Regal Zonophone 2
In a recent trip to a record fair I was embroiled in a discussion with a vendor about the size of one's personal record collection and it got me wondering "how many is enough?" I'm a few shy of 7500 albums and keep thinking "do I really need any more?" then something super good comes along and I can't seem to resist adding just one more. Doing the maths it would take... Errrr?....a long time to just listen to each one just the once.
So I ask, how big is your collection and what do you consider ENOUGH?
Do you like all the stuff you've collected or is it just a case of grab it while you can and maybe one day you'll get round to listening to it and then decide if it's a keeper? Do you collect as an investment? Do you prune out things you no longer listen to? Are you a completionist? etc etc.
Let's get talking.
PPP
Not a completist.
I draw the line at a certain point - for instance of the 3 HOME lps I will never allow "Pause For A Hoarse Horse" in the collectro cos it stinks of America-rural rock .
Yes Mark,a question i have asked myself so many times,and even going as far as berating myself for buying cds when the money is tight!!
Collectors of anything,will know this scenario,not just music enthusiasts.....it's part of this hobby becoming an obsession,or even an addiction,and it plays on the obsessive compulsive side of people.
I look upon my collection as a type of private library,knowing i have 1000s of cds,that i will never get through again,but i know they are there if i ever want to listen or even look at and read the liners.Plus i'm a single bloke,who has NO partner to nag me to reign it in.As sometimes i do buy cds when i have little cash making me do without something else.
Music is my only hobby,the only thing i'm realy interested in,and wakes me from my slumber.As i show little interest or excitement in much else.I still but a fair amount of cd reissues each month.
I'm going to comment on what Jose says concerning bonus tracks,retrospective comps with unreleased recordings,and unreleased albums being issued onto cd 50 years after their original recording.
I am the complete opposite to Joses in this regard,i absolutely love bonus tracks on cd,i don't trully understand anyone moaning about getting extra material on cds,for a decent price,in particular in the cd age when one can programme just the album tracks!!So even if the bonus tracks are below par,the listener does NOT have to listen.
As for retrospective unrealeased albums,THIS makes what being a music enthusiast fun,and exciting,hearing an unreleased album from 50 years ago....yes of course in many circumstances its understandable why those albums lay unreleased,but my word there have been some really good unreleased albums and recordings that saw the light of day 50 years later!!I find that exciting,interesting,and well worthwhile searching archives.
As for the analog/digital era, i DON'T buy vinyl and have only been a cd buyer for over 25 years,its the music for me,NOT the source i listen to it on,there's many myths and rose coloured specs concerning vinyl,being better than cd,i have NEVER believed that,as BOTH sources have good and bad things to them,cd is now so much better than the early cds that where issued,but vinyl went through so much evolution and had 80 years to evolve before the introduction of cd,which even today is only 40 years old,so the undeserved criticism of cd by many vinyl collectors is unjust and totally skewered as i say with rose coloured spectacles,concerning sound quality,as there are many vinyl records with awful sound reproduction,and lets NOT forget the pops,clicks,warping,scratches,and other surface noise that used to annoy me to bits when i bought and played vinyl,hence aftyer buying original cds,i NEVER looked back to vinyl,and will NEVER buy another record player,there is certainly a lot of snobbery concerning many vinyl only collectors look on cd,i can't stand it,more interested in matrix numbers,and the rarity than the music on the actual album.I DON'T get it and never have.
Thats my tuppence worth on this subject and more.I'm a music lover,NOT a rarity lover.
I could rant on this for hours but for now have contained myself to a couple of the questions Mark raised
PM:slightly_smiling_face:
How many do I have?
Thousands of CDs, LPs and 45s. Is a 10 cd box set 10 or 1? I gave up that kind of counting a long time ago. I do though add up what I have in a given series or of a particular artist perhaps to see where the gaps are and if I want to fill them or not. I do love CD box sets and the idea of being able to encompass an artist’s entire output in a couple of boxes can be very immersive once you get into the reading and listening for stylistic changes over the years (I’m on Van der Graff Generator at the moment). Also the compilation CDs, fewer these days but still around.
How many is enough?
It sort of elides into the above. It’s not I think a matter of overall quantity but of what your enthusiasm is at any given time. So whatever you enthuse about at a given moment is what you go after and add to the whole. Essentially, you’re on an ever shifting horizon of the present peering into the near future and what’s coming up. I think pragmatically, it is also about what you can accommodate. I have a small box room which is both my office and where 90% of music collection is, though the means to play any of it is downstairs in the lounge. If I want something like a box set, fleetingly, ‘where am I going to put it?’ scurries across my mind before being kicked into the long grass by ‘I want it’! Self-convincingly I reason my need for it or justify the cost etc. Once attained, only then does ‘where the hell am I going to put it? Come back to bite me in the ass! Also, what will my wife say! So, always hoping the Amazon delivery will come while she’s at work! Of course, ‘enough’ could be when you are choosing between food and sound and that’s all too real in today’s economy (what’s left of it anyway!). Of course I have a whole load of stuff that I have bought enthusiastically but not yet played, including CD box sets from 6-9 months ago. This is often because if I have several 1 or 2 x CD sets to play I will consider those above commencing a journey into a ten CD box set if I am tight for listening time. It represents a mission completed with each one that way. I do worry that if I start a box and not have time to play disc 3 for a few months, I will have forgotten what the first two discs were like! Hence I always make some notes on my initial thoughts on a disc every time I have played a new one, a bit like a mini-review for myself as a reminder which then bring s it all back.
Pruning.
Like many people I suspect if a superior re-master of an album gets made, especially when it’s packaged with the original master as well (thinking of The Doors box from a decade ago), stand-alone CDs get ebayed or just put in the loft. Otherwise, I tend to keep everything. I have though been decanting some jewel cased CDs into those slim line pvc envelopes that accommodate both the disc and the artwork so you can fit four or five of those in the space of one jewel case. Saves on the shelf space but I would not want all my jewel cased CDs stored that way. If it’s a four page fold-out front cover and a 12 track CD, into the plastic wallet it goes. If it’s an ACE label type CD with thick booklet and lengthy playing time, then it stays jewel cased. I’ve sold many CDs and LPs and a few singles in the past when the wolf was at the door. Plus I have done a lot of selling through music magpie of old stuff not played in years. However, I did fine I ended up re-buying about 50% of them later on as an enthusiasm for whatever the music was came up on me again (grunge was one).
I often wish I only liked one kind of music, it would be much simpler. However, I find my taste horizons broaden with age when it should be the other way round.
So much comment I don't know where to begin in response. I'll start with Jose. Yes, I totally agree that buying patterns have changed a lot with time.
As a teenager, with limited pocket money record buying was limited to an album a month, if I was lucky. I remember thinking when I'd amassed 30 albums that I had a fairly decent collection, compared to my mates who had a dozen or so. I also remember my dad commenting "not another bloody record, a waste of money if you ask me. You do realize that you won't be playin' it in 6 months time when your sick of hearing it"
My first album purchase was "Aladdin Sane" and I must have played it a hundred times before it finally started to get stale. Not deterred I continued to collect but I learnt NOT to advertise to my dad that I'd bought another "bloody album". It was about this time I made my first collecting faux pas. I owned most of Bowie's back catalogue and had spun them so many times I could sing all the songs from every album without accompaniment and I was constantly craving new stuff. Unable to afford records at a pace to satisfy my needs I was swapping albums with my mates. I remember trading most of my Bowie albums for Uriah Heep & Led Zep....Yikes! What was I thinking; I wasn't even a fan of heavy metal.
Skipping forward to the 80's I had a Saturday job wrapping and pricing records at the Virgin Mega Store, London. I'd never seen so many records and I was listening to all sorts by way of in store play and building a stash that radically outstripped my student grant. I use to get given the odd freebie and promo stuff the reps handed out but the tenner I got paid for an 8 hour shift all got spent in store. My collection soon reached the 500 mark and I was now scouring second-hand and charity shops for cheap albums from bands I'd heard on TOTP's, TOGWT, The Tube etc. I think I can safely say I was a vinyl addict at this point. I got into Gong and had to have everything they'd ever done, (a passion that continues to this day) That entailed buying albums purely for the covers, formats, labels plus the entire output of all the associated band members. I ended up as assistant manager at Virgin in Leeds and the collection continued to grow exponentially.
A few years later I'd moved on to a lucrative overseas job in the Middle East where they had those bootleg tape shops. I was now buying in bulk, 20 to 30 at a time, as they were so cheap. I was also spending about £300 a month on mail order, buying from Delirium, ACME, Heyday etc. Most of these purchases were based solely on written descriptions as I'd never heard of most of the bands but I knew what I liked and didn't make too many bad buys. These were sent to my parent’s house in the UK, culminating in dozens of packages awaiting my yearly visit home. I also packed in as many record fairs as I could before returning.
The moral of this story is that if there is little alternative and you have the cash you end up buying a shit load of albums and I had a blast doing just that............To be continued.
PPP
Yes Mark, memory jogged:
I have literally been paid for work in records! The drummer in a band I was in in the early 80s was a building worker and asked me to 'knock up some pug' (cement) for him on a job at a second-hand record shop one Saturday. Got paid part cash and part rare Siouxsie & The Banshees records and gig posters (I was a huge fan), nice one!
I remember walking all the way from my council estate into the town centre with just enough cash to buy the new Slade single 'Cum On Fee The Noize' at WH Smiths in 1973. Then walked all the way back and never did Noddy Holder's voice sound so loud and delightful! :slightly_smiling_face:
Aye, Your tastes broaden.
Brain goes soft with age and you find yourself listening to more soft and simpul psychpop pap. Its loike when you have done too much of the Bruichladditch and yer half-opening yer drozzy eye surprized to come to the fuzzy conclusion that Herman's Hermits track "Museum" ain't half bad.
.....And so to Stuart. I totally agree with the concept that your collection is a "private library" and as such deserves a degree of reverence and completeness. I sometimes wonder what will happen to it when I pass on (hopefully not for a while). Having no next of kin, whom should I bequeath it to? Or should I just let it go in some uncaring house clearance to be broken up and sold on to the highest bidder? Personally I think it deserves more than this. This raises another point, that of nostalgia. Many songs have a significant poignancy and can evoke strong emotional feelings when I hear them. I still can't listen to "Christmas Rapping" by the Waitresses or "My Sister" by Juliana Hatfield without welling up. Other songs create a feeling of 'overdrive' such as "Floating Anarchy" by Here & Now or "Seether" by Verucca Salt and I simply have to sing along (loudly). The point about collecting new stuff is that you never know what songs are out there that will evoke the same strong emotional response and/or provide that thrill that makes you want to listen to it over and over. I know we've all had that feeling.
The point you make about retrospective releases with bonus tracks is a good one. An annoying marketing ploy or a completests delight? I'm in both camps depending on the artist/band and the content being offered but I have to agree that more often it disappoints rather than thrills.
CD Vs LP? Not sure on that one. I think for convenience CD's have the edge. I'm not a fan of getting up every 25 mins to change over a LP and often I'll only play my fave side, worse still I'll leave it on the runoff groove for 30 mins listening to the repetitive click, click click (we've all done it) whereas I tend to listen to a whole CD regardless. On the other hand I feel guilty about not spinning the vinyl much these days, especially as I spent over a grand on my turntable.
Sound quality doesn't come into it unless it's pops, crackles or dropouts and that can piss me right off. What's a matrix number? Only kidding, but yeah who gives a shit unless you are buying a mono original Beatles album and don't want to get ripped off......To be continued.
PPP
......Paul's turn. CD Box sets. I'm the exact opposite and get bored after the second disc, think of me as a bumble bee flitting from one exotic flower to the next. Coming to think of it I've got stuff from 20 years back that I still haven't listened to. C'est la vie.
Collection size Vs available space? Now there's an interesting conundrum and one I've had to address several times. There's no getting away from the fact that LP's are bulky little fellas, especially in bulk. CD's can also gobble up a fair amount of space and both present the question of how best to store them. I've never been a fan of sticking everything on a shelf with just the spines on show. Even arranged alphabetically it can take an age to rifle through all that miniscule writing looking for a title. I'm more a 'face-on, thumber'. But then you have to have storage boxes. At £50 a pop they alone have cost me over 2K. Standing like a huge impenetrable 3 story black wall stretching from one side of the room to the other and fully laden they each weigh a ton .
The later day collector probably has their entire collection housed on their phone but where's the fun in that? Album covers are ART of the highest form and should be displayed in gallerys for the world to admire, very much a case of the bigger the better. I recall that Virgin Megastore use to comission artists to make 2mx2m replicas of top selling album covers that they displayed in the store entrance....Oh how I coveted just one of those. I wonder where they ended up? I've done the best I can by way of homage by collecting the cover art for every item I own and putting them in a folder on my PC. I love to browse through them deciding which album to listen to before dismantling 'the wall' to retrieve the LP or CD.
But what if the collection is simply too large to be accomodated?. Trust me it happens and consequently compromises have to be made. For me it was audio cassettes and VHS tapes, they simply had to go. An easy choice as I never liked the format, either bulky or tiny replicas of the LP that never sat well with my OCD and what of all the stuff that has been scavenged from YT, Soulseek and the likes? The solution was to make thousands of 12.5cmx12.5cm 'mock ups' of the original covers and whack em in a PVC cover with a CDR version. If nothing else you can fit a large amount in a small space. but demanded that I found digital formats of all those cassettes. Luckilly I managed to track down 90% of them, just a case of knowing where to look, leaving just a hundred or so to convert manually. How long did all this take I hear you ask? At an average of 4 hours a day, around 3 years but worth it as my OCD rejoices with a task now fully complete. Anyone want several hundred cassettes? Didn't think so................To be continued.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdc0L8B0bC0
Hello Mark,
I know what will happen to my private library when it's my turn to leave this sometimes awful planet,it'll be landfill for sure,as NOONE in my family has the remote interest in music in general,never mind obscure 60s and 70s psychedelia and other assortments,and never mind it all being on cd,which to some makes it worthless!!
Do i care?Yes at this moment,but when i'm gone....i know it'll be like vultures circling around a corpse,picking out the things that maybe worth some financial gain for some members of my family who show little interest in me now,alive and breathing,but when that breathing stops,i know for a fact,their interest in me will miracalously reappear,while i'm laying in a box.Believe me i have a wee surprise for those family members who have shown no care,no love or interest in me alive.So i'm fucked if they're going to benefit when i'm dead!!
My dear friends will be the recipients of anything worth having,even my music collection,as luckily i do have a couple of dear pals who are musically orientated,including 60s sounds.......if not,its going to be stipulated it ALL goes to a charity of my choice.NOT one of the big charities who pay their bosses obscene wages!!So at the end of the day,what i call my private library,will be broken into bits,but my soul will carry the music,to wherever i end up,if anywhere.
The cds and the cases are just packaging,just like my body.The music means more to me than a case,a disc and a booklet,it permeates something within me,but those things are important to me while i'm still here,i love the packaging of cds with booklets,it's all part of the fun of being a music enthusiast,but when i'm not breathing,they mean nothing in reality!!It's THE music that counts and lives on.
I'll jump from a rather serious take,to another less important thing,in my opinion,in 2022 the phallacy that vinyl from 50 years ago,still sounds better than most of todays music being issued on cd,i'm sorry,i've held the belief many vinyl only collectors,constantly harp on about the sound of a bit of vinyl from 50 years ago,replete with surface noise etc,beats the vast majority of cd sound...i personally believe,now they're kidding themelves on,and i do know that some would not care if cds become obsolete,which is sad,the ONLY thing i miss about 12 vinyl,is the artwork,i have NO rose coloured glasses concerning vinyl,none at all,i do not miss it at all.i did buy vinyl at one time,i disliked it at the time,but i loved music,and vinyl on 7 and 12" was the easiest way to buy it, play it and hear it.
Technology moves on,but i hope BOTH vinyl and cd live on for as long as possible.As i do know most on here have a mix of vinyl and cd in their collections,but their vinyl is much more thought of and important to many,possibly because of rarity and worth,but lets be honest,vinyl and its ever evolving artworks,ARE snapshots of time,and ARE in my eyes part of cultural history,and part of peoples growing up of a certain age,this will NEVER be heaped upon cd,as its less personal,possibly not as emotionally impacting as a 12"album,but please,i don't fall for this vinyl always sounds better narrative.....to me THAT is romanticising it's worth.
Maybe controversial in somes eyes,but for me it's not being said for arguments sake,or to upset anyone or talk down to anyone,its just my opinion,and what MY ears hear.Also to possibly make conversation.
That's it from me,again a bit blowhardy,a bit longwinded,and some may think full of crap...but that's how discussions begin or continue!!!
Some points....
i. I have both vinyl and cds. Still have many of the records I got when I was young, but did make the mistake of trading some that are now worth $$$ as in those days it was the only way i could keep buying new things. Have since bought some of those back.
ii. Have been sucked in to the bonus cd track albums, which sometimes end up with about four versions of the same track which it's hard to tell much difference.
iii. I'm not a completist. Just get what I like. eg. Big Genesis fan, but after Peter Gabriel left, I had no interest.
iv. I am a pruner, but if it was a garden, it would be quite overgrown. Do like to find something in better condition than mine if I come across it.
v. My personal collection is mine, not an investment. If I come across something that I know is collectible, but it doesn't interest me, I'll sell it and put that money towards something I do want.
Talking of things you regret selling. I had a nice copy of Roger Bunn's Piece Of Mind LP. I only bought it for the cover and didn't rate it much, apart from a couple of tracks. I sold it through Record Collector mag for £16 about 20 years ago. I see that it now sells for £100 - £150. Guess I should have held onto it a tad longer. C'est la vie.
Another thing I regret is lending people albums. I know for a fact that I had a mint copy of the bootlegged Dupree's Paradise by Frank Zappa which was a double LP. It wasn't until I started cataloguing my collection many years later and couldn't find it, that it occured to me that I'd lent it along with several other albums to some guy. Unfortuntely I'd lost contact with him and so these were lost forever. Double c'est la vie.
PPP
Hello Greg,
I must be honest,i never understand those who complain about bonus tracks on a cd,it must be the only time,people complain about getting extra!!
Particularly with a cd,where it's easy to NOT play the bonus tracks,one can programme the cd to just play the actual album,so i don't get the complaints about that at all,but with vinyl,you can't programme anything,you have to get up after 25 minutes or so to play the other side,and with cd,you press a button to miss a tack,while laying on the couch,vinyl you have to get up,pick up the stylus arm,to miss a track.....i personally love extra tracks,and if there are 3 near identical versions,it's easy to NOT play them,or play just the one version,it's your choice.
THAT is the beauty of compact disc,its the lazy music lovers medium,nowt worse than laying chilling out,with a wee puff,and that is interrupted by having to turn a record over to continue playing the music....a cd can go for mainly 80 minutes of continuous music.I personally think it's a marvellous medium,and i will be well pissed off if the music industry decides to withdraw it,as i do feel they have over the last few years slowly denigrated the compact disc,but now with prices of vinyl going silly,and more expensive to produce,the compact disc may just be making a resurgence,possibly not for the younger generations,but for folks like myself.
I've got nothing against bonus tracks on a cd, in fact that's why I would get something I already had. I just don't see the point in having the same track sometimes up to four times. eg original version, demo version, 45 slightly shortened version, U.S. version, etc.
I agree about the price of vinyl nowadays being exorbitant, but I can't see cds making a vinyl like comeback in our life time. It's rare now to find too many decent second hand records in an op shop, but cds and dvds are a dime a dozen, and hold very little value.
I remember the good ol' days when I could spend all day at a record fair and end up spending £££'s, walking out with a cache of goodies I couldn't wait to get home and play.
In a recent outing to a 'big' VIP fair (Manchester) I did my usual skip round the dealers to see what sort of stuff they had to offer. From what I recall there were virtually no CD's on sale. The vinyl on offer was the same old dirge rock I've seen hundreds of times before. No shortage of punters though pawing over standard copies of albums by VDGG, Bowie and the likes and walking out with bag loads. In a way I felt sorry for the modern day collector who only has the option of picking over the scraps of yesteryear and thinking they've grabbed a bargain. The 'good stuff' displayed on the wall or stands behind the dealers consisted mainly of beat up copies of second rate albums and I had to laugh at the ludicrous prices they were asking. I left before the hour was up buying absolutely nothing. C'est la vie.
PPP
I hear you Greg but there are plenty of rare CDs and instances of a CD reissue being more expensive and harder to find than the original LP it is of which can often be cheap and plentiful. Also Japanese mini LP CDs, especially in box sets along with other (by no means all of course) CD box sets, have a high financial value. Not that that is why most people buy music in physical format. Whilst it is certainly true that bog standard CDs have little financial value, there is a turn towards collecting CD singles for instance from the later 1980s and 1990s (their heyday of course) which is increasing (all those CD1 and CD2 versions of singles with extra and now sometimes rare remixes or bonus tracks etc.). So I do think if we are just talking financial value there is a lot more to CDs than the abundance of supermarket bought top ten titles of yesteryear now littering car boots.
PM:slightly_smiling_face:
Yep, I used to go to the Brighton Centre mega fairs in the 1980s and spend £££s on various Siouxsie & The Banshees international variants of sleeve art / design, labels etc. I always intended to come out with a variety of stuff but there were so many S&TB things I'd never seen that's where all the money went! (all vinyl)
PM:slightly_smiling_face:
Regarding Stuart's comments about which is superior vinyl or CD? Here is an informative video entitled "The Truth About Vinyl - Vinyl Vs Digital" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzRvSWPZQYk
Enjoy
PPP