etsy

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Record Collecting and Women


I have noticed over the years that the vast majority of women I see visiting used vinyl stores tend to be in the company of a man who is the one actually buying records.
Only occasionally have I seen a woman hungrily flipping through the stacks, oblivious to the world around her, a pile of choice titles to her side. Admittedly, when I see such a rare sight, I get a secret thrill and fantasies of vinyl-filled love flood my brain. Of course the inevitable breakup would result in a war over who owned which discs. I think a pre-nup is in order.

Below are a couple of excerpts regarding collecting and women. The first is from an article by J.C. Furnas that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post of 27 May 1939, subtle sexism intact;) The second is a quote by artist Robert Crumb (probably best known for Fritz The Cat) who is an avid collector of 78rpm's. This quote appears in the book Vinyl Junkies: Adventures In Record Collecting by Brett Milano (St. Martin's Griffin, 2003, ISBN: 0312304277).




Robert Crumb:
“Picking up chicks? Forget it! It never gets them hot, they don’t give a shit about collectors. I wouldn’t say that collectors are antisocial – that would imply that they want to do something harmful to society – but it’s not very sociable either. Very self-obsessed, kind of asocial. That’s why the world looks down on collectors, it takes a certain kind of personality. There is nothing sexy or glamorous about it. Women aren’t attracted to people because they collect. You can go up to them and say, ‘I’m an outlaw bandit’ and they’ll like that. But if you say, ‘I’m a collector’ – no chance.”

Robert Crumb has a few records.

Cover art for 2-CD compilation 'The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Super Rarities & Unissued Gems of the 1920s and 30s' (Yazoo 2202, 2006) by Robert Crumb.




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