What constitutes a GOOD record collection?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Could a record collection with, say, 25 records be a better collection than one with 250 records, assuming it was a better, all around collection?

― cramedog, Friday, 4 June 2004 14:07 (twenty-one years ago)

only if titles of those 25 records all started with words: I Can't Believe It's Not...

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Friday, 4 June 2004 14:09 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.usedbooks-freeshipping.com/images/1162.jpg

― HAMBURGER NEURON GROUP (ex machina), Friday, 4 June 2004 14:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, as I used to inform a co-worker who insisted on periodically printing out his list of albums and leaving it on my desk (letting it land on the desk with a dull thud), "it ain't quantity that counts, Jon, it's QUALITY!"

He now runs Erstwhile Records, if that means anything to anybody.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex, please don't think I'm insane when I tell you this: I had a dream the other night that you had died and I got to go thru your record collection. There were already prices on everything. I think I can explain it though. I dream about records every night and last weekend we went to an estate sale where I bought lots of records in a house where someone had died. Plus, I'm on ILM waaaaaaaay too much. Oh, and I'm in love with you. Wait, scratch that last part.

You had really cool stuff! Course, I don't remember a lot of it cuz they were dream records. You had awesome Einsturzen Neubaten box-sets that don't exist. I kept looking for all your rare punk stuff.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

hahahaha Alex you work with Jon Abbey?!? Wow, that's fucking weird.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Hahahaha...yes! Well, Jon used to work in the TIME Photo department. Small fuckin' world, eh? He also was a mean short-stop on the TIME Softball team. We bonded over our mutual love of....well, I think we both liked Tricky and PJ Harvey at the time. He's a good gent, Jon.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

the answer to the question: mine. Yay!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:40 (twenty-one years ago)

dude Alex y'know that he posted on ILM the other day?

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

no, because anyone who only owns 25 records is a sinister, sinister bastard

― coco, Friday, 4 June 2004 15:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Did he? Under what name???

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't talked to the guy in quite a while, though he still sends me heads-up notices about Erstwhile releases and performances. He left TIME some..er..time ago.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I had a dream the other night that you had died and I got to go thru your record collection.

In yer dreams, Scott....oh wait.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

but what if the music is in my HEAD 'cause I had to sell the actual records to, I dunno, move cross-country or something? Do I lose musical taste along with the recs?

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

pour vous, m'ssr dans NYC.

Erstwhile is a great label.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:46 (twenty-one years ago)

thanky!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyone who lives on a desert island must have a shitty record collection. Because I think you're only allowed to take 10, or at best, 20 records.

(and you have to play them on a ship's wheel hooked up to a bamboo bike..)

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:49 (twenty-one years ago)

One that sees a lot of action

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

ah, the internal dichotomy exposed

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Friday, 4 June 2004 15:56 (twenty-one years ago)

only quantity matters - otherwise there's no explanation for all the Rush albums I own.

― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Friday, 4 June 2004 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

garage sale? dollar bin? inheritance?

― Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 4 June 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I've known people to be very concerned about the particular character of their collection. A guy said to me once he bought such-and-such because he thought it would make such a nice addition to his collection. Right. Like at the pearly gates they stop you and look over your collection and give it a rating.

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 4 June 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

valid point, bimble. I, too, have the occasional Rush record or Don Rickles album that's collecting dust, but I can't seem to throw them out. "I'll need these one day," I tell myself.

― cramedog, Friday, 4 June 2004 18:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Wait, you've got a DON RICKLES album?

I must have a BAD record collection, because the good ones all move on, leaving their sad, unwanted siblings still on the shelf. This is particularly true of my CD collection, which has been completely trimmed back several times, leaving only the no-hopers.

― briania (briania), Friday, 4 June 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

What an awful state of affairs!

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 4 June 2004 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll probably have R.E.M.'s "Green" until death.

― briania (briania), Friday, 4 June 2004 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

A collection that contains Killing Joke: The Compleat Works is better than any 500-CD collection you can name.

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 4 June 2004 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Wait, you've got a DON RICKLES album?

Yep. It's a comedy record--no music. Unless the sweet sound of an insult is like music to your ears.

― cramedog, Friday, 4 June 2004 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, nothing like some long-dead nightclub patron getting called a hockey puck with true crackly vinyl authenticity.

― briania (briania), Friday, 4 June 2004 19:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think 25 records really constitutes a "collection." I guess I could live with 25 under some milder version of Pol Pot or Mao, but it'd be tough to choose after I grabbed "Sex Machine," "Odessey &," "Radio City," "Johnnie Taylor Chronicle," "Real People," and my Chris Kenner best-of. But sure, I know people who have thousands of records and they're pretty much all bad...

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 4 June 2004 19:31 (twenty-one years ago)

A good record collection is one that the owner loves.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 4 June 2004 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

A good record collection shouldn't smell bad.

Twice I've had to throw out old LPs I've won from ebay because they smelled like they've spent 20 years stored in a basement that's flooded 37 times. Why would anyone auction off records in that kinda shape? No feedback from me (I'm too chicken to leave negative feedback).

Record collections are stupid. Sometimes I'm embarrassed by the idea of having one and want to get rid of it all, but there's so much I'd miss.

― Underling, Saturday, 5 June 2004 13:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I think if you like the music in it, it's pretty good.

― David Allen (David Allen), Saturday, 5 June 2004 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

"only quantity matters - otherwise there's no explanation for all the Rush albums I own"

"garage sale? dollar bin? inheritance?"

perversity

― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Saturday, 5 June 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

It's all in the name: COLLECTION, vs. a bunch of records I like. Some buy records just because of taste while others collect records for knowledge, so one can have a personal, (relatively) small collection, where you listen regularly the records you like and sell the ones you don't like anymore, or a mammoth collection where you can trace the evolution of modern music, but half of it just stays there catching dust. In the end, all resumes to each one's liking.

― JP Almeida (JP Almeida), Saturday, 5 June 2004 15:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that about sums it up, I'd say.

Record collections are stupid.

Watchu talkin' about Willis?

― Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 5 June 2004 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

If I did have to choose between 25 of my fave all-time CD's, and 250 CD's plucked at random from my collection that included none of those faves, I would pick the former.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Saturday, 5 June 2004 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm going to have to say Ned's collection too.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Saturday, 5 June 2004 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Uh, good records?

― Sasha (sgh), Sunday, 6 June 2004 00:29 (twenty-one years ago)

A good record collection is one wherein you can always find something you want to listen to right now!
I'm not sure if it's possible though.

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Sunday, 6 June 2004 00:31 (twenty-one years ago)

FUNK

― Andrzej B. (Andrzej B.), Sunday, 13 June 2004 12:19 (twenty-one years ago)

ten years pass...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/06/18/eilon_paz_photographs_record_collectors_in_his_book_dust_grooves_adventures.html

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 21 June 2014 15:56 (eleven years ago)

damn.
will cd collections ever be given the same level of kudos ?
i suspect not.

― mark e, Saturday, 21 June 2014 17:31 (eleven years ago)

nice link -- the amber glow coming off joe's 78s is the most tranquil hue i've ever seen -- previous photos of it i've seen always look dingy, musty, or just overly tobacco-stained.

― bodacious ignoramus, Saturday, 21 June 2014 17:45 (eleven years ago)

gorgeous photo

― global tetrahedron, Saturday, 21 June 2014 22:01 (eleven years ago)

i think joe bussard is kind of overexposed by now. i see the words "record collector" flash across my facebook feed and i know it's gonna be about joe.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Sunday, 22 June 2014 01:50 (eleven years ago)

Alessandro Benedetti of Monsummano Terme, Italy, holds the Guinness World Record for largest collection of colored vinyl records.

kind of surprised myself with the depth of scorn this sentence instilled in me

― Kiss Screaming Seagull Her Seagull Her (DJ Mencap), Sunday, 22 June 2014 14:46 (eleven years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.