RECESSION SPECIAL

The great Gray’s Papaya at the corner of 8th Street and 6th Avenue.

The short story is I’m reducing prices of vinyl, CDs and tapes that have been released by Uncommon Records.

Now, the longer version. Back in the days as everyone who’s ever been to Fat Beats in NYC knows, a few doors down was the great Gray’s Papaya. At Gray’s Papaya you could always get the “Recession Special”, it started during a real recession in the 80’s (I assume), but was always viable because even if the country wasn’t in a recession, someone some where was. Politicians started campaigning at Gray’s throughout the 2000’s due to Gray’s political statement, standing up for working class folks by offering two hot dogs and a drink for $3.50 daily. Nowadays Fat Beats and Gray’s are gone replaced by a massage parlor and a smoothie shop, respectively, but we find ourselves right back in a recession.

I was thinking about Gray’s recently after taking a road trip with my wife in the Summer. Working and living in NYC creates a bubble, but not in the way you think. Living here is expensive, for my entire adult life it’s been expensive and more than likely always will be. That said, the stories of inflation have always fallen flat with me, I assumed I felt inflation because I was in the most expensive city in the country. I was numb to it. But when I took that road trip and paid almost $20 for a basic corporate fast food chicken sandwich combo at a road stop in the Adirondacks, I realized that inflation was real and that we are at a true tipping point in this country, because this kind of pricing is unsustainable for every day people.

I’m also the kind of person that always has at least one eye on the job market in my personal life, since I am in the 9 to 5 world in addition to being an artist. This year, options are more limited than I’ve seen in a very long time. I feel like the form of inflation that comes with higher wages and labor mobility is different than what we see now. I feel like we are seeing the gouging of the people. I also feel like we’ve all been a party to this in the music business.

I tried to think about when this all began, was it really during the aftermath of Covid? No, I think we’ve been going this way for a long time - particularly in music and entertainment. With the current political climate of blatant oppression and fascism rolling out un-checked, with what seems like a purposeful financial gouging of the people in order to keep them obedient in their workplaces, I said “no more”. To be clear, there is nothing I can do about most of what I’ve discussed about our economy or our leadership - but I can do what I can to disengage from this twisted paper chase in the music industry. You can’t stand against oppression trying to sell products that your own audience can’t afford.

We live in an era of 3-figure priced vinyl releases and $500 nose bleed concert tickets when you can’t even get a highway lunch for less than $20. Shit makes no sense. I think in the music business there is extreme greed, the high prices of vinyl releases have done one thing for sure - they’ve driven the prices to press vinyl through every roof imaginable. We have created our own inflationary movement that would not have occurred without our own greed. The rising prices of some of these releases admittedly played a factor in our own pricing, but now I hope that today we can influence other labels and artists take similar steps to change this. Or at the least I hope it becomes obvious that prices are too high across the board and similar ideas come about.

While our releases were never at an elite high level, they are higher than they need to be, especially now in 2025. So we’ve put in the following cuts across the board at our webshop and bandcamp.

Vinyl LPs were $25-30, All vinyl is now $20.

Vinyl 7 inches were $15, All 7 inches are now $10

CDs were $15, now $10 per CD ($12 for CDs that include booklets or gatefolds)

Tapes are now all aligned at $10

We’ll revisit clothing at some point in the future if need be, but wanted to start with the physical media. I realize that many reading this may already own a substantial amount of our catalog, but even if this is largely symbolic, it’s a symbol I wanted to show.

We are truly all in this together, no one is alone, and even though things may be dark, they will get better.

Peace to all of our supporters over the years. We’ve got junclassic’s Uncommon Records debut, Music to My Eyes, coming up this Fall. It’s a fully Uncommon Nasa produced project that will see a CD release. Following that is a compilation on CD called Growing Legacy, that will feature many thus far, digital only singles, plus a ton of exclusive material from all of our artists. Stay tuned, we’ve got a lot more work coming.

Written by Uncommon Nasa

Owner, Uncommon Records.