Stretching sanity
Marcus Berkmann
The problem with collecting records is. well, all these bloody records. Recently I have been wondering what to do with them all. Not that I ever set out to 'collect' records as such. I just bought lots. Then I had a phase of reviewing music seriously and intensively, and was sent lots. Now I only write about music once a month for this magazine, so am back to buying lots again. You could call it a habit, you could call it a compulsion, and in one case I know of, you could call it grounds for divorce. Whatever it is, it afflicts many music-crazed males, and if you never grow out of it, you soon realise that it is going to be with you for the rest of your life.
My friend George currently lives in Horsham. but his records live in Muswell Hill. You should see the bags under his eyes. Record collections do not suit a peripatetic lifestyle. Once they have found their shelves, that's where they want to stay, forever. This is especially true if you have put them in alphabetical order, which naturally you have. (You can be honest here. You are among friends.) True obsessives, like radio DJs, can have tens of thousands of records, which must stretch sanity to breaking point. But it's not unusual for otherwise normal 40-yearold music fans to have a thousand or so cluttering up the place, warping near radiators and being used as frisbees by small children.
For some Spectator readers, I know this would present no problem. Merely remove the records to the castle's west wing, and switch on the refrigeration unit 24 hours a day to maintain them at a constant ambient temperature. Sadly, owing to being poor, I have the traditional Small Flat In North London in which to store all this stuff, and the Flat seems even Smaller because of it. What to do? Thin down the record collection, or farm out pregnant partner and two-year-old to outlying relatives?
So, with the greatest reluctance, I have started trying to reduce this absurd, sprawling mass of pop music to more manageable proportions. Roughly 800 albums, 150 singles and 300 CDs are around here somewhere, few of which (if I am going to be honest) I ever play at all. Do I really need an Eddie and the Hot Rods album? I do not. Several records in any collection can be disposed of without a second thought. Some you have kept because people gave them to you as presents. Others you have kept because someone lent them to you, and you haven't the foggiest who. (Is this your Gram Parsons album? Because it's not mine.) There are the records you bought because you'd liked the band's previous record, only by now the drugs had kicked in and they had forgotten how to write tunes and the record company dropped them soon afterwards. Then there are the Neil Young albums you bought because of favourable reviews. Ditto Elvis Costello. Ditto Van Morrison. No use to man or beast now, of course, although there may be a skip down the road if you're lucky.
And there are the great classics of rock history, which, try as you might, you just can't like. I've got John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which gets five stars in all the reference books, but I much prefer Walls and Bridges and Imagine. Fortunately I'm a grown-up now. I don't need accepted wisdom to determine my tastes. So Plastic Ono Band has to go. And here's Radiohead's OK Computer, the greatest album of all time according to readers of Q Magazine. It's the sort of album that you admire from a distance, rather than play. I feel I need more distance from it. Out it goes.
I'm beginning to enjoy this.
Out go the fruits of doomed attempts to 'get into' world music and jazz and hip-hop and folk. Gypsy Kings — farewell! Buena Vista Social Club — toodle pip! All reggae besides Bob Marley — on your bike!
Albums of which you like only one track — they have to stay. Albums you don't really feel you've given a chance to yet — even though you bought them in 1981 — also have to stay. And how about this? I'd forgotten I had it. Let's play it now, see how it bears up
After two days of frantic sorting, the final audit. On the reject pile, 23 LPs and 12 CDs. Apparent change to sprawling record collection: none. Maybe those outlying relatives will come in useful after all.
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