Dave London & Filthy Rich Blog

Recently I have been asked why is Yes Mate not releasing any vinyl so I thought I would address this issue here.

I honestly never thought the domsetic vinyl industry would dry up like it has but I suppose technology has taken over. This really is a shame.

Why would a DJ pay $10 – $20 for 1 or 2 tracks on vinyl when they can get the same songs for a buck on Itunes or worse, download it for free. I don’t have an answer to this but me personally, I wish vinyl was still a force. There’s nothing like playing records when your DJ’ing and when I play from cd’s I feel empty because to me visually, my performance is lacking.

I suppose I’m an old skool guy who is a bit stuck in his ways, but nothing has the warm analog sound of vinyl.

So why has the US vinyl market dried up?

Well here’s the problem from a record labels perspective:

Vinyl manufacturing is a royal pain in the bum and I would rather be writing music that on the phone dealing with the vinyl manufacturing plants. I can’t think of a time when I was manufacturing vinyl that I didn’t run into some sort of problem. Problems such as:

- finished product taking 6 months to arrive
- warped records that were accidentally shrink wrapped
- skipping records
- poor audio quality
- someone elses song on the B side

(Ask me how I know these things)

On top of this, vinyl is a loss when it comes to $$. It is hard to break even so labels look at vinyl as a promotional tool. They can get the same types of promotion with MP3’s now…

or can they….??

MP3’s have presented labels with another problem. Before mp3’s were available, labels like Yes Mate were able to release vinyl that was relatively easy to find in the record stores.  There weren’t 1,000’s of new vinyl releases on the shelves every week because most people didn’t want to invest the time and money it takes to release a vinyl record only to sell 50 copies. Domestically, if there were 10 new breakbeat records a week, that was a good amount. In comparison, take a look at Beatport.com’s on any given day. You see 1,000’s of new songs because anyone who access to a copy of Fruity Loops and a PC can realase an MP3 on a website like Beatport. The labels don’t lose a dime if the song doesn’t sell. This leaves established labels fighting to get a promotional banner on the front page of Beatport just so people will know they have a new release. If the labels don’t get featured on the top 100 or worse the Top 20, it’s hard to find their tracks. This means many great songs are lost in the 1,000’s of new releases that come out each day.

So mp3 sites are a double edge sword. On the one hand it gives anyone a chance to get their music out there but on the flip side, it makes it so hard to find great songs because they get lost in the piles and piles of new releases.

Licensing has become another victim of technology. In past times, independent labels used to receive income for other DJ’s and labels licensing songs for use on compliation cd’s. Since the cd market is on its way out of favor, licensing income is becoming harder to find. Most major labels are manufacturing less and less cd’s. I believe in 5 years, cd’s will suffer they same death as cassettes. Cars won’t have cd players, rather docks for Ipods and hard drives to store music. Streaming internet will become a fixture in cars so you will be able to get live internet radio in your car before long.

Despite all these issues, we will be releasing some vinyl in the future. we just have to muster up enough patience to go through the motions and deal with the problems that are inherent to vinyl manufacturing.

I really wish a company could come along and figure out a way to get vinyl manufacturing right but I know this won’t happen because vinyl is on its way to a shallow grave plus there is just no money in this type of manufacturing. I hope I’m wrong about this, but just like cassette tapes, technology is going 12 rounds with vinyl and it won’t go to the scorecards.

- Till next time

Dave