Now that I looked at when my records were recorded originally, I thought it would be fun to look at exactly what they are. How, when, where are different topics. And why? Who knows. Because I like it I guess.
Use the same methods on the discogs data as the previous post, did some mining on what genres comprised my collection. The first was easier, and I don’t suppose any other explanation is required. I like rock and roll music in most of its forms. Sure, I have my preferences and you could argue with my categorization of some of these albums as rock, but I didn’t want to paint this with too fine of a brush. So even those eighties-est of 80s records are classified this way.
For those about to rock
And all that jazz (and classical)
Once I removed those rock and rolls records from consideration, things got a bit more interesting.
Classical and Jazz made of the majority of the rest of these albums (the count was actually one apart, so statistically the same by most measures). Neither of these held any surprises for me.
The majority of my classical records were a gift to me from a friend and coworker (thanks again Julian!) in the mid nineties. Of course, I’ve been slowly adding to this initial foundation in the last 2 or 3 years. (I have a lot more on CD.) I’ve focused on what we used to call “chestnuts” back in my days as a classical DJ on WLUR in college. These are the pieces everyone knows. And there’s a reason for that. I mean, this year alone, I’ve acquired versions of Beethoven’s 5th and 6th symphonies as well as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Good clean versions of classical albums at a good price point, however, are scarce, so I focus mostly on new records when I identify a need.
Jazz comes next. This also doesn’t surprise me one bit. I’ve been actively trying to grow my collection here. I have a harder time with this because I knew so little about jazz when I started. I had exactly zero jazz records when I started this journey anew almost 10 years ago. I’ve relied on friends who know their stuff (like my buddy Joel) and upon the excellent Jazz Sunday series on the Facebook Atlanta Vinyl Collectors page.
I expect both these areas to grow in the coming years as I learn more and see more.
No country, old man?
I really felt like I had more country and bluegrass in my collection. What I have are old standards. Perhaps the number would actually grow if I counted Gram Parsons as country (or even Sweetheart of the Rodeo). In any case, I’m very happy with the bits that I do haveL Emmylou, Johnny, Willie, and the like.
And lots of room for improvement
I knew that the number of hip-hop records I have on vinyl would be love. And the same goes for R&B. I have a lot more of this elsewhere, but sometimes it’s just hard for me to prioritize buying these on vinyl (don’t judge). I feel like I have a lot more to wade through to get to what I would want to buy here. Let’s just say I’m going to try to do better. The same goes for what I loosely have categorized as “world.” IN my collection, this is mainly African funk and pop, Fela Kuti and the like. Again, this is a steep learning curve for me, but I’m game (I even got a couple of CDs for next to nothing to help me learn more).