Forever Vinyl

This is a bit late but thought I'd mention a neat video on 45s and girls who collect records, Cornershop's 'Brimful of Asha'.




I remember it from those weekend chart programmes and MTV's blink-and-you'll-miss-it first appearance here in 1996 or 97. The video is totally retro, with the girl and her stacks of 45s straight out of the 60s and 70s. I think it was part of the 90s fixation on the grooviness of that era, especially with the girl's hyper listening style. I think the band featuring within the 45s sleeves (probably some hi-tech term) is a kind of remediation, with the picture sleeves referencing the original records and their iconographic significance. Being a record collector myself, I agree with the idea of the record as a gendered technology and hobby. I often get weird looks from older guys when I'm going through the record shelves and they see me carrying a stack of LPs from the 'oldies' section. Maybe I was too young to invade their territory. That's where I think it's an age and gender combo. Vinyl consumption is either archaic or ironic, but with a lot of collectors I think it's just because some material is unlikely to be transferred on to CD and MP3.

I also remember TV3 featuring an item on a 'Vinyl Comeback' late last year. They featured clips of teenagers in Real Groovy skimming through the imports and discounted 45s. I think there was an even spread of girls and guys. Ultimately, it's just about going after the music you enjoy and not worrying about falling into a certain stereotype by being too retro. I agree with the earlier posts on records and MP3s and identity construction. Where the record is tangible and offers a visual connection through the grooves and noise (both kinds with reissues), MP3s are all liquid and more convenient and offer a different kind of physical closeness, like a McLuhanesque extension to go back to 203. 45s are pretty handy though, they're just like a CD single, it's just a matter of lifting the needle, and there are also those snazzy automatic players.

I know a lot of collectors lament the digitisation of record catalogues, but I think it's a nice marriage of retro and modern. One LP I searched over a year for I found on a record store's website for their in-store stock overseas. They even gave me free postage for being a Kiwi!

Another interesting example of girls and their records is Dogfight (1991). The protagonist, Rose, is a folksy sixties girl and Vietnam pacifist. She has posters of folk singer Joan Baez on her wall and cries while listening to her phonograph, much like Robertson-Wojcik's shot of Holly, after discovering she was a 'dogfight' contestant (male chauvinist soldiers gather so-called 'ugly-ducklings' and the winner receives $50).

To tie back to the ideas of commodity fetishism and gender, I think part of the allure of record collecting lies in its authenticity. Record users inscribe multiple layers of meaning on to the record covers and the vinyl itself, and its 'relic' status kind of sees the listener give animate qualities to the record. But I think girls who buy records today are often dismissed as the descendents of those crazed teen idol fans of the 1950s, when just about every male film star churned out a hit 45. Record collecting can also be more communal than MP3 consumption, which seems to envelop the listener in their digital world of 'personalised' content. A few collectors' books I've read seem to privilege the male collector and their experience, even ones published over the last four years, but I think that's more a product of genre trends, rather than deliberate exclusion.
Stella