It takes me back to my collecting days which were pre-Internet.
I collected First edition novels and records and that took me Into book and record shops hundreds of times in many countries, and made contact with hundreds of people who bought and sold books and records.
One example is when the writer and book collector Peter Hopkirk sold his collection of adventure and spying books in connection with the Silk Road and the Great Game at Sotheby’s I went to the sale, which was on a weekday, and ended up by chance sitting next to him.
The books one by one sold for total of about £1 million as I recall.
This was a long time ago when £1 million was worth more than it is today.
The Internet more or less ruined collecting of that sort because instead of being a skill and a delightful part of one’s life, you could then buy almost anything from anywhere or anyone at the click of a button.
I guess that’s a significant difference between you and me: I would never want to waste money on duds, so would always want to hear first or have some reasonable degree of certainty of liking. But then I am absolutely not a collector, never collecting for the sake of so doing.
Yes, I guess we are different. I like to take risks in so many ways. Sure, I took a risk on some cd’s and lost because they were duds, however, some were good too. But you know what? This whole thing was an education for me and I look at it like this, I spent some money on an education and that’s never a waste in my opinion.
You prefer to tread more carefully and I respect that. Vive la différence.
There’s an extraordinary act of collecting by a member of this forum @Lontano:
“I guess I like Ecm as I own everything the label has released on Ecm, new series and other sister labels. It’s been a fun journey chasing it down and listening to it.”
I recall him saying that he had listened to every single one of these albums too.
I seem to remember that you also had a lot of fun, learning experiences and social interaction when you went around building your Olive system, buying components from people up and down the land.
But when I began collecting vinyl it was difficult or impossible to listen to all the things I was tempted to buy on record because it simply wasn’t very easy in those days.
I’d listen to John Peel and scribble down the names of bands that he mentioned that I liked.
My “treading carefully” as you put it is primarily finance driven, a necessity I learnt at a young age, and which has stood me in good stead ever since. But also there is the collector gene, which s missing in me! But this forum would be less interesting if we were all the same!
Personally I have maybe 4 ECM. So if I would bought the entire catalogue, I would be in a great trouble.
I have never bought albums because they figure on some lists. I find this way of thinking ridiculous. The albums on the list may be considered as very good. But I don’t care if I don’t enjoy them.
But you do have a collection of files of Music that you like that you own and have bought.
I don’t even have that.
My collection such as it is just consists of favourites and presets and playlists on the Naim app.
Just in case these get deleted or lost, I have a sort of backup as they are stored also in my Qobuz account with a further backup in a dormant Spotify account.
I also have the remnants of legacy collections of cassettes, CDs and vinyl that I never play because I don’t have the means to do so any longer.
So my collection is just a set of digital arrows pointing at albums and tracks that I have enjoyed or which I marked in order to have a look at them later if I ever feel inclined to.
I find it rather liberating not to have to own the Music anymore, and to have almost all the music I could dream of at my fingertips.
Now you have the CDs,
Your have to find them all on vinyl now,
Very impressive collection
Are they in alphabetic order or how they are listed in the book,
Regarding collecting , I mean where the collection itself is important as a whole, sometimes as with the subject of this thread, where the collector may not even like all the items they collect. I think many on this forum I would class as collectors of music, having so many albums that they cannot possibly play more than once and in some cases they include things they have never played and probably never will
Yes, I do have a music collection, a collection music enjoy like to play, availability to play anytime being its raison d’être, and I play it all again and again, some frequently some less so, but it is there for enjoyment of listening. There is no way I would abandon that and rely on online streaming, because I would not do not be able to play my favourite music when I want. With online services, assuming thay have all I would want in the first place, there is always a risk of music being unavailable whether because they change their catalogue, go out of business, are forced to remove things due to licensing changes, or due Internet outage. In my case I feel liberated by having the music I like in my possession, now in a form that can’t get damaged or misfiled etc, and it would make me very uncomfortable to be at the mercy of things out of my control if I didn’t, as would be the case relying on online streaming. And file backups mean that even in the event of major catastrophe such as house fire I can be listening again as soon as gear itself replaced.
Well Done Graeme! what you now need to do is buy the 1994 & 98 edition’s and add those to the collection, theirs lot of changes in the intervening 6 years!
P.s agree about Eric B & Rakim, 450 & 979 on the list, its an acquired taste
That’s an impressive level of dedication and a fascinating exercise so big thumbs up to you for that! What an interesting journey though…
I already own most of the albums I really wanted either on CD or vinyl and sometimes both, but nowadays I sometimes take a punt on something regarded as a “classic” partly to broaden my musical horizons and partly in the hope of finding more superb recordings on vinyl with an eye to future turntable reviews. As an example I popped into our local record store in Sussex yesterday for an hour of idle browsing and came away with America’s debut album (£10.99) which is highly regarded and often cited for its sound quality and James Taylor’s Gorilla (£4.99) because I rather enjoy his records.
After a thorough clean on the new Keith Monks Prodigy I found the America album rather uninpiring musically and although reasonably well recorded it didn’t strike me as anything to write home about - in fact it’s pretty dull! Gorilla by contrast is an absolutely stunning sounding record full of really good songs and I have no doubt I will be listening to that again. I bought Frampton comes alive and Dyland’s Highway 61 revisited (new remasters) a few weeks back and found those similarly uninspiring and boring despite the rave reviews of Frampton being one of the finest live albums ever made - I just don’t get it!
So I think I’m coming to realise that these attempts to buy records widely hailed as classics are doomed to fail most of the time. I’m far better off filling in gaps in my collection of artists I know I already like - Deacon Blue, Kate Bush, Nick Drake, James Taylor etc - otherwise it’s just money down the drain!
One of the problems with vinyl is that if you do buy an album with a couple of decent tracks and a whole lot you don’t particularly like (Highway 61 revisited being a good example) you end up never playing them at all because it’s too much of a faff to put on a record for just a couple of tracks. Streaming in my view is a far superior solution for such albums!
