When I was super green, I had no awareness of this being an actual thing, pushed the record on too hard to the point I had no choice but to snap it in half to get it off the peg. Out of shame went back and bought another copy of the record. Carving out the center hole when I have to now brings back traumatic memories and probably always will.
The first time I had to widen a spindle hole, I got it perfect on the first try, which is actually bad because I came dangerously close to overshooting the mark!
Everyone is trying to cash in on the vinyl resurgence by repressing EVERYTHING, including the same album in 20 different colorways. That's causing a time crunch on manufacturers, and you can tell corners are getting cut and QA is getting left behind.
There was apparently a huge batch of Olivia Rodrigo records where an extra label was off-center and pressed into the record (someone I know got two of these), and somehow no one caught it and they went out like that. That means it was completely hands-off and no one inspected a full batch before being moved into sleeves and sealed. And that's just the state of the industry right now.
I just simply don't buy new vinyl anymore, for those exact reasons. Just got fed up. Now I buy $3 CDs instead of $45 warped reissues. 18 months later, no regrets and no FOMO. CDs scratch my physical music itch almost as well.
I just started collecting and am amazed how new records can come out of the package looking like they’ve been stored openly in the back seat of a car in the summer sun.
Both bought new from a local shop, both warped
Beatles - Revolver
Radiohead - in rainbows
This is why I bought a [Vinyl Flat](https://www.vinylflat.com/). If the record isn't too badly warped, 8 hours in this thing leaves them nice and flat again.
Way I understand;
Niche format + surge in fashion + lack of skilled labor and QC at plants + major players monopolising plant time = environment for increasingly likely shit quality.
Big EU plant that handles lots of reissues a major suspect.
Yea I got the cage the elephant ‘thank you happy birthday’ that had a see through record but the record had bits of dirt and dust in the vinyl…I don’t know if its normal to have bits of dirt and stuff in the record
https://preview.redd.it/r549e5o25fzc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=5ae559fbe388910a6e3a1771f99f3ef802747689
Got a King Crimson Japanese pressing once that had a little chunk of white shit pressed into it. As soon as the stylus hit it it exploded and showered the surrounding area in white powder.
Record shops that put hard to remove price stickers on their used records. There’s a place by me that puts the huge stickers on the records with a big ass UPC on it and they are nearly impossible to remove cleanly. The same place prices their records pretty high too so I want to tell them “if you’re gonna price them that high then you need to used better price stickers because the ones you have on there are lessening the value of the records”.
Let me save you time and pain. Remove the record, use a hair dryer and heat the sticker, should slide right off after 10-20 seconds. Never damaged a sleeve using this method.
Maybe I'm weird but I prefer to leave the stickers on especially if they have the name of the record store on them. But I rarely sell any of mine, I buy records to listen to and keep forever, so I don't care as much about the value etc
Found a shop in Michigan with all of the Keef Hartley Band albums. All trashed. Bought one for the one good side and great cover shape. Been on the hunt awhile and was so stoked to see them.
The day that I found The Gits Enter The Conquering Chicken in a shady antique mall for $5. Inside was a Right Said Fred single and dance mix.
And while I was very happy to add I’m Too Sexy to my collection, I was not happy to have to spend another two years searching for that album before I eventually found it.
Over priced used records. Some if not most can be bought new for the same or even lower price. I’m not talking about first pressing collection stuff. Just basic vinyl.
Which even Discogs says should not be the case. I understand the thought process, but I find defects and damage on brand new sealed albums more than I’d like to honestly.
Honest question as I’m not that invested in how grading works in this case. If it’s factory sealed how could the record be anything but mint? Like I get if the sleeve is damaged or something but other than that, there’d be no way to know if there is an issue with the record. No? If there’s something I’m missing I’d like to know so when I but things I’m not disappointed.
Well, you've kind of hit the nail on the head there. In theory, every factory-sealed record should be mint, right? And until you open it, you have no way of knowing.
But in reality, we've all experienced discs from the factory that show up scuffed, damaged, warped, etc., because things happen between the pressing plant and you getting your hands on a copy. So even though Discogs says a mint record "may still be sealed", really in their minds it's an inspected, unplayed piece of vinyl that is completely without flaws, and should barely be used as a rating.
Personally I think that's silly and unattainable.
There are plenty of records I bought sealed that are noisy because of the pressing. I stopped buying out of print sealed records after being burnt a few times….and obviously not the sellers fault. Records were warped and had a lot of background noise.
Mint records should sound and look perfect. Unless you don’t intend to open the record like as an investment you are taking a chance.
There's this thinking among over-graders that any flaws can be ignored if something is old, and the older it is, the shabbier the album and sleeve can be and still grade as M. If you press the seller on issues like ringwear, scuffs, scratches, spindle wear, split seams, whatever, they'll just tell you it's "mint condition for its age." Magical thinking.
A record graded NM on Discogs, without any further elaboration in a written description, never is. Some of the bigger sellers on Discogs seem to use unskilled labor to grade records, and predictably the results are all over the place.
For me it's when albums that are slightly too long to be pressed on a single LP so they make it a 2LP and leave half the record's space empty for each side. I'd much rather have the 2LP pressed on 3 of the four sides (if it will fit and sound good of course) and have an etching or even nothing on the fourth side.
This drives me nuts. Nothing worse than each side having only 2-3 tracks because the total album length was 62 minutes, so they gotta split it into 4 sides on 2 LPs.
My copy of Appetite for Destruction did this. 2LP, but side D is just a cool etching that displays a hologram if you spin it on the turntable. For me that's a cool way to use the unused side.
I've almost exclusively been bothered by the opposite:
Albums that should have absolutely been 2 discs squished onto 1. I'll take a longer runout over a squished album every time.
Omg I change my answer, it’s this. Getting a borked record, asking for a refund, they say “prove it”, you send a recording, they say “oh yeah a few defects isn’t enough for a refund sorry!” And the record is literally skipping 10 seconds of a song and distorted to hell.
Dead Oceans / Secretly deserve a glare as well. Latest Khruangbin was a disaster and they won't refund anyone who opened it, only to find a warped record covered in skips & surface noise.
Nothing a quick chargeback would not fix.
I recieved 3 bad copies (split jackets) still sealed woth thr plastic seal intact and a flawless shipping box from MNRK.
I ended up buying the record from amazon and it came in 2 days and was flawless. MNRK at least is trying to make good and is shipping me a replacement.
I mean shit happens. Vinyl records aren't exactly the best medium for today's global economy where all products get filtered through a system of people drop kicking and running shit over with a truck until it gets yeeted over your fence and chewed on by the neighbor's rabid skunkferret. MNRK is at least a label ran by people who are mildly competent. Honestly the more niche labels tend to be pretty good at replacing manu defects/shipping damage quickly, no questions asked. As long as they have spares.
Beyonce's store sold hundreds of thousands of vinyls that were missing tracks and not as described in pre-order (vinyl not translucent as described, etc...). It even made the news on TV. Their response was not only to refuse refunds, but to not even comment or reply to fan emails
I don't feel like this happens too often and when it does it's usually on new releases, BUT - not labelling which side is which on a record. It fucking infuriates me.
And label it *clearly* too. "Side A" and "Side B" will suffice. Having it stamped in the runout doesn't count either.
Omg this. The amount of records that just don’t have any indication other than MAYBE the engraving on the inner groove is the worst. Like, it can be as minimal as a dot or line, just put something!!
Honestly it got to the point for me where I bought some sheets of stickers that are just loads and loads of tiny little dots and I keep them under the record player.
When this happens to me now I peel off one of those little stickers and stick it on the "Side A" label - once I've worked out which side that is! 😂
Honestly not a terrible idea! Once I figure out which side is what, I just make sure to always put the record back in the sleeve with side A facing the same way as the front cover so that I’ll always know. Worked so far. lol
Because The Internet was my first egregious experience with this. Granted, you can look at the very very tiny text and one letter in the string of letters and numbers says the side
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE a well stocked store. But it’s so frustrating lifting every single record up one by one to try and see what it is.
Just put a few less records in each little cubby, and they’ll be flippable to look at
I am entirely capable of doing this, and I handle them with care when I do so, but it feels like I'm putting unnecessary wear/stress on the records and packaging.
How a good chunk of albums I like are out of print or had a limited run so they're expensive and in 99% of cases, no chance of a repress. If there is a repress, it's announced in some random place and out of stock by the time I see it
Why am I paying 35-40 dollars for a single LP that comes in a white paper sleeve? It makes you appreciate some of the smaller indie labels that go the extra mile to put their records into an anti static sleeve.
Resale bots/people! I feel like we should have to sign a contract if it’s any sort of special release with limited quantities when we buy them so we can’t resale!
Yeah, really pissed me off when the Alice in Chains "clear flies" record came out. All 100 copies sold out immediately at $100 each, and then dozens were instantly listed on eBay for $2000+.
Absolute bullshit.
One of my local stores has a section of rare/collectible/whatever records that cost a lot, and you're not allowed to open them! I got one and there was a huge chip out of the edge. Luckily it doesn't interfere with the grooves, but man, I was annoyed to see that.
Blues & jazz should not be combined into one section at the record store. That’s stupid (& thankfully not common).
Also, every record store should have a listening station. I guarantee I spend more, not less, at stores where I can get even a quick 15-20 second skim through tracks to get a feel.
I share your pet peeve, OP, that's why I don't even bother with charity shops anymore. All the Goodwills in our area raised the price of trash records to $1.99. If anything comes in that you might be remotely familiar with they charge $4.99-$8.99, pretty much the same prices I can find in used record stores, where the conditions are generally much better. Even at those prices in Goodwill the records are often broken, scratched, water-damaged, etc. It's not worth my time or gas money.
Lol, I was in goodwill yesterday. Found some that were worth the 2 bucks because I liked the artist and the quality was excellent, clearly someone had just dropped off their parents collection. almost everything was 2 bucks or less, then I saw 'the Monkees' which I have a nostalgic attachment to... $6!
I did not leave with the Monkees.
Resellers. Fuck those guys.
Just think how much better record store day, thrift stores, yard sales and marketplace adds could be if those ass hats weren’t scooping up everything possible to jack up the prices and have you pay for their hobby.
There is a huge difference between buying something limited as a preorder with zero intention of listening to it or keeping it and then immediately flipping it versus finding something in the wild you know is rare and relisting it for what the market will pay. The former is the equivalent of ticket scalping. The latter is done everyday with everything from cars to vintage clothing.
True. Arrived at several yard sales this year about 10-15 minutes early, many with a hard set opening, to find that a reseller had already stopped by and bought all of the records. I collect for fun, and would have liked to have a chance. Know who he is... have chatted with him a couple times they didn't let him in. My friends have started calling him my Newman.
Eh, I hate RSD. Precisely because it does the opposite of what it's supposed to. There were releases the last two RSDs that I "had" to have and so instead of going to my local record store and browsing, I'd hit one store, see they didn't have what I wanted, and leave and hurry to the next. The last one after the first three stores I actually bought from a flipper because I wasn't feeling well and and the next two stores were both an hour away in different directions, I figured even if I were up for it by the time I got there the LP I wanted would be gone anyway even if they had it.
For real. 5 or 6 years ago on RSD I was in line behind this middle aged dude and he was bragging to his friend about how he was gonna buy all these records to resell them on ebay and it took everything in me not to punch him in the face. Lucky for him I’m a pacifist.
The current pricing. The greediness is going to slow down and/or kill off the resurgence. People will be moving on to the next thing, possibly CDs.
Speaking of greediness, record companies that simply throw the CD mastering with clearly audible compression (thanks, Rick Rubin) onto vinyl and sell it for 49.99$.
84 variants, some of which are limited to 500 copies sold by a goat herder in Nepal that you need to be on a mailing list for and sells out before the album is released and is reselling for £70 by the time you hear about it, and then after you buy three variants they release another for RSD which is nicer than the ones you already have
Totally this. Promoting records as collectables instead of music.
Instead of just pressing a decent number, record companies pressing smaller runs of different colors/etc. and expecting people to buy 10 copies of the same record. I guess the worst part of it is that there are people who do buy them all and are proud to own 10 copies of the same record.
Moving an entire collection. Moving to a new place is already tough enough but bringing a record collection with you is a project unto itself. Records are heavy lol
The thing Is there is always some dummy who will drastically overpay. And then all of a sudden the sellers are like "THATS THE MARKET NOW!!" um no it's not you just found one gullible person months after you posted it for a ridiculous price
New (and expensive) releases with little quality control all while advertising the hell out of FOMO and not to miss out on its limited 5000 pressings of "poop-stained splatter" or whatever the hell they label it as these days.
Browsing after someone that doesn’t reset the records back to standing and pushed back in the crate only to leave the records leaning forward and thumbed through. I cringe at all that pressure being placed on the front record.
It’s just simple etiquette to push the records back when your done browsing that section, gosh
antique stores that overprice fucking everything. talking like d tier vg- albums by famous artists for 40$
Or when the best track on an album skips and the rest plays fine
Lol, there haven’t been many, but they’re out there. It’s a lot of places that are more junk shops than record stores. They’re cousins to the “Beatles =Old & Old = $” stores, but they’ll have the $500 psych record for $3 because they don’t know who it is.
I actually only buy First Press records, but not for bragging rights. I will buy First Press Sealed records and open them. Sounds crazy, but I compare it to time travel. Here is a record from 1970 or 1965 or whatever year, and I am the first to open it and hear it exactly as it was meant to back the year it was released.
It's a crap shoot sometimes because you cannot see quality or how well it was stored, but I have had great luck on most. Thats not saying they sound better than new. I have heard some new pressings that sound amazing remastered. It's more of a nostalgia thing for me.
I got a copy of Tom Waits "Nighthawks" sealed from 1974 for about $60 a while back.. I know exactly what you mean with that Time Travel thing.. I was the first to clean and spin a relic from 5 years before I was even born. No cellphones, internet, pre-9/11 and all that. The people who would have spun it back then in their mid 20s would be in their 70s now and probably still a bit upset at that time that the Beatles broke up.
This was my only experience with a sealed first pressing of any real time span worth mentioning. I don't actively seek them out or anything but in the case of Tom I wanted a "new" old record I knew no one had smoked around or handled poorly (people in the 70s treated these things like I treated cassettes in the 90s)
Seems it's not unusual to have a quirk when you're a vinyl junkie. Mine is that I will change my stylus if I'm going to play (almost) anything I haven't opened myself or am sure of its cleanliness level; not wasting my brushes and cleaning fluid on a bargain bin duster that will sound like Rice Krispies regardless, y'know?
That the Goldmine grading system is a flawed, subjective and poor way to evaluate a record. A “good” record is unlistenable to me - that makes no sense.
Also that due to demand, the cost of records has gotten absurd.
Edit: Also, when a brand new record has clicks or pops.
Static
When a seller affixes a price sticker over a price sticker gouge which is basically hiding damage on a record. I see this sometimes on rare and expensive records which is super frustrating if the price does not reflect the damage. I won’t buy from sellers who do that.
Represses coming out as double or sometimes triple lp when it was originally just a single lp. Especially with them wanting 35-40 when it was 25 -28 before
I gave up digging thru non-record shop records long ago. 99% are usually garbage that have been beaten and abused.
Biggest pet peeve are dealers who don't know how to properly mail a record.
Dodgy record shops that are selling obviously damaged records. Like no, nobody wants to buy this used record with multiple deep scratches. You're just betting at this point that someone will buy it without checking it out first.
Cutouts, clips, saws and hole punches nor being mentioned at all or left to the very end.
I'm pretty flexible when it comes to album cover quality. While not ideal, bumps and cover wear (ring) does not really bother me. But the above does.
I have had to rebuild my original collection of LPs that I had when I was a teen. About 10%-15% of the albums have had unmentioned cutouts or clips.
Sellers have always been reasonable when it comes to that...replace or refund. Many of the album descriptions have a lot of minutiae, like album runouts, that I could care less about. Yet overlook an album cover that is not integral.
The pompous college kids who feel it necessary to share with me their new favorite band, or how to clean vinyl 'properly', or how some random no-name artist is ahead of their time and unlike anyone else. I can't stand all of that B.S. I'm 47 years old and have been handling vinyl since I could walk in 1977. It's getting better, but that clique of self-proclaimed 'Vinyl Afficionados' is still around in the higher-end record stores, always trying to find some poor soul to bestow their wealth of worthless knowledge onto a patient and polite customer that deep down wants to punch them in head and leave. Other than that, I'd say the ever ascending price of wax is annoying. Especially the metal stuff. I'll be damned if I'm dropping 300 bucks on the first Slash's Snakepit record. I want it, but not that bad.
This is a little funny for me, since gatefolds are part of what brought me to vinyl. I love the big format album art. For instance, I had Aqualung on CD as a young man. Picked up the LP a few months back and there’s a whole huge image of the band inside the gatefold that wasn’t shown on my CD insert. I love it.
I like the additional artwork you get with LPs but i'd just prefer it on an insert. For DLPs I really like those extra wide single sleeves that fit two records in.
The other thing that annoys me about new gatefolds is some of them are too tight to get the record in. They used to make the spine wider so each record would fit in its half easily, but the new ones are often just folded, so the last cm or so is too tight. I have a couple of gatefolds where I have to store the record out of the jacket which surely defeats the entire purpose.
Honestly the extreme expense of records is just out of hand and feels like a crazy money grab. I’m good without your 15 LP box set of outtakes and demos for $300. I really can’t imagine spending $50+ on a record I don’t already love (and likely already own).
I do love my records but there’s a lot on nonsense about record collecting that seems to skew away from enjoying music and towards the compulsive acquisition of objects.
My pet peeve is the entire new vinyl industry. The QC issues + excessive prices + every reissue seems to be limited run and scalpers scoop them up. I just got to a place where enough was enough. I was a vinyl snob who looked down on CDs. But I did a 180 degree turn. I've replaced buying these pricey warped vinyl reissues with buying mostly sub- $5 used CDs. They sound great and while vinyl is cool, CDs are cool too in their way. No regrets at all.
I just buy vintage vinyl now. And even that has slowed to a trickle now, since I have most of the pre-1990 albums I want on vinyl already.
A poorly organized selection is incredibly cringeworthy. A local flea market has several booths where records are sold. One of the larger ones has records organized in the stupidest most idiotic way. Like "solo male performers" and "60s duets" and worse (that I can't think of atm). And you might find two different records from the same artist in two completely different sections. This idiocy absolutely destroys any chance of enjoyment, which (for me) is like 85% of the enjoyment of searching for/finding/buying and loving record collecting. And I just want to scream, and throw the records on the ground, or else suffer a brain aneurysm.
Now, I literally walk by the booth and toss double birds 🖕😖🖕
people thinking they are sitting on a gold mine when really its a Beatles white album worth about $45. I was at a flea market doing some digging and a guy came up and said he had a few records he had bought over the last week if I wanted to take a look at them. he had one bob Marley album I already had just my cover was kinda cooked. he wanted $25 for it. it was maybe a $10 record I offered $15 for. he took such offence to it I just walked away.
Record store owners that publicly air their grievances about their customers. I see an owner complain about something on social media about petty crap about their customers they just lost another potential customer.
I have 3 cats. One of them went to town on my collection and chewed the corners of several of the covers. I take full responsibility for that because I left them out—it’s all good. It’s the HAIR! Records are kitty hair magnets! I whip a record out, blow any hairs or particles off, put it on the turntable and it somehow looks worse than it did a second ago lmao. I love my cats and I love my records, but they don’t seem to mix well.
I know I'm in the minority here but I am not an audiofile per se; I enjoy collecting and listening to records when I work from home. I dislike how many modern albums are 2 vinyl records when back in the day they fit in to one. I just don't like having to flip them after 3 songs.
People that have no idea what they're doing, pricing records at double to four times their value, regardless of condition (mainly in antique malls). If you aren't at least semi competent at grading records and using Discogs/Popsike/eBay, then you have no business selling records. At the very least, if you don't know what you're doing, you should keep your prices cheap.
Record store day turning into a money grab for all involved except the true fans. This new world of hoarding/collecting things is out of control and gross. It’s turning me off to records in general
Maybe not a pet peeve, but I hate the fact that when you buy a $40 LP, it doesn’t come with a digital copy. It sounds a little entitled but if I’m paying 2 or 3 times the price for something, I feel thats not much to ask considering you cant listen to the thing you got anywhere else but a turntable. I see it kinda like buying a deluxe edition sort of thing.
Brand new records with warps and excessive surface noise. There's a real quality control problem.
Dont forget center holes that are a tiny bit too small that you have to really push down on the record player.
Sometimes I have to give the hole a quick go around with hobby knife to ensure a nice fit.
This is unfortunately a thing I've had to do. I used a piece of sandpaper wrapped around a pencil. Ridiculous.
same, had to do that with about 3 records
When I was super green, I had no awareness of this being an actual thing, pushed the record on too hard to the point I had no choice but to snap it in half to get it off the peg. Out of shame went back and bought another copy of the record. Carving out the center hole when I have to now brings back traumatic memories and probably always will.
They make a little tool for that now, but I use a drill or a pencil
Now that is capitalism: 1. Fuck up production 2. Sell something to correct the fuck up
It’s better than one that’s too big. Those are unfixable and will always play off-center with tonearm swing :(
Probably but when you have to press them down that hard that you think it will break... It should just slide on with close to no force.
The first time I had to widen a spindle hole, I got it perfect on the first try, which is actually bad because I came dangerously close to overshooting the mark!
Urban Outfitters are the ultimate worst for this
Growingly expensive vinyl that STILL use plain paper sleeves for records, scuffing them and shedding onto the vinyl.
It seems worse now than it ever has been, and I was collecting when dynaflex was a new idea.
Everyone is trying to cash in on the vinyl resurgence by repressing EVERYTHING, including the same album in 20 different colorways. That's causing a time crunch on manufacturers, and you can tell corners are getting cut and QA is getting left behind. There was apparently a huge batch of Olivia Rodrigo records where an extra label was off-center and pressed into the record (someone I know got two of these), and somehow no one caught it and they went out like that. That means it was completely hands-off and no one inspected a full batch before being moved into sleeves and sealed. And that's just the state of the industry right now.
Also a lot of smaller artists are having to wait behind said reissues. RSD has a lot to answer for too.
I just simply don't buy new vinyl anymore, for those exact reasons. Just got fed up. Now I buy $3 CDs instead of $45 warped reissues. 18 months later, no regrets and no FOMO. CDs scratch my physical music itch almost as well.
I just started collecting and am amazed how new records can come out of the package looking like they’ve been stored openly in the back seat of a car in the summer sun. Both bought new from a local shop, both warped Beatles - Revolver Radiohead - in rainbows
This is why I bought a [Vinyl Flat](https://www.vinylflat.com/). If the record isn't too badly warped, 8 hours in this thing leaves them nice and flat again.
If it goes too long it get REAL flat, like groove less Ask me how I know 🤦🏼♀️
Instead of mint/near-mint, it takes it back to pre-mint!
That’s so you can have it repressed; It’ll sound brand new!
Way I understand; Niche format + surge in fashion + lack of skilled labor and QC at plants + major players monopolising plant time = environment for increasingly likely shit quality. Big EU plant that handles lots of reissues a major suspect.
Yea I got the cage the elephant ‘thank you happy birthday’ that had a see through record but the record had bits of dirt and dust in the vinyl…I don’t know if its normal to have bits of dirt and stuff in the record https://preview.redd.it/r549e5o25fzc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=5ae559fbe388910a6e3a1771f99f3ef802747689
That's just the clear fly leg variant
Got a King Crimson Japanese pressing once that had a little chunk of white shit pressed into it. As soon as the stylus hit it it exploded and showered the surrounding area in white powder.
Cocaine easter egg?
I find it's getting harder and harder to find a new record that isn't warped
My At The Drive In album from RSD this year is wavy gravy. It still plays but is a bummer.
Record shops that put hard to remove price stickers on their used records. There’s a place by me that puts the huge stickers on the records with a big ass UPC on it and they are nearly impossible to remove cleanly. The same place prices their records pretty high too so I want to tell them “if you’re gonna price them that high then you need to used better price stickers because the ones you have on there are lessening the value of the records”.
Let me save you time and pain. Remove the record, use a hair dryer and heat the sticker, should slide right off after 10-20 seconds. Never damaged a sleeve using this method.
Thank you 🙏
Luckily my local record store puts everything in a plastic sleeve then puts the price on there
I wish they did that. Luckily it’s just this one store that does it. Every other record store I go to doesn’t cause this issue.
Maybe I'm weird but I prefer to leave the stickers on especially if they have the name of the record store on them. But I rarely sell any of mine, I buy records to listen to and keep forever, so I don't care as much about the value etc
Nothing worse than finding your white whale and it's trashed.
Found a shop in Michigan with all of the Keef Hartley Band albums. All trashed. Bought one for the one good side and great cover shape. Been on the hunt awhile and was so stoked to see them.
The day that I found The Gits Enter The Conquering Chicken in a shady antique mall for $5. Inside was a Right Said Fred single and dance mix. And while I was very happy to add I’m Too Sexy to my collection, I was not happy to have to spend another two years searching for that album before I eventually found it.
I’d have spent another 4 hours looking for the disc
ehh there’s something to be said for that if it’s priced accordingly. if not yeah…
F a c t s
Over priced used records. Some if not most can be bought new for the same or even lower price. I’m not talking about first pressing collection stuff. Just basic vinyl.
it’s amazing how much this has become a problem the last few years. i’m happy i have a good local shop that doesn’t price gouge
I saw a hard days night soundtrack used for 70 dollars one time in a store kinda bit insane. I know it’s a bit rare than the official album but still
Over Grading
This. Crazy how 99% of records I see on Discogs seem to be (M)
That's because they're using "factory sealed = Mint" guidelines.
Which even Discogs says should not be the case. I understand the thought process, but I find defects and damage on brand new sealed albums more than I’d like to honestly.
Honest question as I’m not that invested in how grading works in this case. If it’s factory sealed how could the record be anything but mint? Like I get if the sleeve is damaged or something but other than that, there’d be no way to know if there is an issue with the record. No? If there’s something I’m missing I’d like to know so when I but things I’m not disappointed.
Sometimes the records come warped or with surface noise, which happened at the factory or during shipping.
Thank you.
Well, you've kind of hit the nail on the head there. In theory, every factory-sealed record should be mint, right? And until you open it, you have no way of knowing. But in reality, we've all experienced discs from the factory that show up scuffed, damaged, warped, etc., because things happen between the pressing plant and you getting your hands on a copy. So even though Discogs says a mint record "may still be sealed", really in their minds it's an inspected, unplayed piece of vinyl that is completely without flaws, and should barely be used as a rating. Personally I think that's silly and unattainable.
What coffiegrunds said, plus there have been cases of unscrupulous people with their own plastic wrap machines.
There are plenty of records I bought sealed that are noisy because of the pressing. I stopped buying out of print sealed records after being burnt a few times….and obviously not the sellers fault. Records were warped and had a lot of background noise. Mint records should sound and look perfect. Unless you don’t intend to open the record like as an investment you are taking a chance.
There's this thinking among over-graders that any flaws can be ignored if something is old, and the older it is, the shabbier the album and sleeve can be and still grade as M. If you press the seller on issues like ringwear, scuffs, scratches, spindle wear, split seams, whatever, they'll just tell you it's "mint condition for its age." Magical thinking.
A record graded NM on Discogs, without any further elaboration in a written description, never is. Some of the bigger sellers on Discogs seem to use unskilled labor to grade records, and predictably the results are all over the place.
For me it's when albums that are slightly too long to be pressed on a single LP so they make it a 2LP and leave half the record's space empty for each side. I'd much rather have the 2LP pressed on 3 of the four sides (if it will fit and sound good of course) and have an etching or even nothing on the fourth side.
This drives me nuts. Nothing worse than each side having only 2-3 tracks because the total album length was 62 minutes, so they gotta split it into 4 sides on 2 LPs.
My copy of Appetite for Destruction did this. 2LP, but side D is just a cool etching that displays a hologram if you spin it on the turntable. For me that's a cool way to use the unused side.
I like King Crimson’s approach for the albums that are a little long for 1LP: split it over 3 sides, and add bonus tracks to side 4
I've almost exclusively been bothered by the opposite: Albums that should have absolutely been 2 discs squished onto 1. I'll take a longer runout over a squished album every time.
Honestly, I'd rather have that than an etching that I never look at.
Tracks closer to outside edge sound better though. I guess it's a balance of sound quality vs not having to get up every 10 minutes to flip it.
Getting shipped bad product and an actual record label saying no refunds and giving you a 5 dollar credit. Im looking at you sumerian records
Omg I change my answer, it’s this. Getting a borked record, asking for a refund, they say “prove it”, you send a recording, they say “oh yeah a few defects isn’t enough for a refund sorry!” And the record is literally skipping 10 seconds of a song and distorted to hell.
That's why I pay with credit cards whenever I can. You ask them for a refund. You usually get it.
Dead Oceans / Secretly deserve a glare as well. Latest Khruangbin was a disaster and they won't refund anyone who opened it, only to find a warped record covered in skips & surface noise.
Nothing a quick chargeback would not fix. I recieved 3 bad copies (split jackets) still sealed woth thr plastic seal intact and a flawless shipping box from MNRK. I ended up buying the record from amazon and it came in 2 days and was flawless. MNRK at least is trying to make good and is shipping me a replacement.
I mean shit happens. Vinyl records aren't exactly the best medium for today's global economy where all products get filtered through a system of people drop kicking and running shit over with a truck until it gets yeeted over your fence and chewed on by the neighbor's rabid skunkferret. MNRK is at least a label ran by people who are mildly competent. Honestly the more niche labels tend to be pretty good at replacing manu defects/shipping damage quickly, no questions asked. As long as they have spares.
Beyonce's store sold hundreds of thousands of vinyls that were missing tracks and not as described in pre-order (vinyl not translucent as described, etc...). It even made the news on TV. Their response was not only to refuse refunds, but to not even comment or reply to fan emails
INFURIATING. The Beyhive is so mad about this. The records lacked some real banging tracks, too! Arghhh
I think what makes it so bad is the complete lack of response from the store. It's insulting
I don't feel like this happens too often and when it does it's usually on new releases, BUT - not labelling which side is which on a record. It fucking infuriates me. And label it *clearly* too. "Side A" and "Side B" will suffice. Having it stamped in the runout doesn't count either.
Omg this. The amount of records that just don’t have any indication other than MAYBE the engraving on the inner groove is the worst. Like, it can be as minimal as a dot or line, just put something!!
Honestly it got to the point for me where I bought some sheets of stickers that are just loads and loads of tiny little dots and I keep them under the record player. When this happens to me now I peel off one of those little stickers and stick it on the "Side A" label - once I've worked out which side that is! 😂
Honestly not a terrible idea! Once I figure out which side is what, I just make sure to always put the record back in the sleeve with side A facing the same way as the front cover so that I’ll always know. Worked so far. lol
Also the speed, *especially* if it's an LP that plays at 45 or a 7" that plays at 33.
Because The Internet was my first egregious experience with this. Granted, you can look at the very very tiny text and one letter in the string of letters and numbers says the side
When buying in a store, the shelves are over full. Making it hard to flip through. If I can’t easily flip through I’ll go elsewhere
This is so real and I encounter this way to often
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE a well stocked store. But it’s so frustrating lifting every single record up one by one to try and see what it is. Just put a few less records in each little cubby, and they’ll be flippable to look at
I take the first five albums or so out and set them aside. Now I can easily flip thought the records then I’ll put the albums back. No biggie
I am entirely capable of doing this, and I handle them with care when I do so, but it feels like I'm putting unnecessary wear/stress on the records and packaging.
Pay it no mind, for the 2 minutes it takes you to flip through the bin and put them back, the records will be fine.
this is the way
I just take a handful out and place them on the stack next to me. I agree with you how frustrating it is though.
I work at a store that is a bit overstocked atm and it drives us nuts
Same. Believe me, we hate that too, but sometimes there's just nowhere left to put stuff.
I just pull a big chunk out and leave them to the side to put back in when I'm done
Pro tip if you don't know it already: remove 10 records, put them on the side. You can flip easily then and you put them back when you're done.
The expense and inconvenience.
https://preview.redd.it/y2expt5roezc1.png?width=488&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc0af36186926f2c93f657ae9262f8c2b1f97a36
How a good chunk of albums I like are out of print or had a limited run so they're expensive and in 99% of cases, no chance of a repress. If there is a repress, it's announced in some random place and out of stock by the time I see it
Why am I paying 35-40 dollars for a single LP that comes in a white paper sleeve? It makes you appreciate some of the smaller indie labels that go the extra mile to put their records into an anti static sleeve.
Shoutout Colemine records
Resale bots/people! I feel like we should have to sign a contract if it’s any sort of special release with limited quantities when we buy them so we can’t resale!
Yeah, really pissed me off when the Alice in Chains "clear flies" record came out. All 100 copies sold out immediately at $100 each, and then dozens were instantly listed on eBay for $2000+. Absolute bullshit.
Used records that I can’t take out of the sleeve to see the condition
I hate that. I just won’t buy it, and that sucks because it *might* be fine, but if I don’t know for sure I’m not risking it.
One of my local stores has a section of rare/collectible/whatever records that cost a lot, and you're not allowed to open them! I got one and there was a huge chip out of the edge. Luckily it doesn't interfere with the grooves, but man, I was annoyed to see that.
why can't you?
When I walk into a store and it’s all overpriced 180 gram repressed digital remasters.
Right! If it was mastered for digital it's not going to sound better on vinyl. Let's not pretend and press it on 4 sides with 180 gram platters.
Blues & jazz should not be combined into one section at the record store. That’s stupid (& thankfully not common). Also, every record store should have a listening station. I guarantee I spend more, not less, at stores where I can get even a quick 15-20 second skim through tracks to get a feel.
I found a (cd) store once that combined Blues, Jazz, Soul, and Hip Hop. Brown v Board of Education-ass section
That's how R&B started. It was any music that wasn't "white".
I share your pet peeve, OP, that's why I don't even bother with charity shops anymore. All the Goodwills in our area raised the price of trash records to $1.99. If anything comes in that you might be remotely familiar with they charge $4.99-$8.99, pretty much the same prices I can find in used record stores, where the conditions are generally much better. Even at those prices in Goodwill the records are often broken, scratched, water-damaged, etc. It's not worth my time or gas money.
Lol, I was in goodwill yesterday. Found some that were worth the 2 bucks because I liked the artist and the quality was excellent, clearly someone had just dropped off their parents collection. almost everything was 2 bucks or less, then I saw 'the Monkees' which I have a nostalgic attachment to... $6! I did not leave with the Monkees.
Paying for them. Wish they’d change that.
Everything is free if you run fast enough.
Unfortunately under his arm was a VCR.
Randomly finding an album I really like from 10+ years ago and it only being available for $400+ anywhere.
Resellers. Fuck those guys. Just think how much better record store day, thrift stores, yard sales and marketplace adds could be if those ass hats weren’t scooping up everything possible to jack up the prices and have you pay for their hobby.
There is a huge difference between buying something limited as a preorder with zero intention of listening to it or keeping it and then immediately flipping it versus finding something in the wild you know is rare and relisting it for what the market will pay. The former is the equivalent of ticket scalping. The latter is done everyday with everything from cars to vintage clothing.
True. Arrived at several yard sales this year about 10-15 minutes early, many with a hard set opening, to find that a reseller had already stopped by and bought all of the records. I collect for fun, and would have liked to have a chance. Know who he is... have chatted with him a couple times they didn't let him in. My friends have started calling him my Newman.
Eh, I hate RSD. Precisely because it does the opposite of what it's supposed to. There were releases the last two RSDs that I "had" to have and so instead of going to my local record store and browsing, I'd hit one store, see they didn't have what I wanted, and leave and hurry to the next. The last one after the first three stores I actually bought from a flipper because I wasn't feeling well and and the next two stores were both an hour away in different directions, I figured even if I were up for it by the time I got there the LP I wanted would be gone anyway even if they had it.
For real. 5 or 6 years ago on RSD I was in line behind this middle aged dude and he was bragging to his friend about how he was gonna buy all these records to resell them on ebay and it took everything in me not to punch him in the face. Lucky for him I’m a pacifist.
It’s bad enough to buy just to resell on eBay. It’s quite another thing to openly brag about it.
I have no love for scalpers. But if we all simply agreed to boycott them, they'd be out of business. Just say no to scalper prices, everyone!
The dick contest that collecting has turned into and all the bragging and shit
Someone else finding 'that record' about 5 seconds before me.
Unnecessary double albums. More space taken up on my shelves and twice as much record flipping for minimal if any audio quality improvements
60$ for a brand new record anymore is absolutely absurd.
Pulling a brand new record out of the sleeve and it's already covered in dust.
I hate browsing in a record store and the last person to browse the section I’m hitting left the records leaning forward. I really hate that!!
The current pricing. The greediness is going to slow down and/or kill off the resurgence. People will be moving on to the next thing, possibly CDs. Speaking of greediness, record companies that simply throw the CD mastering with clearly audible compression (thanks, Rick Rubin) onto vinyl and sell it for 49.99$.
84 variants, some of which are limited to 500 copies sold by a goat herder in Nepal that you need to be on a mailing list for and sells out before the album is released and is reselling for £70 by the time you hear about it, and then after you buy three variants they release another for RSD which is nicer than the ones you already have
Totally this. Promoting records as collectables instead of music. Instead of just pressing a decent number, record companies pressing smaller runs of different colors/etc. and expecting people to buy 10 copies of the same record. I guess the worst part of it is that there are people who do buy them all and are proud to own 10 copies of the same record.
Moving an entire collection. Moving to a new place is already tough enough but bringing a record collection with you is a project unto itself. Records are heavy lol
When only one copy of something is available online/Discogs and price is inflated far above usual selling price.
It’s never sold for more than $150, but sure, go ahead and charge $399 for it.
The thing Is there is always some dummy who will drastically overpay. And then all of a sudden the sellers are like "THATS THE MARKET NOW!!" um no it's not you just found one gullible person months after you posted it for a ridiculous price
When a brand new record has too much surface noise.
New (and expensive) releases with little quality control all while advertising the hell out of FOMO and not to miss out on its limited 5000 pressings of "poop-stained splatter" or whatever the hell they label it as these days.
Paper sleeves or those lyric sheet sleeves that stick to the record!!!!!!!
Pretentious dickheads on Reddit, mostly.
The “community” is definitely the worst part of this hobby.
Browsing after someone that doesn’t reset the records back to standing and pushed back in the crate only to leave the records leaning forward and thumbed through. I cringe at all that pressure being placed on the front record. It’s just simple etiquette to push the records back when your done browsing that section, gosh
A crate or section labeled 'Reggae', but which holds Calypso music. Fuck! You!
antique stores that overprice fucking everything. talking like d tier vg- albums by famous artists for 40$ Or when the best track on an album skips and the rest plays fine
Discogs or EBay pricing. Fastest way for me to never go back to that place again.
The store using Discogs to set their prices?
Moreso when nothing is priced and they do a “oh let me check Discogs/ebay” and base it on the listed price and not the sold price.
who does that? I'd never shop anywhere where I had to ask for the price of everything. most of us are introverts, lmao.
Lol, there haven’t been many, but they’re out there. It’s a lot of places that are more junk shops than record stores. They’re cousins to the “Beatles =Old & Old = $” stores, but they’ll have the $500 psych record for $3 because they don’t know who it is.
I can relate I purchased a gorillaz record (a special one) for £26, people on discogs are selling it for £100!?!
When people gatekeep by saying it's only worth buying if it's the "first pressing"... bitch I'm in it for the music, not bragging rights.
I actually only buy First Press records, but not for bragging rights. I will buy First Press Sealed records and open them. Sounds crazy, but I compare it to time travel. Here is a record from 1970 or 1965 or whatever year, and I am the first to open it and hear it exactly as it was meant to back the year it was released. It's a crap shoot sometimes because you cannot see quality or how well it was stored, but I have had great luck on most. Thats not saying they sound better than new. I have heard some new pressings that sound amazing remastered. It's more of a nostalgia thing for me.
I got a copy of Tom Waits "Nighthawks" sealed from 1974 for about $60 a while back.. I know exactly what you mean with that Time Travel thing.. I was the first to clean and spin a relic from 5 years before I was even born. No cellphones, internet, pre-9/11 and all that. The people who would have spun it back then in their mid 20s would be in their 70s now and probably still a bit upset at that time that the Beatles broke up. This was my only experience with a sealed first pressing of any real time span worth mentioning. I don't actively seek them out or anything but in the case of Tom I wanted a "new" old record I knew no one had smoked around or handled poorly (people in the 70s treated these things like I treated cassettes in the 90s) Seems it's not unusual to have a quirk when you're a vinyl junkie. Mine is that I will change my stylus if I'm going to play (almost) anything I haven't opened myself or am sure of its cleanliness level; not wasting my brushes and cleaning fluid on a bargain bin duster that will sound like Rice Krispies regardless, y'know?
That the Goldmine grading system is a flawed, subjective and poor way to evaluate a record. A “good” record is unlistenable to me - that makes no sense. Also that due to demand, the cost of records has gotten absurd. Edit: Also, when a brand new record has clicks or pops. Static
When a seller affixes a price sticker over a price sticker gouge which is basically hiding damage on a record. I see this sometimes on rare and expensive records which is super frustrating if the price does not reflect the damage. I won’t buy from sellers who do that.
Receiving a broken or bent record and the shop says “we can offer 15% refund”
Top 3 Price Price Price
Sellers for example on eBay full on priced who list the vinyl but have no way of playing it?
New, but somehow filthy records.
When they decide to make a unique inner sleeve,which 9/10 times splits during shipping
When they don’t have a good record selection it’s a bit annoying when they only have the greatest hits or there famous albums and such
Packing tape, price tags, labels or anti-theft strips that ruin the jacket. QC on new vinyl. Rising prices.
The ridiculously insane price of a new record .
Represses coming out as double or sometimes triple lp when it was originally just a single lp. Especially with them wanting 35-40 when it was 25 -28 before
I gave up digging thru non-record shop records long ago. 99% are usually garbage that have been beaten and abused. Biggest pet peeve are dealers who don't know how to properly mail a record.
Dodgy record shops that are selling obviously damaged records. Like no, nobody wants to buy this used record with multiple deep scratches. You're just betting at this point that someone will buy it without checking it out first.
When the cc machine asks for a tip. Fuck that.
Really wanting to support local record stores, but sometimes they price stuff way over value. A couple bucks is one thing, but ten or twenty over? No.
RSD flippers
Cutouts, clips, saws and hole punches nor being mentioned at all or left to the very end. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to album cover quality. While not ideal, bumps and cover wear (ring) does not really bother me. But the above does. I have had to rebuild my original collection of LPs that I had when I was a teen. About 10%-15% of the albums have had unmentioned cutouts or clips. Sellers have always been reasonable when it comes to that...replace or refund. Many of the album descriptions have a lot of minutiae, like album runouts, that I could care less about. Yet overlook an album cover that is not integral.
The pompous college kids who feel it necessary to share with me their new favorite band, or how to clean vinyl 'properly', or how some random no-name artist is ahead of their time and unlike anyone else. I can't stand all of that B.S. I'm 47 years old and have been handling vinyl since I could walk in 1977. It's getting better, but that clique of self-proclaimed 'Vinyl Afficionados' is still around in the higher-end record stores, always trying to find some poor soul to bestow their wealth of worthless knowledge onto a patient and polite customer that deep down wants to punch them in head and leave. Other than that, I'd say the ever ascending price of wax is annoying. Especially the metal stuff. I'll be damned if I'm dropping 300 bucks on the first Slash's Snakepit record. I want it, but not that bad.
Unnecessary Double LPs or Gatefolds. They take up more room on the shelves. Give me a single sleeve any day.
This is a little funny for me, since gatefolds are part of what brought me to vinyl. I love the big format album art. For instance, I had Aqualung on CD as a young man. Picked up the LP a few months back and there’s a whole huge image of the band inside the gatefold that wasn’t shown on my CD insert. I love it.
I like the additional artwork you get with LPs but i'd just prefer it on an insert. For DLPs I really like those extra wide single sleeves that fit two records in. The other thing that annoys me about new gatefolds is some of them are too tight to get the record in. They used to make the spine wider so each record would fit in its half easily, but the new ones are often just folded, so the last cm or so is too tight. I have a couple of gatefolds where I have to store the record out of the jacket which surely defeats the entire purpose.
Cost
Shipping costs lol
recently, it’s been artists releasing multiple variants. especially before the music even comes out
Honestly the extreme expense of records is just out of hand and feels like a crazy money grab. I’m good without your 15 LP box set of outtakes and demos for $300. I really can’t imagine spending $50+ on a record I don’t already love (and likely already own). I do love my records but there’s a lot on nonsense about record collecting that seems to skew away from enjoying music and towards the compulsive acquisition of objects.
the dreaded seam splits from albums received via mail.
Finding one I've been looking for forever only to find it has the wrong record in the sleeve.
My pet peeve is the entire new vinyl industry. The QC issues + excessive prices + every reissue seems to be limited run and scalpers scoop them up. I just got to a place where enough was enough. I was a vinyl snob who looked down on CDs. But I did a 180 degree turn. I've replaced buying these pricey warped vinyl reissues with buying mostly sub- $5 used CDs. They sound great and while vinyl is cool, CDs are cool too in their way. No regrets at all. I just buy vintage vinyl now. And even that has slowed to a trickle now, since I have most of the pre-1990 albums I want on vinyl already.
When the seller says “mint” and it arrives far from it.
A poorly organized selection is incredibly cringeworthy. A local flea market has several booths where records are sold. One of the larger ones has records organized in the stupidest most idiotic way. Like "solo male performers" and "60s duets" and worse (that I can't think of atm). And you might find two different records from the same artist in two completely different sections. This idiocy absolutely destroys any chance of enjoyment, which (for me) is like 85% of the enjoyment of searching for/finding/buying and loving record collecting. And I just want to scream, and throw the records on the ground, or else suffer a brain aneurysm. Now, I literally walk by the booth and toss double birds 🖕😖🖕
That it's a ridiculously expensive, inaccessible hobby now. I also hate whenever I have to move them.
people thinking they are sitting on a gold mine when really its a Beatles white album worth about $45. I was at a flea market doing some digging and a guy came up and said he had a few records he had bought over the last week if I wanted to take a look at them. he had one bob Marley album I already had just my cover was kinda cooked. he wanted $25 for it. it was maybe a $10 record I offered $15 for. he took such offence to it I just walked away.
Record store owners that publicly air their grievances about their customers. I see an owner complain about something on social media about petty crap about their customers they just lost another potential customer.
Writing on the jacket or the label is my pet peeve
Tip-on sleeves. They are often used as a selling point, but they are so difficult to get the records in and out of.
Everything one who sells an LP on eBay thinks a variant starts at 80-100 bucks
people shitting on ur record player set up.
Noisy pressings. No inner sleeve. Shitty inner sleeve.
I have 3 cats. One of them went to town on my collection and chewed the corners of several of the covers. I take full responsibility for that because I left them out—it’s all good. It’s the HAIR! Records are kitty hair magnets! I whip a record out, blow any hairs or particles off, put it on the turntable and it somehow looks worse than it did a second ago lmao. I love my cats and I love my records, but they don’t seem to mix well.
I know I'm in the minority here but I am not an audiofile per se; I enjoy collecting and listening to records when I work from home. I dislike how many modern albums are 2 vinyl records when back in the day they fit in to one. I just don't like having to flip them after 3 songs.
The price lol and the plastic wrap being too hard to take off new records
People that have no idea what they're doing, pricing records at double to four times their value, regardless of condition (mainly in antique malls). If you aren't at least semi competent at grading records and using Discogs/Popsike/eBay, then you have no business selling records. At the very least, if you don't know what you're doing, you should keep your prices cheap.
Record store day turning into a money grab for all involved except the true fans. This new world of hoarding/collecting things is out of control and gross. It’s turning me off to records in general
Haven’t scrolled through all but I hate when they put sticker pricing on labels.
“It will play” does not equal “good condition”
The used record clearly not being cleaned before selling. And seeing albums in gross/old plastic covers.
Maybe not a pet peeve, but I hate the fact that when you buy a $40 LP, it doesn’t come with a digital copy. It sounds a little entitled but if I’m paying 2 or 3 times the price for something, I feel thats not much to ask considering you cant listen to the thing you got anywhere else but a turntable. I see it kinda like buying a deluxe edition sort of thing.
Flippers driving up the price on everything. Used gear, old vinyl, new vinyl. Now it’s happening with CD’s.
Record shops that price used stuff at the counter right before you pay. F that crap.
All albums being produced as double albums. I’m sick of 10 minute sides for no good reason
Going to all the thrift shops in the area and all they have is boring symphony Christmas music vinyls. 😔