A house you can wander
Rooms, secrets and things only the curious ever find. The store lives inside, just another room.
Idea from Gorillaz, who opened their virtual house in 1998 and switched it back on in 2025.
Research · Music e-commerce
Twelve ideas for a release
The boldest things the industry has done with its own sites since 1998, and what it would take to build them on a real catalog. Credit goes to whoever did it first.
The archive as a museum
One room per record: its art, its outtakes, its photos — and the vinyl for sale inside.
Idea from Radiohead, who turned two albums into an exhibition you can walk.
A collection that arrives in parts
The season drops in announced pieces. One purchase turns into four visits.
Idea from Golf Wang, the Tyler, The Creator label.
The quarterly box
Every three months, a numbered box with vinyl sold nowhere else. Revenue that doesn't wait on the next hit.
Idea from the Third Man Records Vault, now on package number 60.
Vinyl you tap with a phone
A chip inside the physical object: hold your phone close and it opens what only the buyer has.
Idea from vinylkey and the chipped formats several labels already ship.
A limited edition with no factory
A numbered digital edition, genuinely limited. Scarcity with nothing to press and nothing to ship.
Idea from Serenade, who got it to count toward the official UK charts.
The dumb tool everybody uses
The album cover turned into a generator, free. The cheapest thing on this list and the one that travels farthest.
Idea from Charli XCX and her label: the whole internet ran the campaign for her.
Códigos Tumbados
Objects hidden out on the street that unlock something online. It has worked since 2007.
Idea from Nine Inch Nails — and what we already built, with an audit trail, for the Los CT hunt.
The wall of records
The entire catalog as a wall that turns, playing right there. Already built.
Ours, at Los CT Records. It can sit on any label's catalog.
Membership that skips the line
Members get into the presale first. The store stops being a store and becomes a club.
Idea from Weverse, the platform Korean K-pop sells to half the world through.
One screen, nothing else
An almost empty page that becomes the only place anything gets announced. When it moves, everybody hears.
Idea from Kendrick Lamar, who holds up an empire with a page that has almost nothing on it.
Hardware of its own
The release ships with its own device. The highest ceiling on this list.
Idea from Kanye West and his stem player, sold on his own site.
Which one fits what's coming?
None of these works on its own. The one that works is the one that fits the record about to drop and the date already on the calendar. That's the conversation.