[Occhionero]

Hello everyone, I know I haven't been here for a long time, but I still find that everyone here shares the same passion. I'm asking myself a few questions as I re-sort my vinyl.

Regardless of the bitter realization of having trampled on a legacy like Mondo and Death Waltz. Will there be any saving releases under the DW label? Will Mutant pick up where the Runners left off with Mondo/DW? Will it be more of a rerelease act, where scores like "Blue Velvet", "Over The Garden Wall", "Dawn of the Dead" and others are offered in ever new packaging? Is the market for our beloved horror scores simply dead? Is there still such a thing as the Holy Grail? Do we have to acknowledge that there will never again be music like Ortolani's "Cannibal Holocaust", or music with the same impact as all Carpenter scores?

What do you think? Am I just too old for all this? 😀

[deafmetal]

Hello friend, good to see you posting here. It's difficult to answer the first question, but I received an email today advertising this new release:

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What do you think of releases like this? How about an LP release of something like Alien Romulus with covert similar to the previous Mondo releases?

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In regard to the market, it's not quite dead but like many other things it has simply gotten overly expensive and saturated with releases. Many cannot afford $40+ USD new releases, and there has been a near steady flood of product for the last many years almost non-stop.

Regarding holy grails, are you talking about unreleased scores? I'm sure everybody here has their own wish list. The bootleg scene is proof enough that this is alive and well.

It's difficult to view things like Cannibal Holocaust and Carpenter's films and music without the rosy lens of nostalgia which is not exactly fair to the artists producing music today... but I won't say they are better yet. There is some great music out there though. ;)

[inksb]

The ever rising cost has really put a damper on my personal purchases, stuff like Longlegs, The First Omen, Strange Darling & Cuckoo are all things I would just blindly order in that $25-35 range, now they are mostly $40 plus $12 shipping & $5+ state tax. Pushing a single score upwards $60 for something I haven't even heard yet. I'm far more selective which is probably a good thing considering my ever decreasing space for records

Unfortunately I think this is going to cause the whole market to change over the next few years, we are going to see less stuff like I just listed as they probably don't sell well and we'll see more popular stuff reissued, repackaged and repressed. Maybe that's just me being pessimistic but I feel like things can't sustain at it's current pace

[Occhionero]

There's something to both of the things you write about. The prices are really crazy. And many collectors around the world have to pay customs duties on top of that.

I myself have no problem with a proper rerelease and I'd much rather support people like Spencer and Mo (and their team) because I know that we share a passion for music.

There are definitely new artists and established ones creating great music. But overall, music has become more random. I think you could swap the soundtracks of some movies with the score and hardly anyone would notice. I'm deliberately not mentioning any names, but maybe you have some in mind.

It would just be a shame if vinyl became a luxury product. In my naive world, great music can be pressed on vinyl, from which the artist and the label can make a good living, but which still remains affordable for average earners. I think we've already had that phase.

BTW, mention your Holy Grail that has not been pressed on wax or at least is long out of print and only available in the high price shelf. What for me is for example Q Lazarus’ “Goodbye Horses”.

[Bezulsqy]

Records on vinyl are per definition a luxury product. And creating a lot of different variants of soundtracks or re-issuing the same record with different artwork (the score to Drive comes to mind) a million times for me doesn't have anything to do with passion for the music.
But of course there is always the exception.

The latest release of the that limited Profondo Rosso 7" for me doesn't feel as a product of passion for music. Releases like that are purely for collectors of things.
10 years ago I probably wouldn't have hesitated buying it the moment it dropped. But I feel very happy to have grown out of that FOMO bullshit for the most part.

The last 10-15 years we have seen hundreds of releases of old and new scores. Almost everything that is releasable has been released I assume. I do like scores for modern movies. Not sure if the will be classified as classics in the future. But then again, how many records from the 70s or 80s are classics in the minds of most people? Soundtracks for horror movies in general are a niche product. Halloween has transcended its niche.
Will we regard the scores to Luz, Mandy or Malignant in the same vein 40 years from now? I doubt it. But they still are terrific.

In the past there also were a lot of scores that sounded generic. That will always be the case. The same goes for movies. Rinse repeat.

In the end everything comes and goes in waves. The combination of Covid and Ukraine have altered prices drastically everywhere. Spending 60 dollars on just a record is not something a lot of people can keep on doing. Personally I have the idea nothing sells out. I'll wait for a sale before buying from Mondo, Waxwork or Mutant. They only records I buy full price are passion products from a lovely STBC member or unreleased scores to Italian movies from the likes of Four Flies that I can buy in the EU.
And then there are the original releases. In the last five years I really shifted my spending towards the original releases in stead of picking up a re-issue.
As the world changes, I do as well. I wish all record companies the very best. But I am tired of the marketing hyperbole and ridiculous releases.

[ScoJo]

Hey Occhio!

I don’t have much to add to this (that I haven’t likely snarkily said already in some form or another…) and I think you guys have been pretty eloquent/covered the bases. But I’ll just add this observation:

I find it fascinating, instructive and quite amusing how often I see somebody posting in some vinyl/ost/movie group or other that they have a big bulk collection for sale - and it is almost always mostly (if not entirely) Mon/DW/WW releases. And yet I have rarely (if ever?) seen somebody selling a collection and it’s comprised of TV or Four Flies or Trunk or Mystic Vault or Cinedelic or Invada or Strange Disc or Silva Screen etc etc etc

Make of that what you will ;-)

[reddye6]

I think Mutant will follow in the footsteps of what DW and Mondo were about a year before Mondo was gutted: releasing the occasionally interesting score while mainly focusing on more mainstream scores, reissues, and tchotchkes. Mutant also isn't doing itself any favors by having domestic US media mail shipping at around $12 (should be half that amount) while often providing inadequate mailers and packing material.

As was mentioned earlier, there are definitely still Holy Grails. Blow Out released one of mine, "Zardoz," earlier this year. There are a bunch of things that I'd love to have physically: scores to early Kiyoshi Kurosawa films, the second multi-CD anthology to Edward Artemyev scores (came out in Russia a couple of years ago, and I expect I'll never get it), scores to Jan Svankmajer films (a first volume of music is coming out on vinyl soon!), unreleased Gil Melle scores.

I also agree with Deaf that older scores are often viewed through a lens of nostalgia. There is a lot of new music and scores that I hear that excite me and am glad that I have. I'd say over the past year the three most memorable score releases for me have all been Japanese scores on CD. Will these become "classics"? Probably not, but the only thing that matters to me is the effect that they have on me.

[Occhionero]

It remains to be said that the true coinaisseurs are still to be found here in the forum.

I think I read somewhere that vinyl sales will decline significantly in 2024 for the first time in 10 years. Perhaps that would be a kind of wake-up call to come to sensible calculations. Flippers have certainly played their part in making the situation what it is.

The fact that vinyl per se is a luxury product has only been the case since the revival. I've been collecting vinyl since I was 12 and my pocket money was enough for that. I am 53 ;-)

[static14]

I think the collectors have abandoned soundtracks. Which will help prices decrease but will also lower the number of offerings from funky new niche labels. I'll be happy if Terror Vision and Enjoy The Ride manage to stick around for the long haul.

But it really does look like the flippers have also given up on soundtracks/scores.

Seems like Mondo or Mutant or whatever it's called now, and Waxwork will keep up the re-release and variant bullshit for as long as humanly possible before closing up shop.