The world of vinyl subscription services

Get yourself a 12-inch letter box: vinyl subscription services are a thing, and you’re probably going to want to sign up to one

Like waking up to a post-apocalyptic world, while vinyl’s revived form remains pretty well unchanged, its surroundings are startlingly unfamiliar. A music subscription service was once essentially a means of acquiring new records without rooting around the shops, but the ubiquity of music and easy-access information on the internet means mailing out 7-inches of the top 10 is no longer a steady business model.

So, we were surprised how many credible vinyl services there actually are. Whether it’s mixing LPS with food or wine, pressing exclusive records or playing the role of record store manager-cum-sonic-guru, these are all services you can’t replicate simply by clicking “related artists” on Spotify.

Feedbands £30 per month

Feedbands is a community-based vehicle for getting independent artists’ albums their first pressing. Anyone can upload their music, either a full album or a bunch of tracks, from which Feedbands can make a compilation. Anyone signed up to the site (which is free) can then vote for their favourite songs and those with a decent number of votes – typically 125+ across an artist’s uploaded tracks – has the chance of being pressed and sent out to each subscriber.

Flying Vinyl £20pm

Frustrated at great new bands being lost in the noise of the internet, Craig Evans created Flying Vinyl in 2005. Each box is curated of the finest new indie, alternative and rock tracks discovered by Flying Vinyl, exclusively pressed with full A- and B-sides and custom-designed artwork. You also get an info booklet, giving you the background on artists you may never have heard of and, as an extra treat, past boxes have included stickers, Polaroids and exclusive prints.

Hurd £18-£20pm

Though we’re quite content with whichever tins are on offer at the local off licence, Hurd offers a service for vinyl fans with a more sophisticated palate. There are three options of booze – beer, cider or a mix of both – or you can save a tenner and just take the music. Hurd exclusively presses a coloured 7-inch from an emerging artist, and each month throws in its own music-and-beer-centric periodical and an extra piece of merchandise.

Stylus £28pm

This is really one for those beginning a collection of all the classic albums BBC Four has probably made a documentary about. We’re talking Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, Prince’s

Purple Rain – essentially records that the majority of people who want them already have. Also included is a bottle of wine and a magazine of interviews, as well as tasting and what they call listening notes. Plenty will find this decidedly ‘bijou’ venture rather sickly, though hopefully the same can’t be said for the booze.

That Special Record £28pm

There are no bells and whistles on this one; That Special Record sends you one 12-inch each month along the lines of ambient, drone, electronica, house and post-rock. It’s music for the music, if you like. You also gain early access each month to the online shop, where a limited number of the company’s recommendations are available at member-only prices. For both its decided genres and lack of gimmick, this is the service that best spins our platter, shall we say.

The Retro Store £12-£15pm

Not everybody likes spending hours rummaging around record shops to take a chance on finding an eye-catching cover, so the Retro Store offers to do all that for you. Let them know the kind of music you’re into and they will try to match your tastes, or simply allow them full license to expand your sonic horizons. The company doesn’t deal solely in vinyl; there are similar services for cassettes, games and comics. Living in the past has rarely seemed so appealing.

Third Man Records Vault £16pm

Set up in 2009, originally as a means for Jack White to release special or unreleased projects from Third Man affiliated acts, Vault has become a treasure trove for fans and collectors of White’s considerable output. For example, mono 12-inches of The White Stripes’ Icky Thump included in the first-ever Vault box are currently fetching up to £500 on Discogs. Among other perks, Vault offers a healthy discount on subscription to Tidal’s top streaming tier.

Trax & Wax £26-£31pm

Your gran probably thinks it all sounds like someone putting up shelves, but Trax & Wax has six genre boxes to choose from each month – house, disco, old school, nu school, techno and drum & bass – and you can switch between them. The best value is to select a four-record box and pay for six months up front, but there’s also an option for two. Either way, you won’t be short of opportunities to shuffle round the living room imagining you’re at the niteclub.

Turntable Kitchen £25pm

Yes, another poster-couple-run service attacking your taste buds as well as your eardrums, but this one isn’t quite as twee as the Stylus service reviewed above. Turntable Kitchen is kind of like to Stylus what Sufjan Stevens is to Ed Sheeran. You’re getting a single rather than LP, but these are specially pressed and released by artists you’re not going to find on the shelves of your local supermarket. If you’re not a keen cook (and why should you be?) there’s also an option to take your music with coffee instead.

Vinyl Me, Please £28pm

While relatively eclectic, the records plucked by Vinyl Me, Please are more likely to be ones you’ve already heard: Beck’s Odelay or Hot Chip’s In Our Heads for example. But the company works closely with labels and artists to create an exclusive 12-inch with things such as coloured vinyl, custom lyric books and exclusive artwork. Still, committing to a longer subscription offers the freedom of swapping one in three records if you already own it.

Vinyl Moon £28pm

If you’re after new musical recommendations, but a little tentative about putting all your trust into one picked-out artist, Vinyl Moon swerves that risk by putting together a rather eclectic mix tape, pressing it to coloured vinyl and commissioning a visual artist to design the cover. You end up with something entirely unique, plus you get the relevant literature to tell you about the bands you’re listening to, as well as lyric sheets and individual artwork.

VNYL £28pm

A gratuitous use of hashtags and the words ‘vibe’ and ‘crib’, presented in garish pink and white, make VNYL’S website decidedly sickly, but the general concept is rather astute. VNYL appoints each subscriber a rep, who’ll pick out music for them. You can connect your Spotify and Discogs accounts and each month pick a ‘vibe’ such as #dinnerparty or #flowerpower (yes, they’re all hashtags) and they’ll do the rest. No word yet, however, as to whether there will ever be a grown-up version of VNYL for adults.

Wax & Stamp £28pm

Wax & Stamp’s owners gratefully count the blessings of the internet, but miss the serendipity of a storeowner’s suggestion. So they created this subscription service, where each month they select one record and invite a guest to pick the other. Guests so far have included snooker legend and DJ Steve Davis and comedian Josie Long, as well as various DJS and label managers. Genres have been as diverse as post-dubstep and Spanish garage rock.