This was originally posted 14 years ago. Opinions, facts and reality may have changed.
One of my favourite blogs is that of David Hepworth, a former writer for – amongst many others – NME, Sounds and Smash Hits, the founding editor of Q, Mojo, Heat and The Word, and a presenter of Old Grey Whistle Test in the 80s.
This is a man who knows music.
Over the weekend he posted a story entitled “My ten laws of record collecting“, which struck a huge number of chords* with me. Whilst my record collection isn’t in the same league as Hepworth’s, it does share the same breadth and depth – everything from a rare Charlie Parker LP through to an original copy of “Blue Monday” by New Order.
In this age of digital downloads, the joy of putting needle to vinyl has long-since disappeared and that’s a shame. Back in “the day”, albums were as the name suggested, a collected body of work. The vast majority of the work was in the record’s groove but there was often enjoyment to be had by reading, analysing and dissecting the album cover itself.
(Though maybe that’s a ‘boy’ thing. Read “High Fidelity” for further clarification).
Whilst I love the immediacy of iTunes and it’s ilk**, I do miss looking around and seeing a shelf full of records, with their often creased and cracked spines. Such is the knowledge of my own collection, that even at 20 feet away, I could often tell which LP was which by the “illegible” spine.
Sitting in front of a laptop or iPad scrolling through song titles or representations of the sleeves isn’t the same somehow.
But life moves on and it’s a whole lot easier to carry music with me on my iPhone than a Dansette record player and a pile of 45s. So it’s not all bad.
Footnotes
* Em, D#7 and Adim7 sus 4 if you’re interested.
** Whilst I love iTunes, I also recommend checking out 7Digital and Amazon’s MP3 store which often do special offers on new albums.