Record Collectors: “Obsessive, Socially Maladjusted Oddballs in Thrall to Acquisitive Drives.” Yep. That’s About Right.

When it comes to record collecting, I appear to most fit the second (i.e., fetish) type. The artists that I collect are an extension of my own personality and say something about me. My tastes are diverse and eclectic (to say the least) and range from the obvious ‘classic’ artists (Beatles, David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin), the not so obvious (Adam Ant, The Smiths, Bauhaus, Heaven 17,Depeche Mode,GaryNuman, Divine Comedy), the obscure (Art of Noise,JohnFoxx, Propaganda) and the downright extreme (Throbbing Gristle, Velvet Underground).Arguably, most people’s conceptions of record collecting (if they are not collectors themselves) are likely to be based on media and cultural representations of such individuals (such as John Cusack and Jack Black in High Fidelity, or SteveBuscemi in Ghost World). I agree with Professor Moist who asserts:“Most record collectors fit well within Belk’s definition, passionately acquiring sets of records both as objects and cultural experiences. As with most types of collecting, the ‘thrill of the chase’ is a major part of the experience…[However] today, with eBay and other online resources, the amount of time required for the hunt has been reduced, and collecting is also less of a face-to-face social activity since one can search in private rather than actually traveling to find records…Music writer Simon Reynolds notes that record collecting also ‘involves the accumulation of data as well as artifacts,’ a factor that can be seen in magazines devoted to record collecting such as Goldmine and Record Collector, and that has only increased as collecting has gone online.”