Weekly survey: What’s the absolute most you’ll spend for a new, standard vinyl release?
If you’ve been into a record store recently, you may have noticed that the prices of new vinyl records have gone insane and I’m not entirely sure why. The supply chain issues caused by last year’s fire at the Apollo Masters Corp. seem to have been solved. More pressing plants have come online. Is it because demand is so high? Or are labels getting ultra-ultra-greedy?
I mean, I like The Hip just fine but a standard double LP selling for THIS PRICE? Yes, it’s a regular still-in-the-shrinkwrap regular release retailing for freakin’ $71.99.

If this isn’t addressed soon, the industry is going to kill the vinyl market.
With that in mind, here’s this week’s question.
NOTE: I’ve spoken to both Universal and Hip management. It’s not just the price of Hip records, either. They tell me that things are being addressed.
Standard release, $30-35 is what I expect. Blue note have standard re-releases for $22-30 which is reasonable but any new single LP release I would expect $35 max.
I suspect sales on LPs will drop because of the prices and quality control. An independent artist doing a run of 500-1000 copies I can understand prices being a bit higher but major labels should be under $30.
I order a lot of titles direct from artists or independent labels, the prices are reasonable but shipping puts them over the top. $20 plus USD for shipping, come on.
I have been considering not buying as much or any vinyl because of the prices.
$30 – $35 is about as high as I’ll go for a regular pressing of an album. I’ve got holes in my collection that I’ll likely never fill because the albums seem to always be $50-$60 and I refuse to pay that for them.
I typically pre-order new releases direct from the band, but with the exchange rate and shipping, that can get pretty pricy as well, making me consider how much I really want that album at times. I’ve come to expect $15-$20 shipping, but when I’m ordering a $32USD album, and the shipping alone is $43USD, then I just give up on it. It’s getting out of control.
Geez, is that a Canadian average or ate you all just really into buying records over other mediums?
At most, and this is in the states and at concerts, I’m only paying 25 dollars american. I know the euro had taken a hit recently because an old blues artist I was working towards compl eating my collection of had a trend overall, up until very recently, that all his music was in countries on the euro. This is, given my current budget, a deal breaker for me because of the shipping costs; usually the cost of the album if not more.
I haven’t bought much from Canada lately so I don’t know what the exchange rates are like. I also don’t usually buy new releases on vinyl unless it’s a band that that I *really* like and follow directly to the point where I’m on a list for their merch as well as everything else they are up to and I’ll buy the special box sets that a lot of groups are putting out nowadays where you get some combo of vinyl, cd, digital, including special mixes, unreleased items, and various merch items. (Books, t-shirts, etc)
The other thing is that it becomes a gimme/must have/magpie buy at that point and my reptile brain has taken full control and I am not thinking about costing things out or anything with a modicum of sense. Not even afterwards. It’s done. I did my fan part and whether it was worth it or not is moot.