Hey guys, it’s Michael from Devoted to Vinyl. And in this video, I’m going to be reviewing the monthly record club Vinyl Me, Please, so we can figure out together if this is worth your hard earned money.

Now despite only being established for a few years, Vinyl Me, Please has grown in popularity, becoming the go-to monthly record club service.

But is Vinyl Me, Please worth your money? Or is it a waste of time?

Well, I signed up with Vinyl Me, Please for three months and in this video, I’m going to let you know what my experience was with the subscription service, and help you try and figure out if it’s right for you.

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Photo	Model
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Vinyl Me Please Review: Understanding the Club

Now for some of you that are actually unfamiliar with Vinyl Me, Please, let’s first discuss what this service does.

So Vinyl Me, Please is a monthly record club, which means that customers pay a monthly fee to receive a record in the mail that’s carefully selected by the folks behind the website.

Vinyl Me, Please often works closely with record labels to make their Record of the Month a special package for the paying customer.

Sometimes, a record might be exclusive to Vinyl Me, Please. And other times, they’ll offer albums that have bee previously released to the public. But they’ll now get the Vinyl Me, Please treatment, which can include things like colored vinyl, different packaging, added booklets, and much more.

An art print that comes with the "Ready to Die" record from Vinyl Me, Please

And for the selected Record of the Month, Vinyl Me, Please will add in an art print into the package that’s related to the music, along with a cocktail recipe—just in case you want to get a little bit loose while you’re spinning your record.

Now before I get into my experience with Vinyl Me, Please, let’s first talk about the price of this service.

Prices for the Monthly Record Club

Now, this record club offers you three monthly membership plans that you can choose from. The first option is a month to month plan. The second is a three month plan. And the third is a 12 month plan.

Now if you don’t live in the United States, you can still join, but international plans are going to be more expensive, with the monthly international plan costing you $42 per month, the three month plan costing you $36 per month, and the annual plan costing about $33 per month.

These numbers are of course always subject to change.

One thing I want to mention about the pricing is how payment is collected by Vinyl Me, Please. Their 3 month plan and their 12 month plan require you to make a lump sum payment.

That means that if you select the three month plan, for example, you aren’t paying $27 each month. Instead, you pay $81 upfront for all three months, and if you don’t cancel before your initial three months have concluded, you will be automatically charged another $81 for an additional three months.

Now this is fine if you can take the financial hit all at one time, but if you’re someone with a little less disposable income, it probably makes more financial sense to get on the $29 month to month plan.

Records I Received from Vinyl Me, Please

So now, let’s dig a little bit into my overall experience with Vinyl Me, Please as a subscriber for three months.

Now, when I joined this record club, the Biggie Smalls album “Ready to Die” was selected as the Record of the Month and I thought that was a great way to kick off my three month stint with Vinyl Me, Please.

Baby, Baby!

Now, a few weeks after signing up, my record came in a brown mailer with the words Vinyl Me, Please on one side and the tagline “For the Love of Music Please Do Not Bend” on the other.

Pretty clever. I thought it was funny.

Once you open up the package, you’ll find the record itself, along with an art print and a cocktail recipe. With this particular record, not only is there metallic foil and embossed text on the album cover, but this double LP features both records sporting a cool splatter effect.

The record itself sounded great on my turntable. I had no issues with the sound quality, there was no distortion, there were no tracks that were skipping or anything else that might be out of the ordinary.

Right about now, you might be wondering: “Okay, this sounds cool…but what happens when Vinyl Me, Please sends me a record I don’t want? Aren’t I just paying a lot of money for a service to send me a record I have no intention of playing?”

Well, let’s dive into that a little bit.

So, Vinyl Me, Please figured a way around this inevitable issue by offering subscribers of the three month plan and the annual plan the ability to swap out their Record of the Month with another album that’s more their style.

So this means that, if you didn’t like Biggie Smalls, you’d be able to swap out the “Ready to Die” album prior to it shipping out. And if none of those options excited you, some select titles are also available to swap from their online Record Store, as well.

Now, I took advantages of a couple swaps myself. After the exclusive Vinyl Me, Please release of “Ready to Die,” their next two Record of the Month albums were “Aromanticism” by Moses Sumney and “Masseducation” by St. Vincent. With those both being recent releases that I was familiar with, I decided to use my Swaps to go back in time.

So I swapped out “Aromanticism” for “Tidal” by Fiona Apple and I swapped out “Masseducation” for Desmond Dekker’s “You Can Get It If You Really Want.” I actually wasn’t familiar with Desmond Dekker beforehand, so I used this swap as a way to get introduced to an album and artist that’s new to me.

On top of that, I also decided to make a few purchases in the Vinyl Me Please store. I ended up buying three albums—“Demon Days” by Gorillaz, the “Bucket List Project” by Saba and “Stillness in Wonderland” by Little Simz.

The Gorillaz was a popular Record of the Month offering before I joined, and due to this, it came with an art print and cocktail recipe. But because Saba and Little Simz were purchased from the Vinyl Me, Please store, I didn’t receive any art prints or cocktail recipes. But that’s fine by me, since I’m here for the music anyway.

The Gorillaz album came on translucent red vinyl, while Saba came on purple vinyl and Little Simz on dark green and gold vinyl. On top of that, “Stillness in Wonderland” was limited to just 500 copies.

Another thing that’s cool about Vinyl Me, Please is that they have started to announce additional side subscriptions based on music genre. As of publishing this video, they had launched a Rap & Hip-Hop subscription and a Vinyl Me Please Classics subscription, the latter of which will feature Jazz, Soul, and Blues albums).

So after all that, is Vinyl Me, Please worth the money?

Well, the good news is that I had a great experience with this subscription service. Everything was shipped in a timely manner. No album came damaged. And everything about the monthly service was great—everything from the initial reveal to getting the album in the mail to putting it onto my turntable.

At the end of the day, I really have no complaints. Which is…kind of…unusual.

But whether or not Vinyl Me, Please is worth your money is really dependent upon what kind of music fan you are. Because if you’re someone that only really likes one or two genres of music, this might not be the subscription service for you.

And that’s because the subscriptions for the Record of the Month can vary pretty wildly. So if you only like Rock or Pop or Rap or Country, then you might actually be very disappointed with this service. Especially if you’re on the month to month plan, because you won’t have the ability to be able to take advantage of the Record of the Month swapping feature.

Check out our Vinyl Me Please review to find out if this monthly club is worth your time.

Now the other reason that Vinyl Me, Please might not be the right service for you really comes down to cost. The cost of the record club itself really isn’t unreasonable. Especially when you factor in how much brand new records cost these days.

Just take a look at how much records are selling for at Urban Outfitters and Barnes and Noble—it’s insane.

Now with that said, for some people, spending close to $30 a month for a record is a lot of money. Especially if there’s a chance you won’t like the Record of the Month selection and you can’t swap it.

So if your vinyl budget is really, really tight, I think that you should probably pass on this subscription service—at least for now.

Now with that said, I’m going to give you my thoughts on who I actually think this record club is for.

Is Vinyl Me, Please Right for You?

Number one: Vinyl Me, Please is perfect for anybody that wants a hands off approach to record collecting. And, you also want to feel part of a community, even if it’s an online community.

And Number 2: Vinyl Me, Please is great for somebody that likes different types of music, or at least is open minded enough to enjoy a record from an artist they aren’t normally familiar with, or a genre of music they don’t normally listen to.

One big positive I’ll give Vinyl Me, Please is that between their record store and their very, very active online forum, I’ve come across lots of different artists and albums that I wouldn’t normally have found or listened to in my everyday life.

So even if I don’t buy the album in their store, or select the album for a swap, it’s music that I can now appreciate, and an artist that is now on my radar for the future.

Conclusion

Overall, I’d give Vinyl Me, Please a very solid 8.5 out of 10. I think that if you love music, you’re open to different genres, and you have some disposable income, you’ll be with this Record of the Month club.

If you liked this video, please hit the “like” button down below. Don’t forget to Subscribe to my channel Devoted to Vinyl if you want to be alerted whenever a new video drops.

And as always, I want to leave you with a question: Have you tried Vinyl Me, Please or any other subscription service? If so, how was the experience? If you haven’t, are you interested in any other record club services—or do you think they’re all a waste of money?

Make your thoughts known down below, and I’ll try to respond to as many people as I can.

Thank you again for watching. And I will see you guys in the next video.

If you enjoyed reading this video transcript, please subscribe to my Devoted to Vinyl YouTube channel, as well as “like” my Devoted to Vinyl Facebook page! We hope to see you again.

Vinyl Me, Please review: Is This Record of the Month Club Worth It?

Vinyl Me Please Review: Understanding the Club