Sick of hearing about vinyl records yet? No? Good. Because neither am I. In fact, I bought more records in the last six months than in the decade previously… and that includes timecode discs that came with DVS hardware.
Riding on the wave of this resurgence has been an explosion of boutique record membership clubs that aim to provide you with a carefully curated collection of music, dripped through your mailbox on a monthly basis. I covered one such record pool, Wax & Stamp, a year ago, and I’ve been seeing more and more of them since.
One such vinyl record club is That Special Record, which has been going for a while now, focusing on House, Techno and Ambient, and the team behind it have decided to launch a new subscription plan for those with tighter budgets. To celebrate, they’re running a competition over on the Instagram account, which also happens to show off some pretty nice looking record player setups that I’m totally not jealous of at all.
We just redesigned our website and introduced a new and cheaper monthly plan which includes 1 surprise limited edition LP picked by That Special Record and mailed directly to our members once per month. To celebrate the soft relaunch, we’ll be giving away one different vinyl LP from our That Special Record archive for the next two weeks.
My take
There are so many record clubs popping up that there’s something for everyone’s tastes. These things are like wine clubs, or cheese clubs. In fact, I think my mother-in-law signed the wife and I up to a chocolate club a few years ago (it’s a hard life). The concept isn’t new, but the environment is just right for us vinyl lovers now: the resurgence in popularity of records coupled with the ubiquity of the web means it’s so easy to find great curated music on wax.
I haven’t signed up to one of these due to budgetary reasons, but if you’re a vinyl lover that’s got some disposable cash, it’s a great time to be in the scene. Whether or not vinyl continues to sustain its current popularity, what’s coming out now will be added to many record collections, and hopefully will still be around to listen to for many years to come.
Your take
Are you signed up to a record club? Have you gotten any gems? Why don’t you post a picture of your record collections in the comments!
That Special Record is a monthly record club. Starting at €23/month, there are all sorts of subscriptions to choose from. Check out prices on their subscription page. You can enter their competition for a vinyl LP on Instagram.