some people like records, some people don’t see the point. we all know people like this and we know a little bit more about them because of it.

Then again I suppose this is Fact Magazine, and you did read lots of essays by the kind of people who write about “music digitalization and the dematerialization of musical goods”, how ”playback audibilizes two histories”, and “the messy processes of intellectual exploration and even social attachment” etc etc – thus thoroughly dispelling the idea that this subject or those who feel that collecting records is just as important as the music itself could be seen as “elitist”. 

My music loving Mum always tells me how, back in the day when she spent every penny she had going to see live gigs and buying records, it was the paratext she and her friends were really excited about. She sold all of her records because she couldn’t afford to move house with them, and when I recently tried to replace them for her digitally she fretted about the MP3s’ lack of sedimentary accumulations and social spatiotemporal context. 

So thank you for this article, I can see now that if I really love music I should just work harder to be able to afford the space and money to own thousands of records and a record player. After all, how else will my musical memories become manifest at the intersections of personal and collective memory and identity if I don’t??