The Death of the Record Collection

my initial thought is that "having a record collection" as a concept was really only ever intended for enthusiasts in the first place, and was more of an inconvenient necessity for millions of other people who enjoy music but don't value physical recordings, don't dig deep into catalogs, don't eagerly seek out new stuff, and don't need trivia, history, or metadata for the stuff they enjoy.

Very well stated.

I do plan to continue on having a physical "collection" of CDs (never got into vinyl; I'm 24 and it never "clicked" for me, so to speak). That said, I've sold off about 200 CDs in the past 6 months, really thinking about what I actually enjoy and listen to and what prompts repeated listening for my ears and tastes. I'm getting rid of things that, a year ago, would have been unthinkable to sell off. I'm being more selective in what I currently buy, while simultaneously cleaning out the archives a bit. Not sure how far this will go (I still have well over 2,000 CDs and counting) but I'm happy to have cleaned out the bottom 10% of my listening and don't really miss any of it, in retrospect. I liked having it on the shelf for posterity, but it seemed like dead weight now that it's actually out of my possession.

In conclusion - trying to be selective, keeping stuff I really enjoy and letting go of what I don't spin as much. But I see myself continuing forward with the physical artifacts. I have zero interest in digital downloads, illegal or streaming or sanctioned or otherwise.

"Don't you think it's getting to the point where they're going to have to give into shit like Spotify if they don't want to be even more fucked than they already are?"

Nope.

Alex in SF otm - rats going to go down with the ship, etc

On Spotify: "The service has licensing deals with the Big Four record labels (EMI, Warner Music, Sony BMG and Universal) and other smaller players."

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/spotify-opens-up-in-the-uk-if-it-can-handle-the-traffic/

spending years slowly building up a record collection through a significant amount of searching and purchasing

actually going to obscure record stores and searching for and buying physical discs

I also really enjoy this part. Much more satisfying than an instantaneous download of something worth looking for. There are many, many records out there that I'm dying to hear, but haven't heard yet because I won't download them and I haven't found them in stores yet. And I'm adamant about keeping it that way - if only for myself. I like mystery and I fucking love the satisfaction of finding something after a few years of hunting and then putting it on for the first time.

Don't you think it's getting to the point where they're going to have to give into shit like Spotify if they don't want to be even more fucked than they already are?

What Alex said above, nope. Never underestimate the RIAA's ability to shoot itself in the foot while sticking to the old business model NO MATTER WHAT.

xxp Yeah that article makes it sound like the wave of the future alright.

They already have licensing deals with the major four record labels.

Did you even read the rest of it?

That's in the UK btw.

Yeah, you're right. I missed that link: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/01/29/record-labels-pressure-spotify-to-restrict-service/

The changes are being made because record labels have slapped restrictions on Spotify’s service. The issue is to do with the publishing rights associated with compilatoins. A user in one country might be able to listen to a track on one compilation in their country jurisdiction, but to share that track on a playlist with a user in another country could affect the publishing rights.

Have most movie fans given up their collections for Netflix? I know it's a different service, but they're switching a lot of their stuff over to streaming now too.

My guess is that it's probably a similar situation to what we're seeing here: the everyday consumer never had a collection or at least not a big one and doesn't mind using Netflix, whereas huge film geeks probably buy DVDs/Bluray and use Netflix as a supplementary service the same way some people use emusic.

It's not really comparable though since video was up until the advent of the DVD, basically a rental market. Netflix is filling the rental need, not replacing the sell-through market.

The death of the library, and the death of archiving.. is that what this is essentially suggesting?

You're right, Alex.

billstevejim: Yeah, the death of the personal archive/library.

It's not really comparable though since video was up until the advent of the DVD, basically a rental market. Netflix is filling the rental need, not replacing the sell-through market.

OTM about Netflix. By "up until the advent of the DVD," do you mean that DVDs led to collections via purchase, or because they're easy to pirate without visible loss of quality?

I remember lot of moms buying limited edition disney VHS's a lot, but prolly more for TVbabysitter than collector purposes.

In this case I meant the former. DVDs were intended to be a sell-through market, to make their money off people buying them for personal use as much as from video stores buying them to rent to customers. That's why the price of new release DVDs was so cheap compared to new release VHS tapes ($20 vs. $100+).

Some VHS tapes (Disney stuff, misc children's movies, big budget blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Men In Black) were marketed as sell-through items too btw, but most new release VHS tapes were significantly more than that.

we had a collection of VHS tapes before DVDs were omnipresent.

1. Spotify still sounds like a stream, and I don't see anyone who would invest the time/energy/money into creating a record collection bailing in favor of the chance to play "baby's got back" on a whim

2.

Instead of spending years slowly building up a record collection through a significant amount of searching and purchasing, you could easily have the same records as a seasoned collector in however long it took you to type artist names and record titles into Google or a p2p service and download some .rar files.

When ppl see my CD collection they still say "Holy shit" (lol braggin 2009 tell it to your blog asshole stfu etc). But when people go on msg boards that i lurk at and brag about how many gigs of downloaded music they have, it's just embarrassing for them.

3. "Celestial jukebox" LOOOOOOLLLERPOPS

xp Again I am talking specifically about the price of new release VHS tapes.

Personally, I'm getting frustrated at a lot of labels leaning towards the download/vinyl models since I still love CDs

But when people go on msg boards that i lurk at and brag about how many gigs of downloaded music they have, it's just embarrassing for them.

Is there anyone that's impressed by this assertion? Is it a geek thing? Is it an age thing?

I agree with you there, Whiney. As far as physical formats go, I only buy albums on CD.

There will always be people who enjoy having their own personal references for things they enjoy.

"Record collection" means something different now than it did in the 70's.. in that respect, "record collections" have been dead for years.

Spotify still sounds like a stream, and I don't see anyone who would invest the time/energy/money into creating a record collection bailing in favor of the chance to play "baby's got back" on a whim

Haven't actually used Spotify yet, but I imagine the sound quality will eventually improve.

I've also heard plenty of accounts of people using the service to work their way into an artists' catalog. I don't think people just use it to listen to novelty tunes.

Though I bought records initially when I was very young, vinyl was already "dead" for years when I really started collecting it when I was 14 in 1994 due to local punk releases being available only on wax. 15 years later vinyl has died and come back like 3 or 4 times, "deejaying" can mean someone standing there with a laptop, and the idea of the information cloud is promising the end of commotidization of music, yet people seem probably MORE interested by my ever growing record collection NOW. I'm not holding my breath waiting for the end of record collections. In fact, I'm happy that so many idiots think this way because I'll be buying the remnants of their collections at bargain prices for years. Thanks, suckers!!

Everyone's going to hang onto their shit just to spite you now, pipecock.

the weird thing to me is assuming that any kind of streaming service will be as enduring as a physical object. Like, do you really expect any company/service to last as long as a physical object does...? Records don't change over time. Services and service providers do.

listening to music at home on an ipod or a computer is sometimes a little charmless too, i dunno. it's a cliche to talk about the physical experience of playing music, and it seems minor, but shit like that adds up. there's something comfortable about records or, to refer to the kindle thread, books. having even more electronic media around makes me feel a little more stressed out for some reason, more ADD.

like, do you really expect any company/service to last as long as a physical object does...?

Some I do, some I don't. I expect that AT&T will outlive me, bar global disasters. Definitely the terms of service and pricing of a streaming service I'd expect to change in short periods of time, whether because the company wants to make more money or it gets bought by another company ...

Personally, I'm getting frustrated at a lot of labels leaning towards the download/vinyl models since I still love CDs

Same here!

I'm happy that so many idiots think this way because I'll be buying the remnants of their collections at bargain prices for years. Thanks, suckers!!

A big fan of this aspect, myself.

I'll be buying the remnants of their collections at bargain prices for years. Thanks, suckers!!

yeah I think this a lot tbh

I got rid of almost all my cd cases when we moved recently, moved all the cds into big binders & kept a select few booklets

but I still haven't set up the turntable (which had been my only physical-media form of listening for about a year) so in the past month I've been playing cds on the sony radio-cassetteCorder and kinda lovin it

I don't think I can do what J0hn D. It's so hard to find stuff in binders.

Yeah that shit is 6 degrees of stupid

Also, he might as well put up a big sign in his house that says "steal my CD collection"!

what the hell is wrong with you

in re: finding stuff, I almost never say "I want to hear this, let me go find it" (if I need need need something, I have everything backed up digitially) so that's not an issue; I flip open a binder and play the first thing that appeals to me

whiney has a really bizarre idea of how stupid thieves are - even the dumbest criminal on the planet knows a binder full of unsleeved cds is completely worthless

unless there are thieving bands of record geeks running around looking for houses to rob

i have heard dozens of stories of people getting their binders stolen. Also, I see dudes on the street of New York selling shit out stolen binders like every day.

There are dozens of us. Dozens!

http://z.about.com/d/tvcomedies/1/7/U/-/-/-/tobias_funke.jpg

I mean, i'd love to go up to them individually and tell them than John D thinks they're stupid, but i think it's just safer to keep my jewel cases

whiney has a really bizarre idea of how stupid thieves are
I don't know where you live, J0hn, but people will really steal stupid shit. I'd probably have to think about a bit and talk to the bf to refresh my memory, but we've had plenty of wtf moments at some of the obviously stolen shit people have tried to sell us.

pick up any newspaper, every day a story about a home invasion by thieves targeting soft target cd binders

going out on a limb here, but i'd wager J0hn d. has way more valuable stuff in his house to steal than a binder of cd's

his porcelain mountain g0at collection for example

I'm still getting past the mental image of thieves browsing ILM threads looking for things to steal, coming across J0hn's post and shouting "EUREKA! Quick, buy a plane ticket, we got some bindered CDs to steal!"

"will there still be a market for them with all the economic fallout?"

If you have to do so for financial reasons, that's completely understandable.

yeah, essentially. i never got rid of anything that was super important to me but there's a lot of stuff i wouldn't mind having back.

My 30 seconds of glory from Vinyl:

I'm delighted to learn that the same bearded guy bopping around with grade schoolers to Los Campesinos (as linked the '00s poll results thread) is the same as the guy in the documentary who says how self-conscious he is at parties and how he feels more at home in the record store.

I'm reminded of my much-beloved fifth grade teacher who would later indulge my early morning visits to his classroom to talk about music, after I'd moved to the junior high wing. He loaned me a couple of his records and made a tape or two for me (he tried to convert me to classical with Schubert's Death and the Maiden—that took a few years to click!). Then when I was a freshman in high school (1993/94), he was killed in a car accident, 40 years old. I was invited to go to his estate sale and pick whatever records I wanted, at a dollar apiece. I felt a combination of giddiness and guilt you might expect. Still have some of the 35 or so records I took home that day, including the copy of From Genesis to Revelation that he had loaned me. I always wondered what his life had been like outside the classroom.

I've wanted to see more of Zweig's documentaries (Curmudgeon, especially), but they seem hard to come by.

That’s a really sweet story, Jesse

That's a sad story...having the records is a great way to remember him.

Seems odd, I know. I was able to get rid of some of the introversion via teaching, but just in general, I have a much easier time cutting loose and behaving like an idiot around kids than around adults.

Alan has done quite well since Vinyl. I think he's five or six films since then, and one of them, When Jews Were Funny, won Best Documentary at TIFF. I don't know if there's much distribution in the way of streaming or DVDs, though.

Finally watched the Zweig doc. Enjoyed it immensely, even though it was kind of a bummer. I am totally not joking/patronizing here, but I am glad that Zweig is still around because I felt oceans of sympathy for the man... maybe not least because he looks very very much like a similarly lovelorn old friend of mine.

I miss making tapes.

That was Harvey Pekar, right??

The pain I felt as that dude dumped his records in the dumpster. Ugh.

Yeah, that dude with the crazy eyes was Harvey Pekar.
The guy trashing his collection caused mixed emotions for me: an impulse to go find that dumpster and pick through the contents before someone else could + jealousy at his obvious liberation. I mean, if your house were to burn down, how big would your rebuilt post-fire collection really be?

if your house were to burn down, how big would your rebuilt post-fire collection really be?

I have often thought about that and the answer would be zero physical media and whatever MP3s were on the latest backup drive I store at a friends house.

I would have a ton of fun trying to find all those dollar records again... no way I’m paying retail for Rumours; half the fun is hunting for that great bargain copy.

My friend Scott interviewed Alan Zweig for Records, his upcoming not-a-sequel-to-Vinyl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWeV_D7dSrg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mny7a14gi6s

Alan sometimes rambles a little bit, but you know that from watching Vinyl. He interviewed us two and another friend last month for the film--we talked for about three hours, but I don't expect more than 30 seconds to make it into the finished film. Alan says his objective this time was to focus more on the records themselves--the music--than the mindset and habits of collecting.

My guess is the film will play here on TVO, after--if they're up and running by then--playing either Hot Docs or TIFF here. No idea how someone from the States or Britain would eventually get to see it.

Thanks a bunch for this!

(Have already listened to a few audio podcasts of you and Scott, clemenza, particularly your year-in-review ones if I remember right--not to overly derail from the thread too much, but these alphabetical-by-film-title Clipography Zoom videos on this channel look like a lot of fun.)

I actually saw Vinyl in a theater! I'm part of a record group with Alan, hopefully this will be viewable at some point

Oh sweet!!

Thanks, Craig. I think it will be, somehow, sleeve--Alan has a couple of his films on U.S. Prime.

have been to the local store a few times lately, it's the only place outside the grocery store I go

I've noticed it's more full than it was before Covid hit. Maybe just small sample size but it seems like people are getting into it more now that we're not supposed to do anything else.

i enjoyed this interview with Alan Zweig. rewatched VINYL last night and it's just as amazing as ever. has anybody figured out how to watch RECORDS? it seems like you might have to be in Canada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_9DXjQnx2Q

https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/records

full doc there. i didn't know this existed, thanks!

does the video not play outside Canada?

“Playback Denied : Location” :-(

VPN time I guess

in that interview, AZ mentioned he was featured on this podcast, That Record Got Me High, which might be worth checking out.

https://www.thatrecordgotmehigh.com/s6e301-neil-young-tonights-the-night-with-alan-zweig/

i'm going to look into getting a VPN i guess

just one more thing i wanted to share: AZ mentions in the youtube interview i posted that he went so far as to hire a private detective to track down the K-Tel guy from "vinyl" so he could interview him for "records." but apparently he was unable to locate him; AZ claims the last time he saw him was when doing the original interview.