With the sheer quantity of music available on streaming services, there’s not much of a logical reason to buy physical media anymore. And yet vinyl thrives: It’s fun, it looks and sounds great, and it usually holds its value. Most new vinyl records nowadays cost little more than CDs did in their heyday, although some are given the deluxe treatment—180 gram, colored vinyl, half-speed mastering, and so on—which raises the price tag further.
While 180 gram and colored vinyl are essentially novelties, the records themselves remain a mixed bag, with excellent product sharing bin space with slapdash work at your favorite record store. So how do you know if that fancy new reissue is worth the extra cash? A perfectly pressed new record is becoming something of a white whale these days; warps, digital intermediaries, and sloppy mastering/pressing jobs can ruin a premium product. These are some recent, expensive reissues in the new bins now—are they worth it?