VINYL !

I love my vinyl. I must say this because of what I am about to do. After several years deliberation, I have decided to sell much of my collection. The great joy of rediscovering records I forgot I had has been replaced by a sense of the absurdity of having so many records that it would take me a year and a half, listening 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no time off for lunch, and no days off, to listen to them all. Once.

Could I afford the luxury of such lunacy, the fact that most of the records I own have only been listened to once, and most of those will never be listened to again by me, would give me pause.

Nor is there any question of leaving these records to my children who think me mad for what they consider my stone age mania for vinyl.


I started collecting records in 1965 at that New York City shrine to recorded music, Sam Goody. At first I was trying to find the "best" recording of this concerto or that symphony and my collection grew slowly. Several years and an epiphany later, having discovered the delights of differing interpretations, it grew exponentially. Eventually, I found myself with thirty or more versions of many of my favorite pieces.

The inexpressible joy of fondling them all - records have a marvelous tactile component that is entirely unknown to younger generations - gradually turned into a terminal case of listeners block. Which one to listen to? I became unable to choose, and would only listen to the ones I had not yet heard. In the end I turned to the radio to make these increasingly impossible listening decisions for me. But I continued to acquire records by the pound.

It is now 45 years and almost 6000 records later. I have paid dearly to move well over a ton of vinyl records several times around the world. I clearly have issues.


So I will go through the mountains of vinyl and cull the records I must keep. I will be listing those I have decided to part with as I go. If there are any records that call out to those of you with an affliction similar to mine, let me know. We will work something out.


Rachmaninov, Sergei

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