coffee. The major labels are killing vinyl through greed and serious over-pricing. I for one am avoiding purchases now and many others are doing the same. The record labels will reap what they sow.

10:58 Crate invader! 😠

Records are not expensive unless you're comparing them to something like streaming. In 1978 a full price new LP was $7.98. When adjusted for inflation, that's $38 today. The same comparison between past prices and today's hold up over several decades. It's only because people today are used to getting their music for free, that records seem expensive. 45 years ago when I was a student, we would save up for weeks to be able to afford a single LP.

Greed? How about, niche market. There are no platinum records or maybe even gold records anymore, Single records are not mass produced by the millions. Like before CDs. They will never sell as much as their heyday. Plus higher costs to make them. The vintage previously owned records are not expensive unless you talk specific minority of issues. It is pretty simple, and no one is making them to give away for free. I do tend to avoid new issues partly because of the costs, but that is the current economy and priorities.

And they wonder why people steal music as mp3 or aac lossless

Because the Boomers traded quality for convenience for everything included vinyl. If it can’t be made cheaply with slave labor in India, it’s going to be expensive.

I honestly don't understand the question... Why do you want to reduce the price of records? Vinyl records are a very tactile, very tangible means of enjoying human endeavour in a very artistic form. In a world which is becoming more and more digitised, the ability to have something which is real and very beautiful, produced in a manner which requires enormous process... Why on earth would you want to cheapen that..?

Theyll lower the price if people would stop buyinv

Have you used an inflation calculator to test your theory that vinyl is expensive? According to the Bank of England, £10 in 1990 is worth £22.76 today. So are you saying records are more expensive than they were in the past or just complaining that £25 for a new record is a lot next to the streaming services that do virtually nothing for the artists?

Why, because right now it is the "cool" thing to do and they're making money off this new hip coolness. And no, vinyl records don't sound better.

Yeah cool man push all the collectors away keep gouging prices till you no longer have a market greed is disgusting

Literally. It's absolutely awful. All Bowie records especially have rised up from 25 to 39€

Because hipsters are driving up demand. It's out of my price range and it doesn't matter to me. Cds sound better anyway

As long as record companies can get big money for records they will charge outrageous prices. American capitalism at its worst.😡😡😡

The prices will crash when the fad wears off and the demand isn't there anymore just like everything it's driven by supply and demand. You can also thank the governments of the world for their hysteria and complete overreaction to covid, were now starting to see the impact of shutting the world down. I haven't bought an LP for 18 months, prices are outrageous shipping is outright ridiculous to Australia

It’s a scam on a giant scale!

too much talk...less info..sorry I am out