This should be a letter to Record Collector magazine, but I feared the spill of jumbled thoughts might turn into a very long screed.
Record Collector is an English monthly. I think it spun off from a small magazine called Beatle News and became a separate entity not long before I became a regular reader in 1983.
I was living in London and buying a lot of records and devouring what I could read of current music. Inevitably, I found Record Collector and have nearly issue since.
I’ve seen it through different phases of growth and editorial emphasis. Right now, there is a healthy mix of the old and, of course, the renewed mania for vinyl, but at one time it seemed to lean heavily on the 1960s and would feature complete discographies. Rap occasionally gets a look now and the discographies are much more selective, usually concentrating on a few British rarities.
Despite the ongoing change there is a solidity to it that makes Record Collector dependable.
I like the diversity. A fairly typical issue might feature a story about an act from the 50s and 60s and onward, rap/hip hop, country, jazz, soul and oddities. DVD, book and concert reviews fill in a frame made by regular features.
The writers are passionate about their music and are very knowledgeable, or seem to be. Sometimes, the writer tells you more than you are prepared to handle. Issue 466 ran a story on a New Jersey production company that was boggling in its scope and depth. It told you more about these soul records, the label they appeared on and, not only the acts that made them, but who was in the band or who produced. It became impossible to take in all that information without spilling it or leaving some behind.
The article did illustrate, though, that passion and knowledge. The writer obviously was a collector who had made seeking out these relatively obscure records his life’s work and Record Collector gave him an outlet for it.
I don’t know what I’ll retain but I’m glad to know about these things.
Similarly, I don’t have a deep interest in rap, but I’ll read articles on rap in the hopes that I’ll understand it better than I do now. Maybe, if I read enough, I’ll have an epiphany.
I also feel better that there is a Freek Kinklaar. He often writes about music that goes beyond the fringe: Musicians who have pressed their records mixing in their blood; Japanese women whose pop seems erotic and uniquely Japanese, European progressive-rock , non-conformists who courted notoriety and developed a small but devoted following. I wouldn’t want to be subjected to Freek’s record collection but, I’m grateful that there is someone chronicling musicians for whom the avant garde is just the beginning.
Reading these writers make me realize I’m not a collector but an accumulator. I have cult acts, guilty pleasures and a few obsessions but I usually buy what interests me. That could be anything.
Preferably cheap. Reading Record Collector is to enter a world where people will spend thousands of dollars for a rare pressing of the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen, they know the little details that make The Beatles’ first Parlophone Record worth thousands as well, and the worth of what is known as Norther Soul.
Shell out thousands of dollars? Can’t do it; that’s not why I loved music in the first place.
I used to read every word in every issue, cover to cover. No more. There area few columns that lie outside my abilty to relate to English-only jingles or who appeared on what now buried TV show.
I like to know about these things and will glance at them, but I skip over who is crowdfunding or the incomprehensible list of who is a guest on whose record. They don’t make sense to me and I don’t care anyway.
I do care about the writing. It can be sloppy, and, often, presumptuous.
Songs become tropes, record labels imprints, Concerts or solos are gobsmacking or jawdropping (even if they’re not), comparisons are obscure, psychedelia is a word used often but is never explained. Just what is psychedelia? For some people, psychedelia is a discreetly applied studio effect but for others it’s a music style.
Not long ago, a writer complained that a perfectly good record could be ruined by a drum solo. This was written as though it were a trend and assumed to be true. I can’t think of a rock record that has a drum solo that was recorded in the last 40 years. Back up such a statement ! I need proof.
Record Collector is Anglo-centric. Understandably so. If you live in London, your points of reference are informed by what’s happening in London. The English finally came to the realization that Cliff Richard forever was doomed to be an English phenomenon. Queen was not a global conqueror. The band certainly was popular but, if my memory is correct, is thought of as more of a singles band in North America. As soon as the singles stopped coming, the albums stopped selling. The Smiths never meant anything beyond Great Britain.but not if you read Record Collector.
The magazine declares that it is serious about music. Thus, I use it as a guide and a prime source of information.
