The Death of the Record Collection

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!"

yeah when a thief sees jewel cases he's like "shit! if these were more conveniently organized, I would boost them, but these cases are inconvenient as fuck. guess this house is unrobbable!"

xp que: hummel or precious moments?

"That's the place to hit, the owner keeps his CDs in BINDERS"
"JACKPOT!" *high-fives*

sarahel: goats come in all sorts of flavors

jewel cases too noisy/bulky

got a hot tip on shelf full of binders, suspect that's the fucking goldmine, we'll all eat good once we unload these sublime frequencies discs without any cover art

yeah when a thief sees jewel cases he's like "shit! if these were more conveniently organized, I would boost them, but these cases are inconvenient as fuck. guess this house is unrobbable!"

No, it would just make them less likely to take them along with any guitars, laptops, or small appliances.

maybe, john d, you shouldn't take the box of empty cd cases outside and place it down on the curb right next to the hoodlums sitting there, let alone explain to them that now your cds are all in a single binder somewhere in your house and whaddya know, it's time for my next tour.

"wow, i hate cover art and pesky jewel cases. but i love music! is there a NYC sidewalk CD dealer who can help me?"

"they call him Spotify"

― Four-TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN! (HI DERE), Monday, July 27, 2009 3:06 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'm not saying that because of the post, dipshit. I'm saying that because of the CD binder in general.

so i've heard

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.

Also, I see dudes on the street of New York selling shit out stolen binders like every day.

Serious question since I've never seen this: Do they reassemble them with jewel cases or do they sell just the CD (sometimes with booklet)? If the latter, how much does something like that go for?

It's so hard to find stuff in binders.

I don't understand this. I have hundreds of DVDs in binders and just like my CDs with jewel cases, they're all in alphabetical order. Very easy to find stuff.

ftr i still love cds too (because as i'm sure i've said i do a lot of music listening in the car and ipod hookups can blow me) but will go to vinyl + download before i go to anything else if cds die. i have a small (< 100) but thoughtfully selected lp collection.

yeah when a thief sees jewel cases he's like "shit! if these were more conveniently organized, I would boost them, but these cases are inconvenient as fuck. guess this house is unrobbable!"

John, you're so stupid sometimes I can't believe you can put chords together.

To go back to the thread idea, I fucking love CDs. I'm not stopping buying them any time soon.

"I was going to grab this vintage gibson, but it hardly weighs anything. those binders on the bookshelf, though...those've gotta be worth money. it's hard to hear with the alarm system going off so loud, but there could be a copy of the crop circle hoax cd in there...I have to risk it, my indie cred is at stake"

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.