Record Collection Challenge

Did you ever have the unpleasant feeling that buying records is more about possessing new things then having a real love for the music the records contain? I’ve never thought of myself as a “Record Collector”. I buy them to listen to and if I’m not going to do so anymore I’ll get rid of them. But when arriving in Fort Worth, unpacking and organizing my records, I started thinking, for example, “When’s the last time I listened to James Brown at the Apollo?” A while ago I thought up a challenge and this move was the perfect time to meet it. The challenge is: before buying any more records you have to first listen to every one of the records in your collection straight through. You may skip the ones that you already listen to often because the point is to revisit some albums that you haven’t heard in — years? Decades? This is also a good opportunity to tidy up, Marie Kondo style, and give away, donate, or trash those that just don’t spark joy. It’s nice to have a big record collection – but there’s no joy in owning a bunch of junk. Here are some thoughts on my experience.

Blackout Summer by Christmas Island

This is one of the few San Diego bands I discovered while living there that I thought were really good. I never saw them live, but I know the owner of Volar records who put this out in 2009. He sold me this LP and an EP by the same band for $10 while he was tending bar at the Whistle Stop in San Diego. If everyone subscribed to my worldview this album would have sold millions of records worldwide making the band’s two primary members major pop stars. In the unfortunate real world, everyone involved vanished into obscurity. This is a lo-fi garage-pop masterpiece, with anthems like the title track, and a laugh-out-loud sense of humor throughout.

…Think I’m Gonna by the Power Chords

One more example of a San Diego band destined to be forgotten by everyone in the world besides me. They made one great album then broke up and probably left town. I used to run into the bassist at Ken Theater in Kensington, where he worked.

This is old school punk for people who grew up watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I saw them live a few times and they were really tight and sounded fantastic. Such a shame when a good band breaks up. By the way, I’m still looking for a good Fort Worth band – if you know of any please let me know.

The Lesser Kinks

The Kinks is one of my favorite bands, and I discovered them late. Sure, everyone growing up on American Classic Rock radio in the ’80s heard their hits “Lola”, “You Really got Me”, “All Day and All of the Night”, “Destroyer”, “Sunny Afternoon”, and a few others, depending on which radio stations you listened to. All perfectly fine tunes. But we didn’t get the best stuff. Their near-flawless Village Green Preservation Society was unknown to me until I was in my (gulp) late twenties. Well, somebody should have told me about it! So I’m telling you, if you don’t already own The Kink Kontroversy, Face to Face, Something Else by the Kinks, The Village Green Preservation Society, and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), then run, don’t walk, to your nearest record store and pick them up, preferably on vinyl. They have other good albums too but the ones mentioned above are the absolute best – I think. I don’t know for sure because there is a long stretch of their career -everything after the ’60s – that seems to be so lackluster that listening to it – much less writing about it – seems not only fruitless, but actually depressing to those of us familiar with their former glory. Sometimes conventional wisdom, or the wisdom of the crowds, or word of mouth, or whatever you want to call it is wrong and an album ignored by all the cool kids or taste makers turns out to be a hidden gem. This is not really the case with the Kinks. During this Record Collection Challenge I listened to Preservation Act 1 and Preservation Act 2 from beginning to end – all three discs – and it was quite an effort. It’s not like the albums are horribly bad, it’s just that there’s no reason to listen to them. I think the manager of my favorite record store in San Diego sold me both of these for 3 bucks total, and they’re both in excellent condition. The songs are tuneful, but completely forgettable. I just sold Preservation Act 2 to my local record store for $3. I kept Preservation Act 1, because side 1 started to grow on me, mainly due to the song Sweet Lady Genevieve. I actually found myself needing to hear that tune a couple more times during my Challenge. Sometimes I think I’m the only person in the world who’s actually listened to both these albums from beginning to end.

Later in the ’70s the Kinks came out with a couple of albums that, while no match for their peak ’60s efforts, are worth picking up and can often be found for a few bucks each: Sleepwalker and Misfits. I found each of these for under $5 – I’m pretty sure I paid $3 for Misfits and I see these all the time in record stores. Nobody wants them, but they’re underrated – especially Sleepwalker. The album is consistently good from beginning to end and the title track is one of those tunes I could – and sometimes do – listen to five times in a row.

When to Throw a Record in the Trash

My Mom was not a big music fan but she did have several decent records by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, she didn’t take very good care of her records and most of them are unlistenable. Well, not completely unlistenable, but if you find yourself so distracted by the loud scratches and pops, probably caused by playing on a turntable with a very worn needle, what’s the point? Such was the case with this otherwise fine Nat King Cole record.

Thrown in the Trash

This record had some sentimental value because my Mom got it in the ’50s and I really like Nat Cole, but I just couldn’t enjoy listening to it because of its worn condition. It’s not worth anything – you can find copies of this that are in better condition for a buck or two – so I couldn’t ask anyone to buy this from me, and I don’t even like the cover much so I wouldn’t save it just for decoration. I tossed it in the trash.

Burt Bacharach “solo” Albums

I had a few vinyl records growing up in the late ’70s and ’80s, but in that era I was more into buying cassettes and then compact discs. By the end of the ’80s vinyl was in decline and people were getting rid of their record collections in favor of CDs. Then, when people realized that digital music had its own faults they started returning to vinyl. Now you can find a lot of high quality – but pricey – reissues, and good used records seem like they’ve escalated in price from when I got back into vinyl in around 2007. There was a sweet spot back then where you could find good Dylan albums in good condition for $7. Maybe you still can – at yard sales or swap meets or thrift stores – but it sure seems like it’s getting harder.

Burt Bacharach is an artist that everyone respects for his songwriting with Hal David, and some of his solo albums sold pretty well too. But people mainly wanted to hear his songs performed by Dionne Warwick or Tom Jones, B.J. Thomas, The Carpenters, Naked Eyes, etc. Bacharach’s solo stuff is a good example of what I consider to be great records that could be had for rock-bottom prices (like a buck or two).

I’m sure I bought the album above for $1 at a San Diego thrift store, and I’m also sure I’ve seen the same record over and over again at different stores through the years, in good condition, for around the same price. This is fantastic music! When I hear the first song, “Promises, Promises” I feel like I’m in a convertible with Goldie Hawn winding through Big Sur on the Pacific Coast Highway. This is the kind of music I would never have given a chance when I was in high school and into heavy metal. But Bacharach is a master arranger and obsessively controlled every aspect of the recording process to get the rich, nuanced sound he wanted. I read his memoir, and he describes how he would hand-pick the record pressing plants that would manufacture his records because he knew which ones were superior. Besides “Make it Easy on Yourself”, I also recommend “Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits!” and “Reach Out”. But not everything he touched turned to gold. In the late ’70s when he was estranged from his songwriting partner Hal David, he came out with an album of original music recorded live with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Sounds like a great idea. I had never heard of this album when I stumbled over it in a thrift shop but the cover caught my eye and it only cost a dollar.

I listen to this record about once a year just to make sure I’m not missing something. Though the album’s arrangements are wonderful and the recording quality is top notch, not a single song on the album is memorable. Not even the one sung by Carly Simon.

Missing from your Collection

Sometimes listening to a record in my collection makes me realize what’s missing. Take this one by the Turtles.

The Turtles Present The Battle of the Bands is a very good album but reminds me that I need to pick up their best album, Happy Together. Everyone knows the song Happy Together, which was a number one hit in 1967 and kept the Beatles’ Penny Lane out of the top of the charts, but what a lot of music fans don’t realize is that the album Happy Together is a masterpiece that I don’t yet own on vinyl but should. Update: I finally picked up a pretty good and pretty cheap copy of this up at Panther City Vinyl.

An ex-girlfriend gave me the mp3 files some years ago that she probably downloaded illegally.

The arrangements, the sense of humor, the pop sensibility (I hate that expression but oh well)! The Turtles is one of those bands in that strange space – not unlike the Monkees and maybe The Knack – where they had such extreme mainstream success that there was a backlash. People were almost ashamed to admit they liked them – and still are – because so much of the band’s success came from casual fans and people with no taste who could never understand how great much of the work is.

I could give a lot of examples of great albums in my collection by Captain Beefheart or Van Morrison to prove what a music snob I am but what would be the point? These are just some random thoughts while listening to my entire record collection. Are you ready to take the challenge? Let me know how it goes.