“The issue is, simply, we have ALL created an environment where the unprecedented demand for vinyl records cannot keep up with the rudimentary supply of them.”
White further noted that “it’s easier to purchase a vinyl press now than it has been in four decades” owing to several recently founded manual and automated vinyl press manufacturers globally. “And with more ancillary innovators popping up every day helping advance every facet of the industry, this isn’t a difficult decision to make,” he adds. “It’s a no-brainer.”
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 , these timelines are the killers of momentum, soul, artistic expression, and far too often, livelihoods. There are people who will say – isn’t this good for Third Man? More demand than you can handle? To which I say, even though Third Man benefits in the short term, in the long term it ultimately hurts everyone involved in the vinyl ecosystem given the bottlenecks and delays. Something needs to be done.
In this spirit, I turn to our collegial big brothers in the music world, Sony, Universal, and Warner, and politely implore them to help alleviate this unfortunate backlog and start dedicating resources to build pressing plants themselves.