Vinyl Collective News & Notes

Here's a couple of the latest posts from Virgil over at www.vinylcollective.com Stop by the site and help him celebrate the anniversary and get some killer vinyl for your collection!!


Forget the Itunes LP, Remember the Vinyl LP

While I commend Apple and its digital retail destination, Itunes, for attempting to offer something more with the launch of the Itunes LP, what they are trying to do makes terrible assumptions about the audio/visual experience of their customers. While I agree that having liner notes, credits, and artwork is a step in the right direction, I don’t want to have “enjoy” these aspects on my computer screen. Having behind the scenes videos and interactive media are also a nice bonus, but what you get is just an enhanced CD and I don’t know about most of you, but I typically look at an enhanced CD’s contents once and that’s it. Now, let’s talk about the price tag as reports are saying that the Itunes LP might be priced in the neighborhood of $19.99 although I have also read that it could be $13.99 or $16.99. I understand wanting to increase your revenue and appease shareholders, but this added price only gives you things you can pretty much get for free by visiting Google, The Band’s website/myspace, and/or Youtube.

With nearly every Vinyl LP we have released, we bundle our records with a digital coupon that allows one to download the entire album as 320 Kbps MP3s. Most of our single LPs are priced at $10.99 (all are currently on sale at prices between $5 and $8). To recap, you can buy most Suburban Home LPs for $10.99, get the digital album for play on your Ipod and have something tangible/physical with liner notes/lyrics, credits, and big/beautiful artwork. Listen to our albums on your Ipod while driving in the car, at work, while exercising, etc. Listen to the Vinyl LP while at the comfort of your home, relaxing, having a beer. If you ask me, there is no comparison.

I may be old fashioned, but I like to listen to my records on my record player, I like to look and touch the LP jacket/Insert. Also worth noting, I have yet to hear an album on my Ipod that sounds nearly as good as the vinyl counterpart. Digital albums are great for convenient listening, but liner notes are best experienced with the Vinyl LP.

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As you more than likely know, September is Suburban Home’s 14th Anniversary. It’s pretty crazy when you think about how much has changed in the last 14 years and somehow we are still around. What were you doing in 1995? I was going to college at the University of Colorado at Boulder and during that summer, I decided to start a fanzine to write about all the incredible music that was blowing my mind. Little did I know then that I would eventually start putting out records and find myself doing music full time. Crazy how things go. The last 14 years have been chaotic and unpredictible, but I have always had fun and in the end, that is what matters right?

Well, I could go on and on about this and that, but instead, I wanted to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. I would not be here if it weren’t for the independent music supporters from all over the planet that have helped to support what we do. To show you our gratitude, I wanted to offer you 1 of 2 discount possibilities:

Spend over $50 and get $14 off your order by using the coupon code SHANNIV14

Spend any amount and take 14 percent off of your order SH14PERCENT

This offer is good til the end of the month. Here are a few suggestions on how you should spend your money:

Suburban Home’s I Celebrate Their Entire Catalog Sale – you get every in print Suburban Home CD, an I Celebrate Their Entire Catalog T-shirt, and our next 10 CD releases mailed to your house

Our Pick 5 for $25 or Pick 10 for $50 plus bonus CDs – for a short time longer, we are offering you 5 free CDs of our choice with your pick 5 for $25 or 10 free CDs of our choice for our pick 10 for $50 sale. There is a long list of great CDs, vinyl, and pint glasses available with this deal.

Suburban Home CDs are $5.00 each – for the rest of the month, every Suburban Home CD is only $5.00 each. Load up before we jack up the prices to $8.99.

SH/VC Wholesale Vinyl Sale – for the rest of the month, all of our excluse vinyl is available at either our wholesale price that we sell it to distributors for or even lower (don’t tell our distributors). These coupons make it even cheaper.

Our Bargains section – take a look at this category in our store, there is a killer Ferret vinyl sale, a few Drag the River sales, a Tim Barry sale, and more.

Those are just a few of the deals that will help you to get the best deal possible. Thanks everyone. Here’s hoping we will be around for another 14 years!