The Death of the Record Collection

the whole "on demand" internet/streaming services angle is largely a myth imo - so many things turn out to not actually be available when I want to stream them. The only reliable on demand service is to actually own stuff.

I literally cannot afford to buy more than a couple of records every year

similar to social media in a way -- there are plenty of ppl i'm sure who are relying exclusively on Facebook as the pipeline to others. it's an impossible statistic to track but i wonder how many folks have friends only connected through there, not even knowing their phone number or email address.

oh tons for me, everyone from college except a few (less than 10)

i think that's almost exclusively the case for me w/college and high school folks

Every rubric for purchasing things winds up feeling slightly silly.

Sound quality. It's not even a question for me. Streaming audio (in the way I'm able to stream) sounds crappy, CDs sound great.

(I stream a lot at work, but if I love something, I'll buy it so I can really listen to it.)

ppl naturally drift away and move apart from one another so Facebook is basically a life support system for your dead social ties and it would probably be good to pull the plug in many cases but there's a stigma in doing so of course.

just do it, facebook is a blight on society

If the sole point is to compensate musicians, I'm doing better when I buy merch, or add an extra $5 to the choose-your-own-price field on Bandcamp. And I agree that we're likely to be hit with huge shifts in what's available to stream, but if I were trying to preserve my favorite things that way, I should probably be stocking a massive hard drive with all the random curated playlists I listen to. That impermanence is daunting — the services allow you to get attached to such a breadth of stuff that you couldn't really hope to back it all up physically. Is that really the purpose of a collection, something defensive, a kind of Noah's Ark for when the digital flood comes? Picking the records, two by two, that you can save?

It is probably also kinda relevant that I have almost no time at home to sit and listen to music, making vinyl in particular feel very fetishistic and symbolic. My sustained listening happens on a commuter train. I should also admit that I am kind of hoping ILX will convince me that yeah, building an archive of Simple Machines seven-inches is actually very important preservation work, and 22nd-century historians will thank me for it

no time at home to sit and listen to music

I would simply change my life rather than changing my record-buying habits

personally I've just never cottoned to streaming, it just isn't how I like to engage with music. I want to listen to what I want when I want it and often repeatedly and exhaustively and deeply. A fair chunk is commuter listening but there's also listening at home and road trips etc. For me ownership - whether of MP3s or records - enables all that. I maintain a hard drive/cloud storage and regularly cull my LPs/buy new ones (albeit not nearly as many as I did in my cheap-vinyl + no kids heyday). I dunno at this point I don't foresee ever changing until I have to move into an old folks home or whatever.

the thing about breadth is relevant if that's what you're into - but that's definitely *not* what I'm into. I'm not interested in keeping tabs on "what's new" anymore either (there's too much to even try! also huge chunks of it are awful!)

I like taking deep dives into specific things, and when I get into something I just start acquiring what I really like and hold onto it and develop a relationship w it.

I am probably competing with you for that exact kind of vinyl- late 80s early 90s indie pop... maybe you're the person that scooped up that cheap Cat's Miaow 10" I didn't get in time. Good luck getting that Fat Tulips record that has been sitting on the shelf in Hoboken since October- it's mine now!

I also rarely get around to spinning records; indeed "fetishistic and symbolic", I am invested in the hunt and I love the artifact of the ~vintage~ physical representation of that particular genre of music. With newer vinyl it's mostly artists that CommendNYC stock (experimental/ambient/electronic) and it feels meaningful to support them by acquiring their music in the ideal format. There's something artsy about their choice in cover art and material and inclusions, so feels similar to buying screen prints from illustrators I enjoy.

New indie rock on the other hand feels like novelty. The album art and overall look & feel generally brings to mind an ad in a magazine vs. that DIY assembled labor of love you get from early 90s 45s from the likes of Sarah or early Slumberland etc. So often times that kind of stuff feels more like clutter. Plus the music itself is so readily digital. Maybe cause the production is so clean and modern... just an overall aesthetic that associates with digital consumption in my head?

I think it's fine to have the hobby and to acquire meaningful artifacts as long as you have a real connection to it. It's harder to feel that way about mass produced new stock flooding Urban Outfitters bins.

xposts

"But if record collections have a problem these days, it's partly an existential one: what are they FOR?"

I still avidly buy physical, so for me it comes down to:

1) Surround sound on SACD or Blu-ray. I don't understand why there was little uptake of surround sound among download providers. Even when a label offers surround sound on the physical release, generally the only download format they offer is two-channel stereo.

2) Liner notes. Some labels are now offering their booklets for download (even without purchasing the audio files), but not all. There are a lot of insightful commentaries on musical pieces that are found only on the actual printed paper, nowhere on the internet.

3) The artwork, of course, for which I buy the vinyl release and I torrent FLACs to get the actual music. The vinyl serves for interior decoration, I line my hallway with vinyl releases, there are some easy DIY projects on the web for doing this.

Points one and two are mainly relevant for classical music listeners. Point one will also apply to rock obsessives – it’s great to have certain King Crimson and Pink Floyd releases in surround sound.

i've been much more judicious in what i acquire on vinyl, probably bc over time i've found better resources for determining if a particular pressing or reissue is worth my time. for example the Stereolab reissues in the past year have been incredible, as are the Blue Note Tone Poet/Blue Note 80 reissues. and uh sorry vv much in character here but the U2 reissues/recent releases on vinyl have been actually exceptionally good.

On the flipside there are some bands I enjoy like Pearl Jam who for all their pro vinyl rhapsodizing don’t have especially good pressings

Françoise Hardy’s reissues on light in the attic were fantastic as are her reissues on Parlophone

Anyway I do think it is often a losing and endless game trying to keep up with acquiring vinyl due to budget and space constraints

Evan, yes, that is exactly why collecting that era makes intuitive sense to me — the whole vibe and aesthetic revolved around these sort of scrappy, cherished, labor-of-love documents. There is definitely Cat's Miaow vinyl in my discogs wantlist, but this is what I mean about now being a good collector: I can't justify the price when there are CD comps and, you know, actual needs in the world. (I'm not kidding about pretty much constantly thinking "I could buy this record or give $20 to a food bank.") The people paying $100 for the "Popkiss" 7-inch are in a league I will never be able to compete with.

I still do believe well mastered vinyl on a good turntable is the best.

though, as omar says, there's a lot of shit vinyl being pressed now.

still, the new Purple Mountains for example sounds amazing

all this said, I've recently subscribed to Qobuz, which does 24-bit streaming, from Chromecast audio into a DAC and, dang, it's pretty damn close to really good vinyl, very very very close to the point I wonder if I could tell

Spotify I use walking around on headphones or in the car, but the sound quality is a joke esp after I heard Tidal and (now) Qobuz

that kind of collector mentality I've never gotten into or had the financial resources to even consider engaging in - as long as I own it in some format, that's good enough for me

xps

I’m guessing Spotify still has that audio watermark problem on all UMG stuff?

By the way I've also had anxiety about whether I calibrated my player correctly and/or whether my equipment is in good shape (especially the health of the needle), and I don't have a ton of confidence in my speakers and amp, so I worry the format as a means of "better audio quality" isn't really relevant to me until I make some adjustments and necessary upgrades. There's a lot of guilt and shame when the spotify stream of an album sounds crisper than playing the vinyl (which degrades slightly every time it's played).

I don’t really want to hook my laptop up to my stereo every time I want to listen to something. I don’t really want to buy some internet-of-things bullshit

the whole vinyl degrades with each play is massively overstated, it was definitely a thing with old ceramic needles, but modern needles are so much better designed

I have a bunch of records that were pressed in the 50s that sound great

the degradation of vinyl isn’t noticeable useless you’re playing it hundreds of times on a lousy needle

xp

fuck aligning a cartridge forever tho!

I am so sad that the Needle Doctor closed, they would install a cartridge you bought in store 😭😭😭

I spend too much money on vinyl but I've never been tempted to pay $100 for Sarah singles or anything like that. In 2015 I tried to buy a Field Mice 10" for $45 and they accidentally sent me the Emma's House single. I said screw it and kept it. I do love Emma's House. Now that single has climbed up to an average price of $85+, and I'm mystified by everything in my collection that has spiked because I never spend that kind of money on a single item. Always wonder how the person in the "Highest" category in the statistics section feels especially when the For Sale section has listings coming in below the median value.

OK good to keep that in mind on the needle degrading front, thanks. Plus I did realign my cartridge so that part of it I feel good about right now. The speakers and amp though... not so sure.

xposts

I am so sad that the Needle Doctor closed, they would install a cartridge you bought in store 😭😭😭

fuck aligning a cartridge forever tho!

― brimstead

high five, my man

The people paying $100 for the "Popkiss" 7-inch are in a league I will never be able to compete with.

― ን (nabisco), Thursday, March 5, 2020 1:54 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Meant to paste this with my response about Field Mice and big spenders

super sympathetic to all the reservations about physical media and weird justifications i make to continue with what is mostly just a deeply ingrained consumer reflex

best reason for me is that being offline is cool and healthy

sometimes it's nice to know your listening isn't being tracked and figured into an algorithm for a huge tech company

something defensive, a kind of Noah's Ark for when the digital flood comes? Picking the records, two by two, that you can save?

I mean, for me, actually, yeah! People have been thinking "this is how the music industry is always gonna be" since the days of Edison. Incredible to me that people automatically assume the digital/streaming ecosystem is going to remain intact & the same over the next 10 years or even 5. The earth might not get hit with a solar flare or EMP shockwave that obliterates the internet, but just because record companies, tech companies, and ISPs have created favorable conditions for most people to affordably consume a variety of music via streaming doesnt mean that those conditions are automatically set in stone.

a good friend of mine recently told me his tweeters had blown as everything sounded really shit.
he only ever listens to his vinyl.
he is not that tech savvy, and so i was concerned that the issue was not his speakers.
after a lot of emails back and forth, we decided to test this out.
i sent him a specific album in 320 that i knew would test this out.
after talking him through dropping the files onto a cd-r (yeah yeah), word came back that after he found a cd player in his attic, the album sounded absolutely fantastic, and clearly there was nothing wrong with the speakers.
record players are a lot of work.
i went through a phase of stressing re the degradation of my vinyl that i played as a teenager as i rarely changed my needle (had no knowledge of such things when i was 15).
and i was right to stress.
a lot of it sounds like shit when i put it on now.
thankfully most of the stuff i really loved i have replaced with their silver disc equivalents.

friend from back home has a $22k turntable+amps+speakers setup. obv sounds good but how he and my other bff listen to stuff sucks the joy out of it imo.
major drawbacks are:
the space where the speakers sound amazing is really tiny, basically only the middle seat on the couch. and if you're off the couch, it sounds v pedestrian.
not only can you only listen to stuff he has on vinyl, but he only buys the highest quality pressings. which means there's a lot of great albums we'd all want to listen to on that setup but can't.

I’m actually surprised by how durable my old vinyl has proved to be - many of my LPs sound fantastic after multiple teenage plays on a shitty all-in-one system with a coin taped to the headshell

(some have needed a real good clean though... and I’ve also read that a finer stylus profile is better at digging past lightly trashed grooves and accessing the music)

but yeah some records that I thought were completely (sonically) fucked in the 80s/90s have come up really nice on a decent system in 2020

totally agree that not having your listening fed into “the algorithm” is a big part of the appeal, so too the related feeling of not having your leisure activity tracked by marketing teams (and worse)

what do you use to clean ? trying to work out whether its worth buying a fancy cleaner

what's all this about aligning needles? mine just screws the cartridge into the arm and is held in place by, uh, magnets I think

a lot of my old records still sound awesome. I don't think they necessarily sound better than digital but they do sound...different

Bandcamp's lossless download options and lack of an algorithm is a feature not a bug.

very otm, big Bandcamp fan here

building a miniature vinyl museum of 1984-1996 indie rock for my kids to be confused by when I die

Thank you so much for articulating my hobby, Nabisco.

yeah also big bandcamp user, they definitely massage the physical media glands with the way their UI works and presents “your collection”

what do you use to clean ?

for cheap and cheerful second-hand purchases I use an old discwasher brush (not the new one which sucks) and some home brew fluid

for anything “special” I use this stuff called record revirginiser which is like a fancy version of the old wood glue method - it takes a bit of use to master but I’ve had records that have been cleaned in a proper RCM that still crackled and popped, and this stuff has improved them outta sight - I guess it works out to a couple of bucks a record but for that’s worth it to have my old copy of Low sounding pretty good

what's all this about aligning needles? mine just screws the cartridge into the arm and is held in place by, uh, magnets I think

I'm kind of tired of collecting physical music. I have fucking way too many records and CDs. My record player is fucked and getting it fixed will cost a lot. I bought a Linn lp12 off eBay with a work bonus years ago and it did me well but now there's a loose connection in the tone arm and I just can't be fucked with it. What's the point of it all. I guess my wife dying taught me that. She loved collecting things. Postcards, Victorian photos, music. Now what do I do with it. It's just stuff. everywhere.

I bought a record tonight! Why? I guess because I thought the band was cool