However, many indie bands have faced delays of a year or more getting their albums pressed—and some have accused larger acts like Swift of jumping the queue. But is Swift to blame for the delays in getting records pressed?
Late Thursday night, Damon Krukowski, of the bands Damon & Naomi and Galaxie 500, made a viral tweet, calling out Swift’s multiple vinyl editions.
“Did you know none of the rest of us can get any vinyl pressed,” he wrote, alongside an image of a Billboard article listing the different versions of Midnights.
“The full cost of the Taylor Swift Vinyl Clock is 4 LPs x $29.99 + 1 clock set x $49 + the collapse of the independent music scene that depends on physical media sales,” he wrote in a followup thread.
Krukowski said that though the latest Damon & Naomi album, A Sky Record, came out in August 2021, the vinyl edition wasn’t ready until July 2022.
“We couldn’t plan when it would come, either—just had to wait and react when it showed up,” Krukowski told Newsweek. “Our distributor has given up on even estimating delivery dates—we’re looking at a year, year and a half, no one really knows.”
Krukowski added that he doesn’t know for sure how often his band’s albums have been delayed for larger acts, saying, “we leave it to our distributor to deal with the daily hassles at the pressing plants.”
However, while Midnights may appear to be an example of multiple editions causing a logjam, a source close to the record plant told Newsweek that Swift’s album was not rushed and she did she queue-jump. Midnights was delivered to plants about seven months before release.
Large artists like Swift and Adele have faced criticism for other artists’ vinyl delays. Swift’s 2021 album Evermore sold over 100,000 vinyl copies on release date, breaking weekly sales records. Adele’s 30 had over 500,000 vinyl copies pressed before release, according to Variety.
While Variety also states that 30 was delivered to plants six months ahead of time, other artists have indeed been able to rush albums. Ed Sheeran’s = album had a three-month turnaround, Variety reported, delivered in July 2021 for an October 2021 release.
Major labels are able to book slots in advance, even without necessarily delivering an album at that time—and then decide which high-profile releases will fill those slots, Variety said.
“It’s been like Tetris, trying to prioritize what we’re using each month of capacity for,” ATO Records head of sales Mike Quinn told Variety. “You could open a plant tomorrow and you’d probably have a call from Universal next week trying to block out the next few months of capacity. They’re trying to go around and block out as much as possible.”
Smaller bands, however, don’t have this luxury. They’re forced to fill in the spaces between the major labels’ requests. Krukowski has a simple solution, though.
“Major labels need to reopen their own plants! Get out of the indie market!” he told Newsweek. “This is all part of the consolidation of money and resources at the top of the industry. There is no room left for working class and middle class artists.”
In addition to major labels blocking out huge chunks of time in advance, there’s been a shortage of vinyl pellets since March 2020, according to Industrial Specialties Manufacturing. And vinyl isn’t used only for records—it’s a popular material used in flooring, for example. Though the COVID pandemic worsened the ability to obtain the raw materials, demand was already increasing before 2020, according to Uproxx.
Physical media is returning as a revenue stream for many indie bands. While streaming is the dominant method people use to listen to music, the U.K.-based music PR company Prescription says that superfans will pay a premium to own music on CD or, increasingly, vinyl. Prescription recommends bands put together limited-edition packages of physical releases—signed CDs or bundles including a poster and signed photos, for example.
But David Macias, who runs indie label Thirty Tigers, told Variety that if a vinyl edition is delayed past the album street date by months, it can reduce sales by as much as 40 percent.
Out of frustration that his album couldn’t be released on vinyl at the same time as the digital edition, Krukowski told Newsweek, he hit upon a unique solution to be able to deliver fans a physical product alongside downloads.
“We were so frustrated with a digital only release, we printed a book instead of an LP on launch—it’s like an elaborate set of liner notes, what you would put inside a box set. But there was no delay at the printing plant for that! We attached a download code to the cover—people seemed to really enjoy that,” he said.
