Ongoing History Daily: The psychology of collecting music
If you collect physical music—CDs, vinyl, tapes, whatever—have you ever asked yourself why you do it? There could be several reasons.
It could be that you like being able to hold your music in your hands with all the visual and tactile sensations that come with that. It could be that you want to own something rather than just rent music from the streaming services. Maybe you’re after the rare and the obscure and are hoping that whatever you collect will increase in value one day.
But here’s one aspect of music collecting that’s overlooked. When you have a library of music you love, material that means a lot to you on an emotional level, it’s sometimes just nice to be surrounded by it, which creates a sort of safe space because you’re in the midst of familiar and meaningful object.
Record collections as security blankets? Think about it.
