While it seems music has moved as far away from the more physical music era of the past — records, cassettes, CDs, etc. — as we stream millions of artists into our ears from wherever we want, whenever we want, some people still like to get their hands on a solid hunk of plastic for their listening pleasure. A new vinyl subscription service is catering to those analog folk with LP deliveries.
VNYL is already being called the Netflix of records, and it is, in that customers can keep the records for as long as they want (while still paying a monthly fee) but for those familiar with Stitch Fix, Gwynnie Bee or Trunk Club, it’s also similar to those models in that customers are in essence allowing a stranger to pick something out that they think they’ll like, and then either keep it or send it back, unused.
Subscribers choose from a list of hashtagged moods like #rainyday, #cooking and #comingsoon (which I expect must contain tracks that haven’t even been written yet! So hipster!) and then receive a curated set of three records every month, reports RollingStone.com.
Subscribers can keep the records as long as they would like, but the service costs $15 a month so if you don’t send’em back in a timely manner you might regret it holding on to unwanted records.
If you like the music enough to keep it, each costs between $8-$12. Otherwise, the records go back in a prepaid envelope, much like Netflix. That might lead to some incidental damage to the products, but hey, it’s what they’re doing.
Vinyls are all the rage these days, it seems — a similar service called Vinyl Me, Please is already in business sending members a limited-edition record each month along with a cocktail paring recipe for $23 per month for a year’s subscription.
New Record Service VNYL Distributes LPs Like Netflix [Rolling Stone]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist