To Buy Or Not To Buy? (Vinyl Records)

[innerspaceboy]

I'm having a minor moral quandary.

I have abstained from buying records for over a year. My last vinyl purchase was May 11, 2022.

My reasoning was that I seldom ever play them - they serve more as artifacts for my Archive. They're nice to own, but I was spending upwards of $500 a shot on rare boxed sets and just didn't feel sufficient joy derived from the purchases to warrant that kind of spending anymore.

My want list has been dwindling for years, with only a handful of titles remaining, and I've not felt the compulsion to get them. I'd resolved that I was for the most part finished with that hobby now that my books were published. I told myself that I could buy the occasional title if I felt the urge but on the whole was done collecting. I've yet to find a new hobby to replace that pastime.

Today during a stroll in the art district I popped into an indie record store and spotted two of the top four titles missing from my want list. They were fairly priced, mint, and sealed. I also spotted a mint original pressing of Terry Riley's In C - one of the most influential avant-garde records of the 1960s which for some insane reason is not yet on my minimalism shelf, and somehow I resisted buying any of them.

When I got home I checked Discogs, and found that I could order all four of my new release want list items for just $15-20 apiece plus a few dollars for media mail shipping.

Three of the four are the latest releases by Brian Eno. I have all 77 of his official full-length releases up to the years that these three subsequent titles came out, and I enjoyed listening to all of them in my digital library of 412 Eno albums and concerts. So these three titles would complete my collection.

But I've gone this long without spending that money. They would mostly just sit in my crates. I wouldn't unseal them. They'd just complete my archive.

The fourth new release want list title is the latest album by Penguin Cafe, which is the same circumstance as my Eno collection - I had a complete vinyl library of their catalog and then they released a new album this year.

The titles are cheap and well within my budget. I'm just trying to think more practically about my spending.

What would you do?

[EDIT] Oops - perhaps this topic should be moved to the Music sub?

[Psy-Fi]

There was a time when I'd buy around 40 to 50 LP's per year. These days I buy around 10 to 12 LP's per year (used & new/sealed.) I used to buy all of them to listen to but now I tend to play the opened used ones and keep the sealed ones unopened because I can listen to them in digital format, so I just end up adding them to my collection as sealed copies.

At some point in time, if I live long enough, I plan to stop buying physical copies and start selling my collection. At the moment, I still enjoy collecting vinyl and the amount I spend is well within my budget. It would be more practical not to buy any vinyl but I say if you still enjoy buying an occasional LP and doing so won't adversely affect your budget, then go for it. 

 

[innerspaceboy]

Thank you for your input, @Psy-Fi. I find myself in quite a similar space.

Eno is one of my lifelong favorite artists and philosophers, so I've built a substantial library of his music, art, and related literature. It seems like this investment is an exception rather than a rule - a permissible occasional purchase and not a compulsive daily indulgence.

I had the time of my life listening and re-listening to the digital counterparts of those LPs and experienced flow while penning articles about the releases, so the joy is certainly there. The artifacts seem worthy of the minor investment to complete my catalog.

My spending habits are on the whole incredibly conservative. It took me four years eyeing a leather messenger bag I'd carefully identified among a hundred others on Amazon to be the ideal fit for my laptop and accessories before I spent the $80 on it. I spent those four years carrying my things back and forth to work in a crumpled up recycled plastic grocery bag.

I only buy a few things each year that aren't meticulously regimented staples to survive. Now and again I try to permit myself these simple pleasures. This may be one of those permissible exceptions.

My Oblique Strategy card of the week is, "Be extravagant."

I'll give it a bit more thought and give the community a little more time to chime in. Thanks!

[Guybrush]

Well, my LP collection is extremely modest compared to yours. I did enjoy the hunt for a while and also bought LPs through discogs, but.. in general I don't get too attached to things. I definitely feel like things need to be useful or give me joy or else I tend to get rid of them. I'm not a collector type, really, and it's been a long time since I got much pleasure out of my LPs.

After we moved in 2019, I set up my turntable in the living room with the idea that I might use it more. That didn't really happen and my wife thought it looked kinda ugly. I actually agreed with her. It's now relocated to a box in the basement.

I have a couple of special LPs framed and hung on the wall and I enjoy them like that.

[Lexi Darling]

My line of thinking is similar to Guybrush's in terms of my own personal feelings on collecting physical media. I don't own many hobby items or collectibles these days. I made a conscious decision to get rid of most of my my DVDs, video games and physical books and albums several years ago, then finished the job by getting rid of the rest earlier this year when I moved in with my fiancé.

Really the only things I actually own that are mine 100 percent are my laptop, external hard drives, two synthesizers, my clothes, accessories, makeup and beauty tools, and some household decorations and cookware that I pooled with the mister's when I moved in.

Living the way I do, with fairly strict budgets and financial restrictions, has definitely lessened a lot of the temptations I once faced with impulse buys. I definitely still buy too many dresses (the employee discount I get at the clothing store I work at is too good to not use, haha), and as someone who enjoys decorating, organizing and displaying the possessions in our home, I understand the desire to make a nice, well-displayed collection that represents one's passions and hobbies.

So I probably can't be of much help, but I feel like given your usual adherence to stricter spending budgets and your obvious passion for the works of your favorite artists, I think there's nothing wrong with occasional vinyl purchases if having a complete collection has meaning for you.

[ribbons]

Go for it, ISB.