What does your record collection mean to you these days?
Okem
4,617 Posts
Thought theStrut might find some resonance in this - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/magazine/streaming-music-has-left-me-adrift.html?ref=magazine&_r=0
Comments
Uncanny in its resonance,
Cue now the anti-elitist haters; yet they must deal.
Why shouldn't someone just getting into music go for the deepest rarest funk? It's as easy to find as the Supremes.
What am i missing?
In part, he's kind of echoing a sentiment expressed on here numerous times in recent years, that record collecting / music collection currarting (whatever you want to label it) used to be journey that you had to travel to reach certain points. You had to put in the time and with that time came experience, knowledge and reward. Now you just go on google and it's yours in an instant. The majority of the collections people spent years, even decades building up, can now be downloaded in a few days. TheStrut response to this, in part, has generally been 'little dudes don't deserve *insert raer*, cause they don't know *insert common staple*'. But as LaserWolf said, why shouldn't they. That's argument has been lost and the world has moved on.
Which leads us to the question, what does your (physical) music collection mean to you, now that it's cultural value/meaning has been somewhat lost.
To me, my record collection is in large part my autobiography. Records have been a part of my life since I was 5 years old, so there are so many memories intertwined with my records. Records take me back to Sunday mornings in Aberdeen (MD) getting ready for church, with "Standing in the Judgment" (by The Sensational Nightingales) blasting over the console stereo. I get a big smile on my face and think of my dad when I hear that song. I swung by Aberdeen on the way to Baltimore a couple of years ago. The old "Doc's Shop" building (but not the store) was still there were dad picked me up "Fly, Robin, Fly" on 45. Or, my brother's going away gift "Zenyatta Moondatta," was our first introduction to The Police when we were moving away from Silver Spring, MD back down to NC. Lovebug Starski's "Live at the Fever" takes me back to DJ Zo's crib when I was learning how to DJ. When I play "Freakin's Fine" by Mandre, I think of my uncle Phillip and the memories attached to our NC trips, and how he'd blow our minds with his records. The records I've searched for all through the years have taken me to interesting places far and wide, domestically and overseas. There are so many stories attached to each and every record, and I can't imagine such lore, joy, and life experiences being associated with an mp3 on the computer. Maybe that is possible, but my almost 45-year old mind can't process it.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
BITD record companies devalued music, and bands/artists, by only promoting hits and letting all else wither and die.
But, Haha, now not only bands are making no money, record companies aren't making any either.
Those of us who understood how evil the record companies were showed our hatred for them by... buying records.
It used to be if you were into an obscure genre you could find a fellow traveler and instant friend when you found someone else who had the same records.
Now you wont find someone who took the time to search the bins for the same gems, just someone who typed a name into google.
Likewise dating.
And that, my friend, is why I am dedicated to digitally releasing the entire Firestone Christmas catalog. Blood, sweat, and tears right there my friend.
I binged on some Axelrods, Electric Prunes. So good.
I was surprised at how good the Double X Posse album was. That's one of the things I like about having a large collection of records, you can forget about stuff and then be surprised by it. Yes, this happens with digital/streaming, but it's less of a surprise, it's more like everything is a surprise because of the way it works.
I could really care less about what the public view of collecting is these days because my friends and I have never been more serious about finding cool stuff and constantly pushing outwards on the fringes of our collective knowledge. Yeah, the "I have this record and you don't" contingent is as big as ever, but let's be honest, that's one part of why digging and collecting records is so exciting (to me, at least): to have something unique and cool that might not be widely known. In fact, having access to all this music on the internet only underscores how special the special stuff on vinyl really is.
b/w
No, and no.
This is pure "old days vs. new days" nostalgia bullshit.
There's no place on google where you can download yourself an accomplished taste.
Youngsters into music know their shit because they obsess over the stuff, just like you did in the godforsaken decade you discovered vinyl.
Ipods and stuff offer portability and instant access, but nothing more.
You think wikipedia offers people better music knowledge than magazines ?
You think YT videos allow people to get a grasp of music scenes ?
And it's not like you had to dig with a shovel to find great music in the 70s or as if people/the media didn't talk about it
Attention span is inversely proportionate to choice.
When you were young and had to pay actual money for music of your choice, you listened to these pieces of music a lot, because most folks did not possess the means to purchase all the music being made. I bought, what, maybe an album or two a month as a teenager?
There was not a million other new things you could listen to if you got bored - skipping an entire album was pretty much unheard of. You could swap rekkids with other kids and get to make friends that way. And so, tracks and artists would grow on you because there was not infinite choice.
Nowadays I doubt kids listen to 1% of new stuff from start to finish. There is nothing special about saving the money for it, or having detailed gatefold artwork, or wondering who the musicians were. There is no need to persist with something long enough for you to change your mind or spot a nuance that was not immediately obvious.
I reminds me of the clandestine shots of the Sultan of Brunei's car park. His own multistorey, crammed with exotic and bespoke vehicles from every corner of the world. Most of them with a handful of miles on them, rotting away, because he seldom drove them, because there was always something new.
Humans collect "originals" because they exist. There's a process going on where some like Frank may move on, leaving others, myself probably included, waking up to the fact that once you strip off the layers of lifesyle, status and biography etc, the naked reality left behind is that you're just a greying antiques collector. Hence the anguish.
As someone who pretty much exclusively buys records, I think it also has to do with the fact that with a record you usually stay somewhat on 'standby' waiting to flip the record over and your attention is more focused on the music. When I play a record, I sit next to the turntable and stay there. A digital file or a cd is likely to be played on a computer or some sort of device that enables you to do other things at the same time and the music becomes part of the background.
In regards to the warmth of vinyl, records played on a decent setup definitely sound better than an mp3. It's apples and oranges. But, if you compare two high quality formats like a record and a lossless digital format, I wonder if part of it has to do with the physical object. A CD is hard, has sharp corners, and it's stiff. A record cover is made of some organic materials, is softer, less sterile, and the record itself is often flexible.
Simply put, music is the soundtrack of my life. Records have been there from the very beginning. Hell, "Journey to Satchidanada" (Alice Coltrane) was instrumental in pulling my wife! We bonded around our mutual affinity to music.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
"My record collection is no longer a lifestyle, a biography, a status. The identities that I and a generation of fellow aesthetes spent our lives fashioning are suddenly obsolete. They turned out to be mere patterns of consumption, no more resilient than the patterns of production that provoked them. Not content to ruin music for the first three decades of my life, the major labels have collapsed and ruined dating too. I will probably never forgive them, if I ever get around to forgiving myself."
is in itself so dated it has lost it's relevance. This sentiment was being tossed about by people 10+ yrs ago as a reason to join the rats and swim. You either do it cuz you love it or you don't at this point I think. The path is the way and so on...
Damn of all the records.Sorry Stacks but I love your wife already
As date music goes, that is kind of out there...
In my experience doing a vinyl only monthly radioset and playing vinyl only sets in bars and clubs gets waaay more props and attention than the dime a dozen laptop djs out there all playing the same tired ass shit with the entire digital world at their finger tips.
Even the kids can tell the difference between some guy whos downloaded 5 gigs yawning behind a macbook versus someone playing their own hard fought grips.
I still get people coming up to the decks and asking to see what record im playing - that does not happen to mp3jays- their obviousness and commonplaceness works against them - crowds are jaded to that because they know how easy it is, unless the guy or gal in question is transcending the format by being -that good-.
Matter of fact - in my experience Ive rarely heard casual mp3jays come close to an og vinyl dj set in terms of originality and surprising selections. Physical collectors always seem to be more quirky and interesting in their choices.
So yeah it might be harder work to pull out records vs. playing mp3s in the house, and i do both, but I find just making an effort to keep your vinyl and turntables close at hand is definitely more rewarding than streaming, unless youre just too lazy or otherwise indisposed.
My kids have their own little section with mgmt and pharrels happy and fairytale story records and ish, they get a big kick out of staring at iron maiden record covers, and they still fukcs with the youtubes but I know they can tell vinyl collecting and record listening parties with the homies are in a different league (and better fun) than an itunes shuffle stream.
Plus, some of the most fun ive seen my seven year old son ever have with music is putting on the instrumental flipside of that yellow see through happy 12" and pitching it waaaaay down dancing in slowmotion and collapsing into hysterical laughter. a physical, visceral, musical experience you cant replicate online
9 times out of ten a hardworking old ass record collector is going to be more clued up and unique in his taste than any smart ass online e-digger offering up hip ironic and pitchfork approved tunes du jour. These hipsters -still- aint fucking with us.
agreed, i was just talking about this the other day, its funny cuz everytime iver heard a laptop jockey play its the same bullshit songs that everyone plays, seems kind of ironic considering they have gigs upon gigs of music in their harddrives. also, i do an all vinyl night and its my longest lasting and best attended night.
I think to Maya Angelou when she said ÔÇ£I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.ÔÇØ
You can have music speak to you or just have it as noise. But ultimately you can have a piece of music make you feel something. Collecting records (Or anything for that matter) is just a further extension of an emotion or connection to it all.
Because technology can give us many many things at our finger tips. It doesn't necessarily mean it can give us everything.
You can have every comic book ever made at your fingers tips. And that might be all someone ever needs. But that still doesn't mean it's what everyone wants. Some want to further that connection. Be it collecting for monetary reasons, or because they miss the smell or feel, or whatever... It's only what reasons that the individual holds that matters. And that matters only to them ultimately and nobody else.