Vinyl
This Company Aims to Revolutionize Vinyl As We Know It
On-demand vinyl platform elasticStage has raised £3.5 million ($4.2 million USD) to help fund “the vinyl revolution.” Led by renowned record producers Paul Epworth (Adele, Paul McCartney) and Dan Grech-Marguerat (Lana Del Rey, George Ezra, Tom Grennan), the investment will aid elasticStage in expanding its operations, team and technology as well as building key partnerships with labels and digital service providers. The company is set to drop the needle and open their first production and fulfillment center in London by the end of this year, MusicWeek reports. elasticStage has reportedly spent the past six years in development and is now ready to revolutionize the way vinyl is created and distributed with a more sustainable and ethical approach. By utilizing diff...
This On-Demand Vinyl Printing Company Aims to Revolutionize Vinyl As We Know It
On-demand vinyl printing platform elasticStage has raised £3.5 million ($4.2 million USD) to help fund “the vinyl revolution.” Led by renowned record producers Paul Epworth (Adele, Paul McCartney) and Dan Grech-Marguerat (Lana Del Rey, George Ezra, Tom Grennan), the investment will aid elasticStage in expanding its operations, team and technology as well as building key partnerships with labels and digital service providers. The company is set to drop the needle and open their first production and fulfillment center in London by the end of this year, MusicWeek reports. elasticStage has reportedly spent the past six years in development and is now ready to revolutionize the way vinyl is created and distributed with a more sustainable and ethical approach. By utili...
Alice in Chains Announce Dirt 30th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue and Boxset
Alice in Chains’ seminal 1992 album Dirt is receiving a 30th anniversary vinyl reissue and boxset. The announcement comes right after the band launched its tour with Breaking Benjamin and Bush. The trek picks back up tomorrow (August 13th) in Syracuse, New York, and runs through October 8th in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Get tickets via Ticketmaster. Dirt was recently certified five-times platinum by the RIAA and was overdue for a vinyl repress, having been out of print for the past couple years. It’s also the first time the album has been issued on double vinyl for maximum fidelity. Advertisement Related Video Fans have a multitude of options for owning the new edition, which features remastered audio. In addition to the standard black double-vinyl pressing and other retailer-exclusive colo...
Avión Reserve Cristalino Listening Experience Kit Offers Immersive Audio With Your Spirits
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Avión / Avion Spirits and the rich tones of vinyl records is a most natural union. The Avión Listening Experience is keenly aware of this as it melds top-flight audio and premium Tequila Avión. Source: Avión / Avion The Avión Listening Experience recently debuted in Brooklyn, with NBA player and influencer Iman Shumpert serving as the host. Also on hand was NYC audio icon Danny Keith Taylor and Tequila Avión’s Carlos Andrés Ramirez to usher those in attendance into the world of quality tequila and a ridiculous sound system. Those speakers you see Shump standing in front of cost more than a Bentley, and if you got the bank account, they’re worth every penny. Related Stories “Music has always been a safe haven for me to be my most unapologetic self and with...
This Is the Vintage DJ Equipment You Saw In the Finale of “Stranger Things 4”
Spoiler alert: Do not read if you have not watched “Chapter Nine: The Piggyback” of Stranger Things 4, now streaming on Netflix. While we process the pandemonium of the heart-pounding Stranger Things 4 finale, let’s revisit that chilling “Snow Ball” scene and its badass vintage turntables. When this season’s villain—a dark wizard named Vecna who feeds on the trauma of kids—closes in on his telepathic kill of Max, Eleven infiltrates her memories in an attempt to save her. Wandering the depths of her psyche, Eleven finds a young Max skateboarding in a park. Searching for signs of Vecna, Eleven instead spots something from an entirely different memory of Max’s. In the “memory within a memory,” she en...
Vinyl Prices Might Seem High Today, But They Were Worse in 1978
As far as albums go, 1978 was one for the record books. The Saturday Night Fever and Grease soundtracks topped the Billboard 200 album chart for a combined 36 weeks. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, released in 1977, was the No. 1 album in the U.S. the first two weeks of the year. Billy Joel’s 52nd Street topped the chart for the final seven weeks of the year. The Rolling Stone’s Some Girls and Boston’s Don’t Look Back each topped the chart for two weeks. It was also a notable year for another reason: In 1978, vinyl records were more expensive than any other time since the RIAA began tracking sales in 1973. That year, the average retail sale price of a vinyl EP/LP was $7.32 – equal to $30.18 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation. That was the second-highest vinyl sales year in U.S. histor...
Did Angel Olsen Just Show the Music Industry How to Make Vinyl Green?
Could there be a simpler way for the music industry to go green? While acts like Coldplay and Justin Bieber have been focused on bicycle-powered stadium shows and kinetic dancefloors, for her new album Big Time (out Friday on Jagjaguwar) Angel Olsen took a more straightforward approach that’s replicable for artists of all sizes. Each vinyl or CD copy of the album purchased from her label’s website has carbon offsets built into the pricing, meaning the environmental impact that went into producing — and will go into consuming — the vinyl album (for $1 each) or CD (50 cents each) is effectively neutralized. All the proceeds from these surcharges go to Native, a public benefit corporation specializing in carbon offsets, which will use the money to purchase carbon offsets supporting the Medfor...
Childish Gambino Lands First No. 1 on Top Album Sales Chart With ‘Kauai’ Vinyl Debut
Record Store Day 2022’s fingerprints are all over Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated May 7), as six of the top 10 have sales owed to a special release for the annual indie retailer holiday. Leading the pack at No. 1 is Childish Gambino’s Kauai EP, which debuts atop the list with 17,000 sold in the U.S. in the week ending April 28, according to Luminate. It’s his first No. 1 on the chart, and third top 10. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Kauai was originally released in 2014 as digital download at retail, and charted for five weeks that year. It was issued on vinyl for the first time for Record Store Day (April 23) and nearly all of the album’s sales in the week ending April 28 were from its vinyl LP. Kauai was pressed on three surprise co...
One Nation Under a Stylus
Vinyl Nation, a new documentary from directors Kevin Smokler and Christopher Boone, is, as the title may suggest, as much a chronicle about a growing community than it is about the medium of vinyl records. To be clear, the history of vinyl pressing, from its early market dominance to its later decline due to the advent of the compact disc, to its glorious return over the past decade — nearly 42 million records were sold in 2021(outselling CDs for the first time since 1986!) — is thoroughly covered (occasionally bordering on repetitive) by the filmmakers. The focus, however, is more on the collectors. The film opens outside the Mills Record Company in Kansas City. It’s Record Store Day, an annual celebration of independent record stores across the country, and a long line of collectors, obs...
Disney Announces Vinyl Reissue of Daft Punk’s Iconic “Tron: Legacy” Soundtrack
Daft Punk are the gift that keep on giving. In celebration of the 40-year anniversary of the original TRON film, Disney has announced a vinyl reissue of the 1982 sci-fi classic’s soundtrack. The company is also pressing new vinyl of Daft Punk’s iconic TRON: Legacy score and subsequent remix album, 2011’s TRON: Legacy Reconfigured, which features reworks of the robots’ music by Avicii, M83, Boys Noize and The Glitch Mob, among others. TRON: Legacy remains Daft Punk’s only film score. Featuring an 85-piece orchestra, the soundtrack took over two years to create and eventually debuted atop Billboard‘s Dance/Electronic Albums chart. In late 2021, 11 years to the day, the timeless album reclaimed that top spot. The original TRON film was scored by legend...
Jack White Implores Major Labels to Build Vinyl Pressing Plants Amid Backlog
Jack White is calling on the major labels — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — to build their own vinyl pressing plants amid explosive growth in the format that has led to industry-wide backlogs. White made the request via an open letter and accompanying video released on Monday (March 14). “With industry-wide turnaround times for vinyl currently leaning towards the length of a human pregnancy, it’s obvious, in a world so contingent on being of-the-moment and timed just right (a single, an album, a tour etc.), these timelines are the killers of momentum, soul, artistic expression, and far too often, livelihoods,” White wrote in the letter. White, who owns the Detroit-based Third Man Pressing plant — opened in 2017 — with his independent label Third Man...
Jack White Calls on Major Labels to Build Their Own Vinyl Record Plants
Jack White has issued a new open letter and video calling on major labels to build their own vinyl record pressing plants. “At least once a week, without fail, someone will reach out asking me to help expedite their vinyl record manufacturing,” writes White to begin his letter. “It’s a natural thought… knowing that I own a pressing plant and have my own record label, “if anyone could help, it’s this guy!” As the founder of Third Man Records, White has become one of the leading advocates for and producers of vinyl records. Over the years, several major artists — including JAY-Z and Dave Chappelle — have partnered with Third Man to press their releases on vinyl. Advertisement Related Video But, as White goes on to explain in today’s letter, recent supply chain issues and manufacturing bottle...
