In my recent blogs on Instagram and TikTok, I asked the question, why am I surrounded by so much vinyl. I have been buying records since I was ten years old and haven’t stopped yet! I asked why I don’t save the space and instead of downloading or streaming the music I want to hear. But then, instead of answering, in the next few posts, I diverted myself into a potted history of why an album is called ‘an album’, before digging out all my old records and gramophone to talk about 78s, breakable shellac. I then moved on to the birth of vinyl as a format, and to LPs, EPs and singles.
So here I am, several videos later, and I still haven’t answered the initial question. The next one has to. But what’s stopped me so far? The answer is . . . I can’t! I don’t really know what it is that drives me to visit record shops, and what creates the compulsion to leave with at least one purchase, often more.
And it’s not a specific record shop. Everywhere I go, I seek them out. In fact, a journey (work, pleasure, you name it) is incomplete if I’ve not found a shop to browse vinyl. It’s usually my first task on arrival in a hotel after putting on the kettle – check out where the nearest source of music is, be it a record store or a promising-sounding charity shop. This might be an internet search; it used to be Yellow Pages. It could even mean asking at Reception. I have no shame!
But why? Perhaps it’s the hunt, the hope of stumbling across something rare or that I might never see anywhere else. Or the joy of discovering an artist or music I’ve never heard before. That if I don’t buy it now, I might never have the opportunity again. Or am I just drawn, like a moth to a flame, to the racks of discs and the smell of good old-fashioned vinyl?
I should add that I can be fussy. As my tastes are varied and I’m not looking for anything specific, if the shop is too neat and well organised, I get bored. If it’s too haphazard and means trawling through the same-olds (yet another Tom Jomes, Black and White Minstrels, Bachelors, Val Doonican….) I get disheartened. And if there’s too much to go through, with boxes and shelves stacked low and high, I give up unless I’m incentivised by a quick win. And while on ‘low and high’, why is it that charity shops invariably relegate their records to a box on the floor? Do they not recognise that their customer base is likely to struggle to bend down to browse, let alone stand up again after!
Then there are record fairs. At least you know what you’re getting, and they know why you’re there. But they are pop-ups and often in dark and dingy rooms, and because the sellers know we are there with the intention of making seeking out and making purchases, the prices are consequently high. And if the aforementioned cluttered charity shop with poorly treated, badly stored and hopelessly displayed stock is a turn-off, so are tightly packed boxes of over-priced albums and singles at a record fair. There’s no chance of stumbling on a rarity or bargain. The emphasis is on misprinted sleeves and first editions, sold at premium plus prices. They’re not really for the impulse buyer or the music lover like me. It’s all for building up ‘collections’.
I put ‘collections’ in inverted commas because that’s a word I despise when talking about my records. A collection sounds like a museum, where items are stored to be preserved, admired and gawped at. Collectors are either archivists or nerds. I hope I’m neither. I’m a listener. The ‘collector’ wants ‘mint’ or near mint condition discs. That means pristine covers and vinyl untroubled by having been played. I ruin my records because I have the temerity to play them. Not that I damage them, but the very act of a stylus caressing the grooves devalues a disc. It’s like a new car that costs a lot in the showroom and is half price the moment you take it on the road. But owning a car is pointless unless you ride in it, and a record is for playing, listening and enjoying. I don’t mind if a disc is a reissue or worn, so long as the sound quality is good. I can listen through crackles and distortions so long as they’re not too intrusive. It probably means my shelves of albums and boxes of singles are worth very little in monetary value. But they are priceless to me. Though if a better copy or original pops up, who’s to say I won’t snap it up!
None of which actually answers the question of why I surround myself with records and keep buying them.
Looks like I’ll have some serious thinking to do before I record that next video!
