Help With Collecting Vinyl

Which vinyl records are a must in a vinyl collection?

There are none. Come on man, just get what you like. Ok, hold on , what about using Rolling Stones top 100 albums of all time? There you go, do that.As an added bonus, I'm going to help you out with one. Buy this record and be in the know.

How big is your Vinyl collection?

Thanks for the request Aakash.We decided to move in 2015 and spent the first eight months of 2016 getting rid of most of our stuff to move to a smaller house in a different state.After downsizing from over 4,000 or so albums and over 1,000 45’s it’s now about 300 albums and 200 45’s.The albums are mixed, some prog rock, punk rock, soundtracks and compilations. The 45’s are mostly hard to find punk rock from the 70’s and 80’s.I met a few guys at yard sales that had on-line sales businesses and offered to sell them my collection. They bought a lot, I also had a couple of huge sales and sold hundreds more and then I used the rest as trade-in at my local record store. I selectively bought CD’s of the albums most important to me. I finally convinced the record store buyer to come look at my collection, he was reluctant at first but eventually he was impressed enough with the photos of my music room to have the owner of the chain join in as well. They made low-ball offers on the most valuable titles so I ended up keeping more than I really wanted to.Cassette tapes came back in vogue just in time for the record store to make me a good offer on all of those as well, another 1,000 or more titles which were sometimes duplicates of what I already owned on CD or vinyl but also some very rare punk and metal albums. I apologized to the buyer for all the cassettes which he was reluctant to take but he told me that now he had the best collection of cassettes in Denver. He sells them on-line. I bought them all used for about 25 cents each (sometimes cheaper) at yard sales and thrift stores through the 1990’s-2000’s when nobody wanted them. Basically for me they were wallpaper, I loved being surrounded by titles.I ended up keeping and moving with over 4,000 CD’s, still too many but that will only be a problem sometime in the future.I should probably add that giving up all that vinyl even if necessary was a very sad decision to make.

Is it a waste of time to collect vinyl?

I’m relatively new to collecting vinyl (but I’m also probably relatively young compared to others who’ve answered here).I think that having a physical copy of music on its own medium helps me to stay organized. Digital music is great, I’m a huge fan of Spotify. I’ve found tons of great music on Spotify. The good stuff I buy on vinyl. Spotify had a really bad IPO and may not be around forever, so the future of music might change drastically. If you own your music, you won’t have the problem of where to go next to stay with the current trends. With iTunes, sure, the cloud allows you to re-download music at any time, if say, you get a new computer. But what if iTunes goes away and you lose your copy of all your iTunes music? Vinyl will be there, unless of course your house burns down.Let’s not forget the album art. Spotify typically only gives you a small icon of the album art! It’s worthless… With vinyl you get the whole deal, it gives CDs a run for their money, forget cassettes. Album art is long forgotten in today’s society, but with vinyl you don’t just pay for music, you pay for art too. Sometimes it’s not just the album cover, but the sleeve that contains album art. Should I mentioned colored vinyl or picture discs?There are lots of interesting and unique aspects to collecting vinyl. It’s not just about the music sometimes. There are some very interesting quirks to the hobby sometimes. Check out the hologram vinyl or the backwards vinyl on techmoan’s YouTube channel.Edit (4/25/2018): I should add, many albums come with digital downloads. If you buy vinyl through Amazon, some selections come with a feature called “AutoRip” which is Amazon’s digital download service. AutoRip provides MP3s for not just vinyl but CDs and other physical formats (such as cassettes). You can stream or download with AutoRip.Even if you buy music from a physical record store, chances are the album will include a download code with it. I just bought the Skrillex - Bangarang EP this past record store day and inside it included a download code to download a digital version of the album from Skrillex’s own website. So buying vinyl also entitles you to a digital version of the album so you get both formats without having to do any work!

When it comes to buying and collecting vinyl records why are Engelbert Humperdinck and Barry Manilow so frequently the lonely left behind records in a collection that no one ever seems to own?

There are a number of reasons why Humperdinck’s and Manilow’s records cram their way into thrift store bins.There were a bazillion of them issued by record companies over the years, so when people donate their collections to Goodwill, for example, (or sell them to Half Price Books for a dime apiece) Goodwill is inundated with Humperdinck and Manilow. I recently bought 10 Manilow records at Goodwill, not because I’m a big fan of Barry, but because they were sealed. Thus far, I’ve managed to sell just one of ten on eBay. I’ve got nine to go. Interestingly, sealed records tend to attract many record collectors, but Barry’s records haven’t exactly been flying off my shelves lately!Some pop music simply does not age well. Classic rock records, particularly ones in “Mint” shape tend to age better. Not that you won’t still find a plethora of them in thrift stores, but fans of classic rock records tend to hold onto their near-mint copies, since they deem them collectible and worth holding onto (and sometimes they are right!).Related to my point about Barry��s and Engelbert’s music not aging well, one reason it winds up being “the lonely and left behind” is because the quality of the music is, at best, only so-so. Their hits may have at one time satisfied temporarily the people who bought their records, but the lustre of of the music faded pretty quickly. Quick question: Of the hundreds of songs Barry recorded over the last 30 or more years, how many can you name? I can think of “Mandy,” “I Write the Songs,” and “Copacabana,” but that’s about it. As for Enge (Englebert’s nickname), I remember just “Release Me” and “The Last Waltz.” (How did you do?)In conclusion, I’m not exactly sure why you cited just Barry and Enge, because there are many other recording artists whose records can be grouped with “the lonely and left behind. Having rummaged through tens of thousands of thrift store records, many other recording artists’ names pop up more frequently than others, but they are much too numerous to mention. Consequently, I’ll name only a handful:Andy WilliamsJohnny MathisMantovaniJerry ValeRay ConniffMitch MillerGene PitneyKenny RodgersBarbara StreisandHerb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

Why would anyone want to start collecting vinyl records?

I collect vinyl records/LPs. I don't have a massive collection. I don't even have a sizeable one. There are about 30 records in my collection but only 5 of them (3 were gifts) are contemporary releases. The majority are vinyls from a bygone era, almost all of them now out of print. Some are jazz, some are soul, some are blues, all of them are precious to me. Also, just like how people today like to make a perfectly good photo look like it was taken with a crap camera, I like to hear the occasional crackle and pop with my music to remind me of a bygone era and the unique music it produced.

What are some tips for getting into vinyl records?

If you plan to buy used records, get good at visually evaluating their condition. Hold the vinyl at angles in daylight if possible to find scratches that will be either skips or repetitive "ticks" on each revolution. A shiny black surface and clean label around the center hole improve the odds that it was stored properly and not played much (or there would usually be wear on the paper around the hole). Research cleaning methods or buy a record cleaner. Sometimes a quick wash and a carbon fiber brush or Discwasher can clean a lot out of the grooves, but you don't want to just turn the dirt into mud that sinks into the grooves and hardens there. Estate sales or garage sales usually have lots of either very good or very bad records, but the ones with well-preserved records can be a gold mine for building a collection. Generally thrift stores have the castoffs, and used record shops that judge condition charge accordingly, but are worth investigating.Now, if you're up for buying NEW vinyl, the key is proper upright dustfree storage (with inner sleeves pointing up), avoiding touching the grooved surface (finger oils attract gunk) and using a better-than-Crosley turntable with properly adjusted tracking force and antiskating and cartridge alignment in the headshell. These are largely one-time adjustments, but the idea is to avoid damage to the vinyl, since it can't be repaired and new records are pricey enough to justify some long-term preservation work.I'm not sure if I'd really recommend getting vinyl of digital recordings, since then you might be better off listening in the recording's original format. I'd save up for analog recordings, if remastered that should also have been done preferably from original tapes, and not digitized. Many artists still insist on analog studio recordings and a run of vinyl pressings for their new work. Guys who record on ProTools on their laptop will generally not benefit from a vinyl pressing. Guys like Jack White and the Black Keys may enjoy "dirty" recordings with old equipment to get that funky feel, but their music can have a lot of life as a result.And of course, follow what you love, if you find something that connects with you, research it a little and expand out from there. There's so much music history to explore, you'll have to find your own path.

I'm looking to upgrade my vinyl collection to include some jazz. What records should I get?

You can't really go wrong with the list of this answer wiki: What are some of the best jazz albums of all time?