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

[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.

There are still people who like to own 'the original' of things, however irrational it may seem - the packaging of cds and Lps in your hand to peruse while listening to music. Zappa called this the 'Fondlement & Fetishism Potential [F.F.P.]' in his prototypical 1980s idea of abolishing record distributionltogether and replacing it with music downloads (see http://www.brendastardom.com/arch.asp?ArchID=719 )

without music collecting in physical form we wouldn't have the joys of crate digging - or the shared musical discoveries and experiences from travels in all parts of the world (instead of browsing e-mule )- notably vinyl vulture /verygoodplus, or LJ forgottenalbums ( http://www.vinylvulture.co.uk/pages/carboot1.htm http://forgottenalbums.livejournal.com/ )

Personally i don't think there's much to be gained by this rush to have a million tracks on an ipod or hard disk just to save some space in the living room. And of course you lose the lot when the appliance breaks or is stolen. I don't find collections of culture , be it books or music formats, in any way ugly. Sounds like some 'lifestyle' nonsense to me!

[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.

message in a bottle

[niddrie_edge]

I hope that Paul Morley in his Pop What Is It Good For? piece on BBC4's Pop Britannia season has awakened something in someone for the entry point to the big weird world out there that a pop song can provide and will encourage them to process that awakening again with the basic music theory, attitude and fashion. Maybe the concept of the life changing pop hit is as exotic now as Ride A White Swan was for Paul back in Stockport.
Pop Britannia's idea tonight was that the History of British Pop has been a debate between Art and Commerce.

[eclectiktronik]

apologies. the note was intended for momus.

[eclectiktronik]

"Personally i don't think there's much to be gained by this rush to have a million tracks on an ipod or hard disk just to save some space in the living room."

Could have something to do with most young, first time homeowners not being able to afford a living room.

[eclectiktronik]

"And of course you lose the lot when the appliance breaks or is stolen. I don't find collections of culture , be it books or music formats, in any way ugly. Sounds like some 'lifestyle' nonsense to me!"

Just to be fantastically nerdy. If you don't keep a running, 100% complete backup of your data, you're wrong. Leopard makes it so easy that Mac users at least have no excuse. If your house is burning down, you can escape with your external hard drive.

The next step in being de-physicalized is to not even bother collecting mp3s. I mean, Internet radio and so forth is probably good enough.

[eclectiktronik]

I was going to post something in the same vein eclectiktronik, but you've beat me to it by a stretch.
I have a similar affection for the physicality of media, the cover-art and sleeve notes are intrinsic to ritual of listening to the music, even mp3s which I download inevitably get burned out and have cover-art made for them.
Without the serendipity that rummaging in dusty old record shops has thrown up my record/cd collection would be so much the poorer.
Also certain recordings almost necessitate sleeve-notes upon initial listenings,for example the cd of Ligeti's string quartets which I played to this morning.
Cannot think of anything better to have in my living room than books, records and cds, I do live in that space after all.
Thomas S.