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IN WHICH… MARK MY WORDS, I CONSIDER PATHOLOGICAL COLLECTING

In his extraordinary documentary film Vinyl, about record collecting, released in 2000, Alan Zweig profiled, amongst others, an extreme example of collecting pathology. This was a social recluse who refused to leave his record-lined apartment, where each time he used the bathroom it took him several minutes to relocate the records in front of the bathroom door. A Canadian filmmaker, Zweig investigated the world of record collecting in an effort to get to the bottom of his own obsession. In the film, Zweig sought to talk to people who collect records not in order to discuss music, but rather to discuss what drives someone to collect records in the first place.

Lurking in front of, behind, and sometimes almost within his camera, Zweig spends a large portion of the film in stylised self-filmed ‘confessions’, where he expounds on his life in relation to record collecting, feeling it has prevented him from fulfilling his dreams of starting a family. He talks to collectors, predominantly but far from exclusively male ones, including a car wash employee who claims to have over one million records and to have memorised the track listing of every K-Tel collection; a government employee who refuses to organise his collection because he doesn’t want people to come over to visit; and a man who threw out his large record collection rather than sell or give it away because he didn’t want anyone else to own it. I particularly enjoyed the gentleman who decided to sell off his massive record collection, using the money to buy himself a horse, ‘which I ride four or five times a week.’ Even I can see how these are extreme vinyl behaviours, and not remotely normal, or even acceptable.

Brazilian tycoon, Zero Freitas started collecting records in 1965, when he bought ‘Canto Para a Juventude’ by Roberto Carlos. By March 2015, he owned six million ‘and counting’ reported a story in The Guardian, which described it as ‘the biggest record collection on the planet.’ Freitas was creating a five-storey building in which to contain, lend and exhibit them. In a February 2016 interview with him by Anton Spice on ‘The Vinyl Factory Limited’ website, the writer suggested:

‘What Thomas Carlyle once wrote about books applies to vinyl perhaps with even greater force: “in books lies the soul of the whole past time, the articulate audible voice of the past when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream”. Having listened to Zero Freitas, this motto could just as easily apply to his vinyl library project.’

The question of when record collecting tips over into extreme behavioural abnormality is a difficult one to answer. Mark Griffiths is, in his own words, a ‘music obsessive’ and an ‘avid’ record collector. He is also a chartered psychologist and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University’s Psychology Division. Mark and I became aware of each other when I worked for William Hill. Neither knew the other was a serious record collector until August 2018, when I came across an internet piece he’d written about his voracious vinylising and compulsive compact discing. I contacted Mark and he was happy for me to quote from his work:

‘When’ wrote Mark, ‘I get into a particular band or artist I try to track down every song that artist has ever done. I have to own every recording, including unofficially released recordings via bootlegs and fan websites.’

He referenced one of my own favourite groups:

‘I had liked The Move since my early teenage years. Over the years, albums I had on cassette and vinyl were replaced by CDs. The Move’s Greatest Hits was one of the few to slip through the cracks. The buying of the CD was an impulse purchase following a You might like… recommendation from Amazon. The album was Magnetic Waves of Sound, featuring all their singles. I bought it because it contained all the 10 tracks that were on my Pickwick label cassette, but also had an accompanying DVD of many rare TV performances. I played it repeatedly for the next few days. Within a few days, my thirst for The Move was unquenchable. I ordered all four of their back-catalogue studio LPs – Move (1968), Shazam and Looking On (both 1970), and Message from the Country (1971). All four had been re-released with extra discs’ worth of unreleased material. I decided that I had to have every track they’ve ever recorded, irrespective of whether I like the songs or not. This is one of the worst things about being an avid collector. I simply have to have every note – good or bad – recorded by the band. I found out that The Move had released two live albums, so I ordered those.

‘A 2008 4-disc box set, The Move Anthology, 1966-72 had lots of tracks and alternate versions of songs that weren’t available anywhere else. I found a second-hand set for just over £30. Bargain!

‘In about three weeks I completed my collection of everything The Move had legally produced.

‘I then went onto YouTube and found rare live performances which I converted into MP3s to make my own rare bootleg LP collection of The Move live. That still didn’t satisfy my thirst.

‘Much of the reading I did about The Move focused on the 1970-1972 period (when Jeff Lynne joined) where there were two bands in operation simultaneously – The Move and the embryonic Electric Light Orchestra. I never realised in my early teens that Jeff Lynne was in later line-ups of The Move. Given that the Electric Light Orchestra were actually The Move in all but name at the beginning of the 1970s, I also ended up buying a 2-CD collection, The Harvest Years, featuring the first two Electric Light Orchestra albums, plus outtakes and B-sides. ELO’s first hit single “10538 Overture”, was originally recorded as a Move B-side. The Move’s last Top 10 single, “California Man”, crossed over with ELO’s first in the British charts – and the two groups had identical core line-ups of Wood, Lynne and Bev Bevan. I found out that Jeff and Roy had been friends in Birmingham. Roy asked Jeff to join The Move in 1969 but Jeff felt he could get somewhere with his own band, The Idle Race, one of the first to perform a cover version of a song by The Move – “Here We Go Round the Lemon Tree”. This led me to buying a copy of the complete (2-CD) recorded works of everything The Idle Race ever commercially released, for just £5.

‘There were various tracks that Roy wrote during his tenure with The Move and ELO (Mark 1) that ended up on his subsequent solo LPs, most notably Boulders. I bought this as part of a £10 Roy Wood 5-CD boxset also featuring LPs by his next band, Wizzard, as well as ELO’s first, and The Move’s final LPs. I then bought a Roy Wood and Wizzard ‘greatest hits’ CD. I’ve been buying up the rest of ELO’s album back catalogue. For some three decades, ELO were one of my guilty pleasures. I now have all the albums they recorded in the 1970s as well as the recent platinum-selling Alone in the Universe. All for less than £20 in total. Bargain! Whether I will end up being an ELO completist remains to be seen. A lot of their post-1980 output is not something I can honestly say I like. One of the worst things about being a completist is buying music that you don’t like just to complete your collection.’

I also develop ‘crushes’ on particular bands and/or artist(e)s, but mine rarely go much beyond deciding I will seek to gather a collection by them, although not necessarily instantly. However, I do admit to buying six Beach Boys’ albums recently on the strength of a single Record Collector feature on the group’s lesser known back catalogue. I have, at time of writing some months later, yet to get round to listening to those records and CDs. But that doesn’t matter. They’re there for me to do so when I feel like it. Knowing that is as good as listening. Adds Mark in an explanation of this mutual quirk: ‘Tracking down an obscure release is as much fun as the listening of the record or CD (“thrill of the chase”). Almost every record I have bought over the last decade is in mint condition and un-played, as many now come with a code to download the record bought as a set of MP3s.’ The difference here for me is that I don’t ‘do’ MP3s, and have no interest in them.

Recalling his descent into this desirable delirium which consumes so many of us, Mark explains:

‘Every week, all of the money earned from my Saturday job would go on buying records. When I got to Bradford University to study psychology, my love of music and record buying increased. I became a journalist for the student magazine. Within months I was in control of the arts and entertainment coverage. The perks of my (non-paid) job were that (a) I got to go to every gig at Bradford University for free, (b) I was sent free records to review. During this time (1984-1987) my favourite artists were The Smiths, Depeche Mode and, my guilty pleasure, Adam Ant. I devoured everything they released. As a Depeche Mode fan, collecting every track became harder and more expensive, as they were arguably pioneers of the remix. During 1987-1990, my record buying subsided through financial necessity. I was doing my Ph.D. I simply didn’t have the money to buy records the way I had before. This was the only period in my life that I didn’t really buy music magazines; I thought, if I didn’t know what was being released, I couldn’t feel bad about not buying it.

‘In 1990, I landed my first proper job as a lecturer in psychology at Plymouth University. For the first time in my life I had a healthy disposable income. My first purchase was a huge record and CD player. I could listen to my favourite bands at the same time as preparing lectures or writing research papers – something I still do. When CD singles became popular in the 1990s, I became a voracious buyer of music again. Bands would release a single across multiple formats with each format containing tracks exclusive to the record, CD and/or cassette. Artists like Oasis and Morrisey would release singles in three or four formats (7ʺ vinyl, 10ʺ/12ʺ vinyl, CD single, and cassette single) and I would buy all formats. The music industry has realised there were huge amounts of money to be made from bands’ back catalogues. I will happily buy a classic album again as long as it has an extra disc or two of demo versions, rarities, obscure B-sides, that will help me extend and/or complete collections.’

But Mark makes a very important point: ‘I love music. However, I am not addicted. My obsessive love of music adds to my life rather than detracts from it – and on that criterion alone I will happily be a music collector until the day that I die.’

Here’s a tick-box list of symptoms, claiming to indicate whether or not an individual is veering towards compulsive collecting addiction, from an article by Hale Dwoskin, CEO and director of training of Sedona Training Associates:

• You look for/buy/trade collectibles for hours on end, and the time you spend doing this is increasing

• You think about collectibles constantly, even when you’re not collecting

• You have missed important meetings/events because of collecting

• It’s difficult for you to not buy more collectibles, even for just a few days

• You try to sneak more collectibles into your home

• You have tried, unsuccessfully, to stop collecting

• Your family or friends have asked you to cut back on collecting

• Your personal interests have changed because of your collecting

• You have lost a personal or professional relationship because of collecting

OK, let’s see. First one? Yes. Second? No, not constantly. Third, no (well, not business ones, possibly private/family ones). Fourth, um, I suppose that’s probably right. Fifth, no, I brazenly bring them in – okay, being honest, yes. Sixth, no, never tried, never wanted to. Seventh, not in as many words but possibly in disapproving looks. Eighth, no. Ninth, no. I’ll let you decide whether I’ve passed or failed the ‘compulsive’ test. Dwoskin adds: ‘Collecting is a unique passion that can give you a sense of purpose and promote self-discovery. But what may seem to you like a passion may actually be more of an obsession or addiction.’

Another viewpoint was expressed by science writer, Sharon Begley, in her book, Just Can’t Stop: An Investigation of Compulsion: ‘Compulsion comes from a need so desperate, burning and tortured it makes us feel like a vessel filling with steam, saturating us with a hot urgency that demands relief.’ I think most serious vinylists will relate to that description which could equally apply to a number of other, potentially more physically damaging personal requirements. Mark Griffiths believes, ‘that it is theoretically possible to be addicted to collecting’ but ‘the number of genuine “collecting addicts” is likely to be very low.’

Perhaps my own collecting shows that I am just searching for excuses to explain my desire to continue the contrarian attitude I love to display in so many other areas of my life, and to demonstrate my determination also to collect records to wind up as many people as possible by so doing.

But once you do it you discover just how much time and effort you have to devote to keeping the damned things in usable condition…