The aesthetics of record collecting

[imomus]

I scrolled through an I Love Music thread recently entitled Take a picture of your record collection and post it on ilm -- a sort of cut-price, homebrew, Anglo-styled version of an older, prettier ILM thread about German DJs and their living rooms. It got me thinking about the aesthetics of record collection. Mostly, to be honest, about how ugly

Comments

Faster, Guy Hands, Kill Kill!

[anonymous]

Noo, why is the future always anal? Smoother lines, minimal. Nothingness is always new. Bloat! Bloatism is the new Bling. Silly Stuffism is the new digital. Otherwise people just pump what they save into 'investments' like the property ladder. Let's waste! Guy Hands, EMI hedge fund uber-master is pleasing share-holders with his sacking of staff (while they spend about 2.5 million just pulping unsold plastic). But will it really mean that the quality improves?

Employ people just to cough, Guy. Bloat like a big fat Pharaoh of musical lunacy.

Albatross

[funazushi]

We're on a bit of a purge at our household and I see Yoko viewing my record collection as wasted space. It has been many years since someone has helped me cart all these crates to my next abode. Somehow I think of them as some kind of inheritance for my children, that they will think their dad was incredibly cool for having all these records. Then I think of my friends dad whose whole house was lined with records, complete collections of Elvis from the 50's. He would spend hours cataloging them in the early days of the computer, only for his wife to tell him she would burn them all when he was gone

Re: Albatross

[count_vronsky]

nice :)

I was digging through my old records last week and came upon this Nona Hendryx lp. Still sounds ahead of her time 25 years on. Transformation (still a stunning looking woman and commanding stage presence in her 60's too)

[ganatronic]

I don't know, but I do think that vinyl collections are less unsightly than DVD collections. Those are nearly always situated in plain sight next to televisions, often in living rooms. And I just think they are tacky and ugly. DVDs are too wide and covered in distinct colors and logos; too loud and readable from long distances. Vinyl has a softer appearance.

And I remember threads of "post your computer space!" Those always depress me. Wires and off-white plastic, coasters and jewel cases. These bogs where people spend so much time. I try to keep my workspace to a chair and my lap.

[imomus]

I know a man here in Berlin who has thrown away all his DVD boxes and replaced them with neutral, grey, uniform plastic boxes with the titles neatly printed on the spine. I'm not sure if it's better; the decontextualization strips too much meaning away from the objects, ugly though they may be.

[ganatronic]

I wonder if he got the idea from a video rental store.

I'd rather just store them in a closed cabinet (or, like at the moment, on the top shelf of my bookshelf, blocked by a line of photographs). I once had a girlfriend who convinced me to get rid of all my CD jewel cases and store all the CD contents (or whatever would fit - many pieces and inserts did not) in giant black binders. It was a bad move, and I regret it. Personally, I like to not be missing inserts, and I like to be able to look at more than eight CDs at once.

[eclectiktronik]

For me, nothing can ever replace the ritual of putting on a record (or even a cd at a push). I remember when I was when I bought pretty much each single or LP album and cd, (can't say the same for each mp3 I downloaded, nowhere near the same attachment there!) and I have thousands! for me it's like a diary of my past. And I still buy 'em. Vinyl sounds great, as do cds, more so than lossy formats such as mp3

[eclectiktronik]

oops - "I remember when i was " = WHERE I was...

[eclectiktronik]

ahh yes, Northern Rock. finally subjects of relevance...

[imomus]

The fall of rock music is much more important than the fall of a bank called "the Rock". If history teaches us anything, it's that cultural events tend to be more significant than economic ones. But it you want to look at the balance sheets and judge it that way, rock music has earned more for the UK in the past 50 years or so than Northern Rock has. So it's more significant even in those restricted terms.

[imomus]

The cult of the DJ is a relic of the 90s

Wir sind 100% d'accord sur ce point, mein freund!