WHITE'S PLEA TO MAJORS: BUILD PRESSING PLANTS

According to Jack White, vinyl is here to stay, and he’s asking the three majors to invest in their own pressing plants.

White’s been in the vinyl-pressing business since 2017 and continues to expand, with more equipment and employees, but he says that in the long run, his efforts cannot meet demand.

Noting that indie artists and labels have driven the current vinyl revolution, White wrote in an open letter, “The bigger problems we now see require major solutions. In this spirit, I turn to our collegial big brothers in the music world, Sony, Universal and Warner, and politely implore them to help alleviate this unfortunate backlog and start dedicating resources to building pressing plants themselves. We’re all on the same team with the same goals. I truly believe that with a good-faith investment in the infrastructure that got us here, we can continue on this upward trajectory and further inspire the world around us. Now is the time.”

Here's the full letter, “A Plea to the Three Global Major Labels”:

At least once a week, without fail, someone will reach out asking me to help expedite their vinyl record manufacturing. It’s a natural thought, knowing that I own a pressing plant and have my own record label—"If anyone could help, it’s this guy!"

With industry-wide turnaround times for vinyl currently leaning towards the length of a human pregnancy, it's obvious, in a world so contingent on being of-the-moment and timed just right (a single, an album, a tour, etc.), that these time lines are the killers of momentum, soul, artistic expression and, far too often, livelihoods.

I've done everything within my power to help. Third Man Records began a concerted focus on vinyl in 2009 with hopes of exposing its wider potential to the farthest reaches of the music industry. In 2017 I furthered my commitment by opening Third Man Pressing, a plant that has always been open to anyone and everyone who walks in the door and wants to press a record, from bedroom hip-hop artists to field-recording documentarians. And in the last year, I’ve doubled down and invested in even more record presses, more employees to run them and more shifts to try and accommodate the insane growing demand for vinyl product.

There are people who will say, "Isn’t this good for Third Man? More demand than you can handle?" To which I say, "Even though Third Man benefits in the short term, in the long term the bottlenecks and delays ultimately hurt everyone involved in the vinyl ecosystem." Something needs to be done.

While the entirety of vinyl investment and its framework in the past decade has originated from independent companies and investors, the bigger problems we now see require major solutions.

In this spirit, I turn to our collegial big brothers in the music world, Sony, Universal, and Warner, and politely implore them to help alleviate this unfortunate backlog and start dedicating resources to building pressing plants themselves.

To be clear, the issue is not big labels versus small labels. It's not independent versus mainstream. It's not even punk versus pop. The issue is, simply, we have ALL created an environment where the unprecedented demand for vinyl records cannot keep up with the rudimentary supply.

Across the globe, there are now a handful of new companies building both automated and manual vinyl presses. It’s easier to purchase a vinyl press now than it has been in four decades. And with more ancillary innovators popping up every day to help advance every facet of the industry, this isn’t a difficult decision to make; it's a no-brainer.

We’re all on the same team with the same goals. I truly believe that with a good-faith investment in the infrastructure that got us here, we can continue on this upward trajectory and further inspire the world around us. Now is the time. Thank you.

Jack White