Karma and Desire and Vinyl Collecting

[Dragon]

(this is a cross-post from the first world problems thread. mods feel free to delete one of these, i can't decide which.)

so i have a new turntable and i'm fully into collecting records for the first time since 2012. i had a reasonably spicy collection back then, but nowadays you can go over to Bleep and get reissues of things like Geogaddi and Tri Repetae. it's an exciting time, not to mention a new Autechre LP being on its way.

now Actress (Darren Cunningham) is one of my top-tier favourite artists - ahead of Boards of Canada by now. i got into R.I.P back in 2012 and i've followed everything since then. last year i even bought a copy of the Silver Cloud 12", not to play it but to perform a ritual. his music is deeply important to me.

now don't get me wrong - i come to watmm every day, i check my emails, i get around. and i'd like to think that when one of my favourite ever musicians releases their new album, i'd find out about it. with Boards of Canada, it's as simple as nudging open my curtains and noticing the full-scale replica of the Wicker Man statue burning away on the horizon. "oh, that's nice. BoC are up to something."

not the case with Actress, who sets up a password-protected page in the obscure depths of Bandcamp and expects people to find it. this is 48 minutes of new music! only by pure chance do i discover that "88" has been released as a prequel to Karma and Desire, the "Long-awaited return by Actress" which suddenly everyone already knows about. i couldn't even work out how to get the fucking thing and had to reach out to people to get the chance to hear it.

just yesterday i noticed that Bleep were taking pre-orders for vinyl editions of Karma and Desire (again, pure chance). and sure enough i nearly bust the screen in an effort to reach the 400-limited Crystal Fuchsia edition, which i am told is exclusive to Bleep.

now here is where i seem to be going wrong - there are some serious, fundamental aspects of music retail which aren't making sense to me:

if a website is live, and taking pre-orders for something limited to 400 copies, aren't those copies going to sell out incredibly quickly? for reference, the limited edition version of 'Quaristice' by Autechre sold out in twelve hours. that means that if you weren't browsing the Warp website on a particular day in 2008 and you didn't get your phonecall from the Gescom hotline, you were missing out on those steels. that's why in 2014 the limited version of Syro by Aphex Twin was put in special measures - buyers could place a 'ticket' and 400 people were chosen at random to receive a copy.

i've already placed my order - i didn't do the research until afterwards. and it turns out that pre-orders for my Actress record have been going since September 1st (!!!!!) and not only that, but this "exclusive" is not the exclusive, exclusive.

to put it simply, different retailers are issuing different Limited Editions - Bleep have the Pink one, but there's also "White", "Crystal Clear", and standard Black. Ninja Tune are the winners with four separate box set editions. if you pay 90 quid you get one with a special face mask - you can't ask for a refund on that one.

so the copy i'm getting is not the Amazon Lightning deal i thought it was, nor is it even especially rare - if i was going to buy one just to flip for big cash without ever opening it, i'd go for the corona-infected one, right? and just wait a goddamned minute - these are all sealed in a "Silver Foil Metallic Bag" - how are people going to tell which is which? there are four different fucking editions and you can't tell someone you've got "Crystal Fuchsia" without opening the bag!! that's one thing they don't explain to you in the checkout process. why don't they just tag them all with a Banksy shredder and be done with it.

now i guess i have two clear choices - because it's only a pre-order, and i could in theory go through Bleep's agonizing refund process and buy the copy i really want from Ninja Tune - which i would open up, and listen to, and keep a bonus copy of '88' on cassette which i would LOVE. but what about the pink vinyl? because the worst thing for me would be to cancel my order and find out there's a big, obvious reason to keep it. remember Analord? all those people who got frustrated with their delayed orders, only to find that a load of Willy Wonka kids were handed a copy of Annalogue Bubblebath 5 for sticking it out to the end.

so what am i gonna do? and how the fuck could i be so divided over something which should by all rights be as simple as this:

>new Actress rekord

>i can afford rekord

>buy rekord YAY!

it's just not right. well here we are, you're witnessing the complete breakdown of one of the greatest passions in my life, and it could not be more of a first world problem. you know what? i'm giving this its own thread, whatever. fuck millenials, fuck retailers, fuck press agents and all the promo people for fucking up their ONLY job and allowing me to miss out on new Actress. and mad props to Darren Cunningham for doing whatever he was doing for the last two years. we missed you dude x

[user]

Yeah, records are nice but not so much when it's all about the feverish consumerist wanting. I realized that my desires were too strong which was fucking my karma. As soon as  I let go, the enjoyment returned.             

[dcom]

If it's about exclusivity, bragging rights or getting a payoff on Discogs, you're doing it wrong.

If it's about the music and supporting the artists/labels as directly as possible, you're doing it right.

[Avarik]

There was a time when I'd buy all the "limited" editions of a single album.

No longer. In the end they just collect dust and having a digital lossless library is all I really need.

[IDEM]

32 minutes ago, Dragon said:

(this is a cross-post from the first world problems thread. mods feel free to delete one of these, i can't decide which.)

so i have a new turntable and i'm fully into collecting records for the first time since 2012. i had a reasonably spicy collection back then, but nowadays you can go over to Bleep and get reissues of things like Geogaddi and Tri Repetae. it's an exciting time, not to mention a new Autechre LP being on its way.

now Actress (Darren Cunningham) is one of my top-tier favourite artists - ahead of Boards of Canada by now. i got into R.I.P back in 2012 and i've followed everything since then. last year i even bought a copy of the Silver Cloud 12", not to play it but to perform a ritual. his music is deeply important to me.

now don't get me wrong - i come to watmm every day, i check my emails, i get around. and i'd like to think that when one of my favourite ever musicians releases their new album, i'd find out about it. with Boards of Canada, it's as simple as nudging open my curtains and noticing the full-scale replica of the Wicker Man statue burning away on the horizon. "oh, that's nice. BoC are up to something."

not the case with Actress, who sets up a password-protected page in the obscure depths of Bandcamp and expects people to find it. this is 48 minutes of new music! only by pure chance do i discover that "88" has been released as a prequel to Karma and Desire, the "Long-awaited return by Actress" which suddenly everyone already knows about. i couldn't even work out how to get the fucking thing and had to reach out to people to get the chance to hear it.

just yesterday i noticed that Bleep were taking pre-orders for vinyl editions of Karma and Desire (again, pure chance). and sure enough i nearly bust the screen in an effort to reach the 400-limited Crystal Fuchsia edition, which i am told is exclusive to Bleep.

now here is where i seem to be going wrong - there are some serious, fundamental aspects of music retail which aren't making sense to me:

if a website is live, and taking pre-orders for something limited to 400 copies, aren't those copies going to sell out incredibly quickly? for reference, the limited edition version of 'Quaristice' by Autechre sold out in twelve hours. that means that if you weren't browsing the Warp website on a particular day in 2008 and you didn't get your phonecall from the Gescom hotline, you were missing out on those steels. that's why in 2014 the limited version of Syro by Aphex Twin was put in special measures - buyers could place a 'ticket' and 400 people were chosen at random to receive a copy.

i've already placed my order - i didn't do the research until afterwards. and it turns out that pre-orders for my Actress record have been going since September 1st (!!!!!) and not only that, but this "exclusive" is not the exclusive, exclusive.

to put it simply, different retailers are issuing different Limited Editions - Bleep have the Pink one, but there's also "White", "Crystal Clear", and standard Black. Ninja Tune are the winners with four separate box set editions. if you pay 90 quid you get one with a special face mask - you can't ask for a refund on that one.

so the copy i'm getting is not the Amazon Lightning deal i thought it was, nor is it even especially rare - if i was going to buy one just to flip for big cash without ever opening it, i'd go for the corona-infected one, right? and just wait a goddamned minute - these are all sealed in a "Silver Foil Metallic Bag" - how are people going to tell which is which? there are four different fucking editions and you can't tell someone you've got "Crystal Fuchsia" without opening the bag!! that's one thing they don't explain to you in the checkout process. why don't they just tag them all with a Banksy shredder and be done with it.

now i guess i have two clear choices - because it's only a pre-order, and i could in theory go through Bleep's agonizing refund process and buy the copy i really want from Ninja Tune - which i would open up, and listen to, and keep a bonus copy of '88' on cassette which i would LOVE. but what about the pink vinyl? because the worst thing for me would be to cancel my order and find out there's a big, obvious reason to keep it. remember Analord? all those people who got frustrated with their delayed orders, only to find that a load of Willy Wonka kids were handed a copy of Annalogue Bubblebath 5 for sticking it out to the end.

so what am i gonna do? and how the fuck could i be so divided over something which should by all rights be as simple as this:

>new Actress rekord

>i can afford rekord

>buy rekord YAY!

it's just not right. well here we are, you're witnessing the complete breakdown of one of the greatest passions in my life, and it could not be more of a first world problem. you know what? i'm giving this its own thread, whatever. fuck millenials, fuck retailers, fuck press agents and all the promo people for fucking up their ONLY job and allowing me to miss out on new Actress. and mad props to Darren Cunningham for doing whatever he was doing for the last two years. we missed you dude x

Welcome to 2020, the hipsters have won.

What I don't get though: How did you "miss out on new Actress"? I mean, you can still get the music, right? Just enjoy the tunes and try not to worry about special editions, special special editions or extra special special editions. At least you can buy it at all; that's still better than some of the Giegling stuff or whatever, where they put out a limited amount, and you can't even get the friggin' music, unless you pirate it or there's a reissue months later. That annoys me to no end.

[Dragon]

24 minutes ago, IDEM said:

Welcome to 2020, the hipsters have won.

What I don't get though: How did you "miss out on new Actress"? I mean, you can still get the music, right? Just enjoy the tunes and try not to worry about special editions, special special editions or extra special special editions. At least you can buy it at all; that's still better than some of the Giegling stuff or whatever, where they put out a limited amount, and you can't even get the friggin' music, unless you pirate it or there's a reissue months later. That annoys me to no end.

i'll definitely be able to buy/listen to it, but it perplexes me that it was this hard to discover he was releasing a new album to begin with. i could've easily missed out on '88', and even when that was happening reporters were acting as if Karma and Desire was announced and known about for some time. i just thought, being such a huge fan, that i'd be in the loop about these things.

and you guys sure kept quiet about it! there's one thread about this record in New and Upcoming sub but hardly any info. am i supposed to wait until his album is mentioned in the Trump thread, like with SIGN?

[sidewinder]

Instead of deleting the cross-post (not that I would expect that), maybe it could be moved to the music part of the forum.

https://forum.watmm.com/forum/25-music-discussion/

[sidewinder]

I used to get super excited about exclusive variants, not to the point of buying more than one variant for any specific album (ok I did that once, had two different color variants and a black version of a said album), but I did try to score a unique variant if one was available. Then I got tired of it. I wasn't interested in spending more money buying that shit on Discogs if I had missed out on it, and just got annoyed with how fast stuff would sell out and seeing it pop up immediately on Discogs. It's just not worth it. Now, most of the time I intentionally just buy the black versions of albums if I can. We know sound quality is better, and I don't have to worry about the extra stress. Fuck it.

 

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

and you guys sure kept quiet about it! there's one thread about this record in New and Upcoming sub but hardly any info. am i supposed to wait until his album is mentioned in the Trump thread, like with SIGN?

Sounds like you just need to spend more time in the music forum, tbh. I think the fact you posted this thread in General Banter is a clear indication.   As someone who has been aware of Actress but not necessarily a fan, I learned about 88 in time to download it from Bandcamp without any hassle. 

[species8472]

you are over thinking it. buy the colour you want. who cares about resale value.

cancelling your bleep order is as simple as sending an email.

as to how you weren’t aware a new actress album was announced is baffling. it’s was on the front page of nearly every music publication. 
 

also - follow your favourite artists and labels on bandcamp if you want to be in the know. 

[cruising for burgers]

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

and you guys sure kept quiet about it! there's one thread about this record in New and Upcoming sub but hardly any info. am i supposed to wait until his album is mentioned in the Trump thread, like with SIGN?

Yeah i blamed watmm before, i think because of syro, how come that wasn't in watmm's front page... And I'm gonna say it again, what the fuck is a clark? Who chose watmm's featured artists? I think watmm should have a news/announcements page instead of making us scroll trough infinite pages just to find out that afx released an album 3 years ago... I think i found out about the tuss 4 or 5 years after its releases... I know I'm also to blame but c'mon... 

Go on, facepalm me all you want... 

[hello spiral]

14 hours ago, sidewinder said:

I used to get super excited about exclusive variants, not to the point of buying more than one variant for any specific album (ok I did that once, had two different color variants and a black version of a said album), but I did try to score a unique variant if one was available. Then I got tired of it. I wasn't interested in spending more money buying that shit on Discogs if I had missed out on it, and just got annoyed with how fast stuff would sell out and seeing it pop up immediately on Discogs. It's just not worth it. Now, most of the time I intentionally just buy the black versions of albums if I can. We know sound quality is better, and I don't have to worry about the extra stress. Fuck it.

 

Sounds like you just need to spend more time in the music forum, tbh. I think the fact you posted this thread in General Banter is a clear indication.   As someone who has been aware of Actress but not necessarily a fan, I learned about 88 in time to download it from Bandcamp without any hassle. 

This. I am only casually interested in Actress (Splaszhchzch is the best one still. RIP is yugely overrated, fight me) and I knew about the new album and the 88 thing in time to download it AND the other beat tape thing that may or may not be him. The info just came my way, can't even remember how.

Also the amount of special editions of this is laughable. The fact none of them have sold out yet should tell you how 'special' they are.