Vinyl Me, Please “VMP seeks to experience music more deeply, and we believe in the power of the album as an art form.”

• Frequency: Monthly

• Cost: starts at $25/month for 1 LP each month

• Condition: Mint (M)

• Curation/Selection: Choose from 3 Curated Tracks - Essentials, Classics, and Rap & Hip-hop.

• Allows Swaps: Yes, you can swap your subscribed record for another track or any record in their store

Fresh Take: Vinyl Me, Please curates high quality releases of collectible records. They take care to produce audiophile grade records released with custom packaging including artwork and liner notes (depending on which track you choose). If you are a collector, these are some of the highest quality releases you’ll find on the market today.

We have been subscribed to the Essentials and Classics tracks since February 2019.

Black Box Record Club “We send you great vinyl from your favorite artists.”

• Frequency: Monthly

• Cost: starts at $34/month for 2 LP’s each month

• Condition: Mint (M)

• Curation/Selection: highly catered to your individual taste based on your Spotify & Discogs profiles and a personalized questionnaire

• Allows Swaps: will replace an unopened selection if you already own a copy

Fresh Take: Black Box really pays attention to your tastes and interests, especially your Spotify. Our first several boxes included artists we had mentioned on their taste questionnaire, and they’ve continued to track our Spotify listens and send records that track our interests since that time. They have a broad inventory that seems to span most major music genres.

We have been subscribed to Black Box Record Club since July 2019.

Magnolia Record Club “Curated by artists, not robots.”

• Frequency: Monthly

• Cost: Starts at $27/month for 1 LP each month

• Condition: Mint (M)

• Curation/Selection: 1 curated track (with option to add-in a monthly “Artist Discovery” LP)

• Allow Swaps: Yes, you can swap your subscribed record for another track or any record in their store.

Fresh Take: Magnolia Record club was started by Drew Holcomb of Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors but was taken over by Dualtone Records in January of 2020. Magnolia offers a bit of the curation that you’d expect from Vinyl Me, Please including exclusive editions of records that can’t be purchased elsewhere on the market (e.g. custom vinyl colors). Magnolia seems heavily influenced by the Nashville music scene and most of their selections come from country, folk rock, and indie rock musicians. Each selection is chosen by a musician, originally by Drew Holcomb and now by an array of other musicians including Brandi Carlile, Rayland Baxter, and Josh Ritter.

We subscribed to Magnolia Record Club from July 2019 to December 2019.

VNYL “Your records should be uniquely you”

• Frequency: Monthly

• Cost: starts at $22/month for 1 LP each month (or a $39/month for 3 LPs

  • At the time of writing, there was a sale for the single record plan for $14.99 per month

• Condition: Mint (M)

• Curation/Selection: ability to select a #VIBE each month from a list of 5 - 10 available choices. Somewhat catered to your tastes.

• Allow Swaps: no, will not replace selections once they are sent

Fresh Take: In the case of the “Trio”, subscribers can choose a #VIBE each month that selects one of the 3 records they will receive. Each vibe directly corresponds to a specific record, and you can see previous selection in Spotify. There are typically 5 - 10 vibes available each month. Like Black Box Record Club, VNYL indicates that they will customize your remaining selections to your tastes including a questionnaire and various accounts including Spotify. VNYL’s selection is much more limited and seems to draw mostly from independent artists & labels. Their ability to curate their subscription to our taste was very limited because of this. Most of the curation that we experienced was based on the Vibes we selected over time.

We subscribed to the Trio track from VNYL from June 2019 to November 2019.

Endless Spiral Records “Beautiful copies of Vintage Vinyl Record LP Albums sent to your door each month!”

• Subscription is managed through CrateJoy

• Cost: starts at $29.95/month for 3 LPs each month

• Frequency: Monthly

• Condition: Very Good Plus (VG+)

• Curation/Selection: somewhat catered to your tastes

• Allows Swaps: no, policy is not specified

Fresh Take: Endless Spiral Records’ vinyl subscription is the closest experience we’ve found to visiting a vintage record store, but in a subscription format. The 2 friends who started this service are themselves collectors and audiophiles and their care in collecting comes through in their offering. When you sign up, you will receive an email asking about your music tastes and preferences and they will work to cater to your interests. Each box comes with 3 used LPs carefully protected and supplemented with a typed insert describing the history and signficance of the record. From our experience, they specialize mostly in 70s and 80s rock. Even being a classic rock fan, many of the records were from artists I wasn’t as familiar with. If you’re looking for a subscription that sends albums like Dark Side of the Moon and Tommy, this may not be for you, but if you’re looking to deepen your classic rock knowledge and collection, this is the best used record subscription that we’ve found on the market.

We subscribed to Endless Spiral Records from August 2019 to November 2019.

San Diego Vintage Collectables: “Original Vintage Vinyl Records Monthly Mystery Box with (6) LP Albums ”

Condition VG

• Frequency: Monthly

• Cost: starts at $26.99 for 6 LPs each month

• Condition: Very Good (VG)

• Curation/Selection: ability to choose up to 3 genres

• Allows Swaps: will replace a record you already own, but ask that you group swaps, rather than 1 at a time

Fresh Take: To start, we subscribed to the CrateJoy subscription offering from San Diego Vintage Collectables. This subscription is the lower quality offering featuring Very Good (VG) quality records and so this review reflects only part of what they offer. When you sign up, you’ll have the ability to select 3 genres from a broad list of options. You’ll work directly with the owner of this service, Stan, who is very responsive and accomodating to requests and feedback. The VG subscription is a bit like searching through the bargain bin at a record shop, you might find some gems, but their will be some obscure records as well. While most records met the criteria described on CrateJoy, we did sometimes receive a record that was in the wrong sleeve or outside of the genres we had specified. In all cases, Stan was very willing to correct the mistakes and add an additional record in the next box. We are excited to sign up for their VG++ subscription and will update this post with more details once we do.

We subscribed to San Diego Vintage Collectables via CrateJoy from June 2019 to December 2019.

BandBox “The record store delivered to your door”

• Cost: starts at $29/month for 1 LP + a Magazine about your selected artist

  • You can add an additional record by the same artist for $17 each month

  • At the time we subscribed there was a 50% off coupon for the 1st month of your subscription.

• Frequency: Monthly

• Condition: Mint

• Curation/Selection: select your LP from about 100 available albums, or have them send pick one for you. New options are released monthly.

• Allows Swaps: free exchanges on all LPs.

Fresh Take: Of the subscription boxes out there, BandBox is probably most similar to Vinyl Me, Please. Their aim is to send you a high quality, nicely curated experience of an album. This subscription is a great option if you want to go deep on a specific artist.

We subscribed to BandBox for one month in June 2020.