Zach Schonfeld, writing for Stereogum:

Madell’s post alluded to something that has become an open secret within the music industry: Vinyl Me, Please’s relationships with licensing partners and labels both small and large have deteriorated because of significant unpaid debts accrued during VMP’s downfall. Five months after VNYL’s acquisition — and one month after the new owners relaunched VMP without a website storefront, inviting customers to “Join us in this offline revolution” — both major debts and relatively minor sums owed to small businesses remain unpaid. (The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but sources say VNYL Inc. did not assume the debt.) The ricocheting effects of that debt have impacted customers as well, since VMP developed a habit of taking preorders for vinyl releases that never materialized. As one former employee told me, “We didn’t have the money to pay the labels to get the licenses released so that we could press the records that we had already sold to people.”