A Highly Personal Guide To Record Collecting For Beginners

Everybody needs an online destination with nothing but good vibes. For some it might be a site with a repository of cute animal videos, others might gravitate to an archive of vintage photographs that offers a window into what appears to be a saner world. For me, it’s the Reddit group r/vinyl, which consists almost exclusively of pictures of newly acquired LPs. People comment on these images, but I rarely read the discussion; to me, the image of a few records and an excited poster sharing, “Look what I picked up today!” is enough to elevate my spirits, at least for a moment.

There’s a particular type of r/vinyl post, one less common but which still appears with inspiring frequency, that gives me an extra dose of cheer: when someone posts a shot of four or five records, and shows that these are in fact the entirety of their collection. They are newbies, entering for the first time the world of acquiring physical copies of music media, and their excitement is palpable… read more >