And the days of scoring elusive original pressings of releases you’re after at your local VoA are long gone after the store’s inventories have been thoroughly picked over by eBayer resellers or by hipster employees who pull all the good stuff before it has a chance to hit the floor. Discogs currently offers over 8,000 8-tracks in its marketplace, the second-most-expensive of which is a mint tape of Trout Mask Replica presently priced at $1,500.00.)īut conversely, with vinyl, I’ve reached a point in my collecting where all the remaining titles on my wish list command $80-$550 apiece. Unlike vinyl, most 8-tracks are practically given away and as interviewees of the film profess, they’ve had to plead with Goodwill store managers just to get them to put their 8-track stock on the sales floor. Much like the VHS culture documentaries, Rewind This and Adjust Your Tracking, the 8-track film made me reflect on my own music collector hobby and how in the past year I’ve really put the breaks on my vinyl habit. It was great to hear Wally Pleasant’s “Rock n’ Roll Yard Sales” on the soundtrack.Īnd serendipitously, while watching the film a related short appeared in my social media feed – an informational demo film to educate consumers about the upcoming compact disc format produced in 1982.Īnd WFMU just shared that Atlas Obscura published a feature yesterday called, “Inside the World’s Best Collection of Unintentionally Funny VHS Tapes” with this hilarious short! I’ve been exploring UK hauntological music and art lately so the retro subject matter fit right in. As we listen to our streaming service of choice, the “new” recorded music business is currently without a collectible product, which continues to contribute to its financial challenges, and the fan experience is that much poorer because of it.A friend kindly recommended my latest film screening – So Wrong They’re Right, a low-budget indie VHS documentary on offbeat 8-track collector culture and the 8-Track Mind zine.
Until some new technology comes along that replaces the convenience that digital music supplies with a more appealing product that you can hold in your hand, the industry will have to rely on the physical products of the last century and the dwindling customer base that still consumes them. The problem is that its main product has always been its delivery medium. The music industry could use a new tangible item to sell, and for consumers to collect. Music is stripped of what may be a pivotal emotional connection. There’s not much to be proud of, nothing to show off, nothing to pursue, and precious little to cherish. You might say that playlists are collections, but when there’s little in the way of a financial or physical expenditure in the pursuit, there’s also little to lose, and a level of passion becomes dormant as a result. In today’s streaming world of Spotify, YouTube and Pandora, the spirit of the music collector has been effectively killed. The problem was that music collecting at that time seemed to become more about quantity rather than quality.
Sure there was still a hint of it left, but the definition seemed to change as it became more about the number of songs on your iPod, or how much of your CD collection was converted to digital. When music consumers transitioned to digital music downloads in the early 2000s, music began to lose that unique collectibility.
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