Hello, dear reader. I hope you are well. Being something of a traditionalist, I try to keep my end of year witterings to the last couple of weeks of December. I’m always vicariously sorry for those with early winter releases when the big lists start appearing in early November. Even October records are going to struggle to have got much of a foothold by the time those big forties, fifties or even seventy-fives are assembled. As regular readers of my various endeavours will be only too aware, sometimes I leave it so late that I don’t actually finish it, so I’ve gone all in on the Substack approach this time in the hope that it will keep me honest and productive.
I’ve a few things to share with you all. There’s a list of my favourite albums - and, let’s be clear, they’re my favourites. A Best of 2023, if you will, rather than The Best of 2023. I’ve also got a list of my favourite pressings from this year, for those that are keen to get to some quality discs on their turntable during the break. After I submitted the December column to my splendid editor at Clash, I did a quick count across all the twelve editions of 2023 and I reckon I’ve covered 433 different pressings this year. Naturally, that’s only a small sample of what’s been released but, I’d hope, it gives me at least a degree of authority to offer some thoughts on what’s come out.
I’ll be sure to alert you to the latest edition when it goes live and I’ll commence my album countdown shortly, but I thought I’d begin with some reflections on the current state of vinyl pressings and record purchasing. To prepare for this, I put up a poll on X (formerly Twitter, as must always follow in brackets) to ask people about their spending habits in relation to new product. In short, I enquired as to whether purchases were up, down or about the same when it came to new records. I kept second-hand out of it, although I’m tempted to do some follow-ups given the wealth of thoughtful comments that accompanied the voting. The result was not entirely unsurprising, with Up getting 25%, About The Same 26% and Down 49%.
Even those voting ‘Up’ mentioned costs and those choosing either of the other two options regularly talked about prices feeling increasingly crazy. One record shop observed, “make quality control worse and prices way higher. That’ll really get people in,” and mentioned an increase in customer returns. They’re not the only ones to have said that to me and it’s at the heart of what I try to do with the column, my social posts and the occasional emissions from here. I hate having to take records back to my local indie and I’m well aware that I’m less tolerant of noise than some, but pops and crackles are signifiers of a faulty record. It would seem that paying £30 or more for a new release is enough to make more people unwilling to gloss over this fact too.
A further aspect that came up was the increasing size and rapidity of record shop sales. If you can get recent albums at 30 or 40% off within a couple of months then your purchases may not have dipped but your outlay actually has. It’s not sustainable for the shops, of course, as it’s their margin that’s being lost with each of these sales, but as things sit in the racks for longer and costs for more stock to sit in the racks for an age go up, the only real solution is to clear said racks by knocking down the price. In the short term, customers are getting some bargains but some shops are having to rethink their entire purchasing policy. Fewer titles in smaller quantities will take away some of the thrill of visiting and then you end up in the tricky situation of people losing interest because of limited stock, even though the whole scenario came about because customers weren’t spending when the range was there.
I fully expect a range of truly ridiculous January sales from some indies, especially with the growing trend of making an event out of online reductions. Many commenters made the point that these discounts bring plenty of the major label or deluxe titles down to the price they’d have been willing to pay in the first place, but what does this mean for 2024? It feels like we might be at a tipping point. Will the cash be there for smaller shops to go big on RSD? There’s no sale or return - they’re not HMV, after all - and if you want it in the racks, you’ve got to pay for it. If you get your quantities right, there’s money to be made on the day and for about a week afterwards. However, anything still unsold by then switches from potentially desirable to deadweight overnight. And that’s more money you’ll only get back by selling close to cost.
Could a CD revival be in store? Well, for a start, they’ve not declined quite as much as annual hyperbolic headlines might suggest. All of the talk about vinyl surpassing the five inch format is based on revenue rather than physical items. It’s hardly surprising that £35 LPs generate more than £12 CDs, but it paints a slightly misrepresentative picture and there’s still plenty of fans of the small shiny disc. With some deluxe packaging, who knows? I said during the pandemic, at the point where vinyl pressing plants had eight month delays, that a CD initiative would have brought in some much needed income for artists with a much quicker turnaround. It wasn’t to be, but there’s life in the old dog yet. Although don’t get me started on the packaging of the new 3CD edition of Suede’s excellent ‘Autofiction’.
Logic says that prices should have already burst the bubble and yet it doesn’t seem we’re quite there yet. But I think it’s close. I hope for many indies’ sakes that there’s a way through it and the bigger labels help to protect a supply chain that is vital in getting music out there. So many artists are already on their knees - without the role of physical product, many more will join them. Sales are great, of course, and plentiful bargainfests have been a defining characteristic of 2023. But they’re also deeply concerning, because no business can have a long-term future when its short-term existence relies on recouping costs rather than making any money. In short, if you can, pick one or two of the albums you’ve loved this year via digital means and go and buy them from a local shop. Wish them a Merry Christmas while you’re at it, and hope that they’ll still be there in twelve months from now.
If you’d like to see the original poll and the thread of comments in full, just click here.
Hi Gareth where’s the link to the 2023 selection please ? Thanks