Why Music Ownership Matters

I really hope you mean your son is buying records to enjoy the music, not trying to partake in some sort of investment portfolio.

 

I, for one, wish there was streaming in 1973. I would have been all over it. The only reason I resisted it was because I had already spent thousands of dollars on physical releases over the past 45 odd years. I have boxes upon boxes of crap I’ll never listen to taking up space in my garage because I can’t get rid if it. I was too late in selling them, now, if I’m lucky I’ll get pennies on the dollars. I’m far to busy to be selling them on eBay or discogs, and it’s too much work grading, packing and mailing them, then dealing with someone who disagrees with the condition. Fortunately, I was able to give away a huge part of my vinyl when I was younger and had friends that were into music, and sell a lot of them before the early 90’s, but the CDs will end up in a landfill. I’m trying to be environmentally friendly and holding off dumping them as long as I can, hoping a method will develop to make them biodegradable, but I’m not getting any younger.
If steaming was around when I was a kid, I’d have a fortune in the bank right now.

 

Ever since I was little I've loved history and been fascinated with present day things still existing from another era. Started me down the line of collecting, conservation/preservation, museums, and so on. The future is in many ways bleak for 'things' that cultures and individuals think are worth saving in their contemporaneous era. Inevitably, somebody, someday will find what you love of no interest whatsoever, or worthless, or worse, actually needing to be gotten rid of. Its said that the most dangerous time of a historic items existance is when it comes into the loving hands of a collector. I have a lifetime of sad stories about superb collections that turned to garbage because small minded or self indulgent beings got ahold of them. The human mindscape can be a sad thing and the vast majority of average everyday people are only interested in their personal, immediate lives and surroundings, and are easily influenced and led. What survives time occurs only because a teeny tiny segment of humanity is intellectually curious and in that respect, a tad enlightened. Hopefully no one here thinks that our collections are going to be lovingly curated by those with no cultural or historical interest or connections to yours.

The only thing positive thing that can be done is to take care of what you have during your lifetime, take some measures for where you hope it will go (family, friends, a will etc.) then just enjoy what you have.

 

Do you think so? If I hadn't bought music, I'd of bought something else.

 

No he’s just buying records - I didn’t mean actual investing - a lot of ones I have in my own collection are included as they are mainstream and have been reissued to his generation.

 

Vinyl is behind me, but that's still a sad pic, whover the artist is. Don't get me started on films/pics/TV shows where people handle their records with their grubby fingers all over the playing surfaces.

 

You know, I've seen that a lot of "unboxing" videos on YT. Some of those guys unbox their Vinyl, and to a lesser extent CD, as though they're wrestling with it.

 

I find it thoroughly bizarre.
Even when I was a pre-teen, and i was a particularly destructive, hyperactive and barely controllable teen (hyperactive, not a street thug)... I treated records like they were made of delicate angel dust or something....
There is a lot said about the record/vinyl revival, and I am certainly not against it (I personally think there is room for all of this stuff)
One of the things that has struck me in the last 5-10 years, is tv shows and movies seem to be used to romanticise the record, but generally they all treat the records like dinner plates ... I have heard, but cannot, confirm or deny, that a lot of the record revival has been on the back of younger folks, with Crossley's and such... and I wonder if they even know they need to be cautious with how they handle their records? Are they going to use the dinner plate handling mentality, and suddenly drop out of the market because they are ruining them?

 

Yes... I had friends that treated their records like they were frisbees. My really good friends knew better to ask me if they could borrow a record. The deal was, go buy a tape, come over, and we'll make you a tape of the record or a really good mix tape.

When I first went to college I brought my records with me, and on day one some guy down the hall saw them and immediately wanted to borrow some. Obviously I said no. About a month later I walked into my room and looked at my records - at the time it was just three Peach crates full - and they didn't look right. Because they are always in the same order I could just tell something was missing. Aha, my Agents of Fortune album is gone. How the hell did that happen. I went down to the RA and told him someone had pilched an LP from me. Turned out, he confessed that he had gone into my dorm room, filed through my records, and brought this one back to his room thinking I would never miss it and he would replace it after he listened to it. Anyway, I almost beat the living *&%# out of that guy and I got my record back, and the next weekend I packed up all of my records and took them home.

 

I wonder if it's a holdover from CD? You can abuse CD's and they still play, so perhaps they think Vinyl is the same? Mind you, I avoid touching the playing surface of CD's as well, so........... I can't count how many times I've seen Youtubers unfolding posters and putting kinks into them, or watching as they butcher the books. Amazing.

 

I completely understand that.
Even my wife won't touch my records... or cd's... and it's probably for the best too lol

When I was a pup, and didn't realise most people are idiots, I lent the second record I ever had to my mates sister, because she was moaning how much she wanted to hear it.
When I got it back she had ticked and crossed songs on the inner sleeve and all sorts of stuff.... I wanted to break some laws over that..... but I just ended up never lending my stuff out.
I have had two people in my life, trustworthy enough to borrow stuff... rare as hens teeth.

 

For me, I would have the exact same enjoyment if a friend had made a cassette copy of Hot Rocks for me.
Similarly there would be albums I would check out from the library and make my own copy.
Later I would see the band in concert, and my experience was not impaired in any way.
Familiarity of an album, not necessarily ownership of it is what enhances the concert.

 

Yea it sure is.
After having records for about 5 years before cd's existed, when cd's came out I treated them like my records.... even though the big promo was about being indestructible lol

 

It's called a lack of respect. I'm going to express an opinion here and it's just my opinion, but I have been watching some of these reaction videos and I am appalled by how many of these people can't even pronounce common words from the english language as they read the title of the song they are going to react to. For instance, the word 'gnat' and they don't even know what a gnat is. Or the city name 'Cheyanne' like don't you know your US history and geography - what is a 'tchey - ann' they ask. You can Google it to get the proper pronunciation -

 

I would have once said i was an audiophile - but not any longer. In fact, I am consciously heading the other way. Sometimes audiophile concerns can get in the way of the simple task of falling in love with a piece of music. My very first record player was one of those mono players that came in its own little box. The speaker was in the lid. Audiophile? Not by a country mile - but I learned to love so much music on that sucker.

Of course, audiophile pursuits don't necessarily get in the way, but for me I find they sometimes do. So I'm backing away from that, and actively trying to get back from the simple joy of the music.

 

Yes... My stereo system is a cross between tubes and SS, with a nice pair of speakers and great old cartridge on a classic Dual TT, with nice MR stylus. I have spent about 3500 bucks on this - having inherited some of it - and it sounds glorious to me. All I do is listen to music. No more audio hardware projects or Goodwill finds to be restored. Music on the radio, the computer, anything can satisfy me these days.

 

The same thing happened to me in the mid to late nineties.
I had become so concerned about technical stuff, I noticed I wasn't enjoying my music, I was just critiquing everything.
I took a year off, didn't listen or play at all. It cured that, and I never leaned that way ever again.

 

Music fans listen to music. Audiophiles listen to gear.

 

Don't pigeonhole me. I listen to pressings.

 

I think there is a legitimate crossover between audiophiles and music lovers.
But it isn't a given. There are plenty of people who hunt down the best sounding
pressing of whatnot because they love the hunt and the collection itself more than music.
Fine with me. But I personally feel as connected with that collector as I do with
a Star Wars fan or a baseball card expert. Nothing to be ashamed of - and being passionate about something
is better than being passionate about nothing. But it isn't my bag.

If we are talking about music, I think I can hold my own on this forum - and have absolutely no desire to upgrade
my listening experience. Everything I listen to comes from Spotify (though I have an astonishing collection of flacs - close to 3 tbs, if that matters,) my amplifier is an old, cheapie DVD player and everything comes pouring through Onkyo speakers I rescued from the trash in my condo. Even if I won a million dollars, I doubt I'd upgrade my system. That's just not where my headspace is at.

Of course this is no more virtuous than people who make other choices and have other values. I don't possess the hubris to claim that the way I do things is better than anyone else. That's absurd. I just see these as two different hobbies which occasionally crossover.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with your distinction. I would couch it as ‘buying music’ vs ‘renting’.

I stopped buying CDs four years ago due to space considerations and so buy downloads now. The fact I paid hard earned cash for these downloads means that I am emotionally invested in them as well, and the collection of songs on my iPhone defined me as much as a physical collection would. You can’t say that about a Spotify subscription.

 

I can confirm this for sure. I worked in the pharmaceutical industry where health records had to be kept for 40 years. When our site was due for closure, all records had to be printed out and even they were copied onto Microfiche for back up. This came from our IT deprtment who laughed when we suggested that electronic records might be enough (we really did not fancy all that printing), and to be fair, we had records on large floppy discs, small ones, arcane databases, etc.

There was a very good documentary on the siege of Sarajevo and how the librarians managed to get hold of an ancient microfiche machine and saved thousands of books using it. The library was a particular target, the desire to destroy a culture, IIRC the Russians did the same in Grozny. It is very dfficult to totally destroy a people but less difficult to destroy their culture and history. (A long way from where we started on this I know.)

Here is the trailer.



You can see the full documentary on YouTube, it is highly recommended, the courage of the librarians running through sniper fire with armfuls of books to try and save them is quite something to behold. (It is quite long and there is a shorter version from Al Jazeera which you will see to the side if you follow the link, either one is fine.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWJiBdnHIF0

 

It seems pretty basic logic. Unfortunately when these types of topics come up, common sense goes out the window, in favour of some kind of self defense.... it's weird

 

There is more music accessibility now and in recent years than ever before. I recall how much country music was not out on CD, and long out of print on vinyl. There has been a ton of reissues of rare jazz in the last 30 years too. And now we have all this music on LP and CD reissues and streaming.

Look at how many big fancy reissues of Iggy & the Stooges, Velvet Underground, and Big Star have come out over the last 15 or 20 years. These were records that were not that common. But now they are common and in very deluxe expanded forms.

There may never be one single place where everything is preserved, but there will be those who like having a vinyl collection, or a wall of CDs, or 100 terabytes of digital files backed up twice. Collectors collect because they like to collect. Just because DVDs have gone out of vogue, for now, does not mean everyone ditched their collections. I imagine there will always be that group of people who bought every Mosaic box set, and every Bear Family box set, and the entire Rhino catalog. There will always be younger kids coming up that like all this stuff and continue to collect.

It has never been the profit-driven corporations that most take care of the culture and history.

I don't see how just because formats are changing and stuff goes in and out of print and in and out of style, that the music disappears.

So maybe when the earth finally goes in a ball of fire all this music goes with it. But for now, I just don't see a vanishing point coming at all.

I have (almost all of) my CDs up for sale at Discogs, and only a small fraction of my vinyl is up for now. And I can say that the stuff I figured would be still selling is in fact still selling. Lots of folks want a hard copy. Sales I thought would be tapering off by now are not tapering off.

Some folks out there are still collecting. And the ones that are not collecting and don't care about, I don't care about them either.

Maybe I missed the point of the article. But all I see are changing formats being marketed and bought. I do not see music going away or getting lost, not like what was happening in the later 70s and very early 80s before the CD boom. That was the frightening part when you could not just go and buy a copy of Eric Burdon and the Animals "The Twain Shall Meet" because it was out of print and rare. I see nothing like that happening now or in the future. Yardbirds stuff was very rare and hard to get other than cheap budget reissues that sounded pretty weak.

 

Oh, there are many gradations from white to black. I speak only of personal experience. There was a time when I couldn't be entirely happy with my music because I yearned to improve every little aspect of my system. I'd be listening to an album and rather than luxuriating in the artistry, I was sitting there thinking the soundstage wasn't perfect, and the top end was a little accentuated..... Just a bit of madness really. I'm focused today on trying to get back in touch with the music above all else. I recently put together a new system to maximize Surround Sound mixes, and the very mention of playing 2-channel music on an AVR is enough to make some audiophiles choke on their breakfast cereal. But the system is very musical to my ears, and it allows me to give myself over to the music, at this stage of my life, this is what it's all about,

Which is not to say I have anything against audiophiles. As hobbies go, I think it's one of the better ways to spend your free time. I've never been wealthy enough to compete with most in that regard, but I can certainly appreciate the passion some bring to the hobby.