Fear of Change, and the Reluctant Collector
On Vinyl Records, Spotify, collections, and the value of having a physical library
I’ve always struggled with change. When I was in third grade I struggled so much that I ended up seeing the school counselor for a while. Every month my teacher created a mural she’d put up on the classroom door, and every month I’d melt down when she went to put the new one up. I essentially made her dig through the garbage to retrieve my nametag that had been tossed out after the room had been fumigated. My parents had to start photocopying library books because otherwise I refused to let them return them; I never actually read the photocopied books, mind you, I just wanted the security of knowing that I could if I wanted to.
Obviously, nowadays I don’t melt down when, say, a billboard changes or I return a library book. Through sheer necessity I’ve come to at least accept change, and have even come to embrace the idea that all good things have endings. But I do think a bit of my past still lingers in me. It’s in the lists I make of all the media I consume. It’s in the boxes full of comic books in my closet. I genuinely love all of them, but how often do I actually get the chance to crack them open and give them a reread? Not very often. Not often enough to justify the collection, if I’m being completely honest, or at least not a collection of this size. But it makes me feel better knowing that I can reread them whenever I want. There’s an anxiety that comes to me when I think of wanting to reread a book and not being able to, or perhaps even worse, forgetting about a beloved story altogether without that tangible reminder of its existence.
When I was young the amount of media I had access to was limited; I didn’t have money, my parents were strict about what I could or couldn’t watch, and streaming and YouTube hadn't been invented yet. I rewatched and reread the same series over and over, and the beats of those stories became forever engrained in my brain; every time I forget something important it’s because my brain chooses to retain a list of Dragonball Z power levels or Degrassi episode summaries instead of letting me absorb new information. Between age, new responsibilities, and just a glut of new media in general, new series don’t have quite the same effect on me. I can have a beautiful, moving experience watching or reading a new story, but rarely does that experience linger with me anymore. It’s something I miss dearly. And, again, I think that’s where those lists come in; it’s my way of making sure I have an anchor to those experiences that can pull back memories that would otherwise escape me. Even this newsletter, in a way, is a record of my experiences with media that I can use to remember how certain stories made me feel and the impact they had on me. I guess it says a lot about me that that’s such a priority, but hey, I don’t think what it says is bad in any way.
Anyway, I guess that’s how I became a collector. Ugh, just using that word to refer to myself makes me cringe. I’ve never liked the connotations that go with it. To me, a collector is someone with boxes full of unopened comics they’ve never read that they’re hoping will make them a mint someday. They’re someone with boxes full of action figures and collectibles that have never been played with or enjoyed. They’re the nerd equivalent of my friend’s mom with the couch covered in plastic nobody is allowed to sit on, perhaps combined with a bit of a cryptocurrency goon; somebody, clearly, I’d rather not be. Perhaps it’s a bit moralistic; I’ve never had the space or money to buy things without a use for them. But I’m also just someone who genuinely loves those things, and hates to see them sit around unused. I’ve read all my comics, listened to all my records, played countless games with my Pokemon Cards. That’s the point of them; that’s what they’re for.
But at this point I can’t deny that I’m a collector. I have a collection of comic books. I have a collection of records. Just because I use them doesn’t make it not true. And even as this world goes more and more digital, I think I’ll always be a collector, an analog boy. Things just mean more to me, just remain a bigger part of my life and hold more weight in my memory, when they have a physical presence that can’t be forgotten or ignored.
I’ve probably talked more about comics than anything in this piece, but it’s actually Spotify that sparked these thoughts today. Aside from the crucial, disturbing fact that it underpays its artists and is almost singlehandedly destroying musicians’ abilities to make a living from their music, Spotify is a wonderful thing. Just think about it: the entirety of music, more or less, at your fingertips! Isn’t that amazing?!
If you’re me, perhaps it’s just overwhelming.
While I’ve had a Spotify account for years, it’s only been the past two that I’ve actually used it more than casually, or paid them any money for it. Before then, I used my iPod to listen to music in my car or on the go, even long after people started making fun of me for it. I didn’t mind at all carrying a second device with me besides my phone, and I loved having an actual library of music I’d cultivated to scroll through. Like I said, Spotify’s almost infinite selection can be quite literally paralyzing at times. When I try to think of what I want to listen to, I freeze; I resort to listening to the same handful of bands over and over, or just throwing on one of their algorithm-curated playlists instead. Back in my iPod days I could have just scrolled through a list of artists or albums until I found a gem I love but hadn’t listened to in a while, and without that reminder I’m scared some of those gems may slip away from me forever. Spotify has made it far easier to keep up with new music, but I’m also finding less of that music sticking with me unless I pick it up on vinyl and, again, have that tangible reminder that it exists.
The only reason I stopped using my iPod in the first place was because it broke, and at the time, I was working with a decade-old MacBook that wasn’t compatible with the most recent iPod Generations. Now that I have a new laptop I suppose I could finally replace it, but at this point it would be an overwhelming amount of effort and money to not only transfer my music library to my new computer, but also to update it with all the releases that I’ve loved from the past two years, especially when I’ve already paid for quite a few of them on vinyl. Unfortunately, digital music, even digital music you pay for and own, is frustratingly ephemeral; they can vanish in ways the old stack of CDs in a dusty corner of my bedroom or my dad’s book of cassette tapes in the basement can’t.
And that, I suppose, is what the vinyl collection is for.
These days, it’s my way (along with concert tickets and merch, in non-pandemic times) of actually monetarily supporting artists I care about — cause god knows Spotify ain’t pulling their weight in that department — but it’s also the way I’ve gone about trying to preserve the music I care about. It looks like streaming is going to be my go-to when I’m on the go, but vinyl allows me to have that library of music in a new way.
I’d say that the rise of digital music and streaming also caused the reemergence of vinyl as a legit player in the musical scene. Cassette tapes were an inferior medium in almost every way except for the fact that they were incredibly portable1, fixing the primary flaw with vinyl; CDs were perhaps even more portable, with even better sound and better ability to navigate between songs. Digital music and streaming, though, made both these mediums obsolete2. A personal music collection no longer needs to be portable, giving vinyl a huge leg up over other mediums. If you’re gonna go through the effort to cultivate a personal collection, why not go the extra mile and make it vinyl?
When I owned cassettes and CDs I was as ruthlessly utilitarian with them as any other piece of media, but with vinyl I get joy just out of owning them as a physical object, of watching them spin on the turntable, of checking out liner notes and album art at full size and seeing which cool-colored variants I can get my hands on. I’m still not a Collector with a capital-C; I listen to all my records regularly and don’t buy doubles just to have them or to get a rare variant or know how much any of them are worth. But while my comics have always felt like a stack of books for me to read, my records feel like a legitimate collection that I enjoy obtaining and displaying as much as I do using them.
But even records, in their own way, are ephemeral; they’re certainly more fragile than CDs or cassette tapes, and require far more maintenance and care. I’ve had two arrive at my house brand new with scratches in them that made a song unplayable, and another arrived literally cracked in half! (Although at least I got a refund/replacement on that.) Each of those discoveries filled me with panic and despair, heat traveling up my cheeks. It’s probably a necessary wake-up call for me, though, that the neat little story I tell myself in my head of these things lasting the rest of my life won’t come true. They could break. They could be destroyed in a fire. I could lose interest and sell them someday. Things always change, even collections — as that poor pile of CDs in the corner can tell you. Whatever comes my way, though, I’m sure I’ll always have a collection, a library, of some sort, a reminder of things I love so much that I feel the need to ensure that I never forget how much I actually do love them. I think that’s always going to be a part of me.
STRANGEST “WAS GARFIELD FUNNY TODAY?” OF THE LAST WEEK
A couple weekends back now I had the honor of doing the (impromptu) inaugural live-reading of my “Was Garfield Funny Today?” project for friends of the newsletter Zach and Whitney, only to be legitimately shocked when the strip was just Garfield sexually assaulting someone. That was…not at all what I was expecting.
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin about his relationship with the stories he loves. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!
And also that they could record songs off the radio/other tapes, but that doesn’t help prove my point now does it?
Cassette tapes have been making a comeback in recent years as a way for smaller bands who can’t afford to press vinyl to still sell physical copies of their music; I’ve bought a few to support favorite small bands despite not actually having a cassette player. But as someone old enough to remember cassettes in their prime, I still think they’re a garbage medium. That said, this piece by friend of the newsletter Jordan Walsh is an excellent counterpoint that just might sell me on the merit of cassettes yet.
Two things!
1.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlTEAAP3hbE
2.) It was truly an honor to hear live first impressions of a Garfield strip. And such a deranged one at that! I feel like this is a performance art opportunity