Do you buy the original if you already have the reissue or the track on comp?

B

Backjob

Well-known member
Because I do, because I unashamedly love vinyl records as artifacts and love to see the way they were packaged and sounded the first time round and because there's something just so iconic about 'em. I don't feel like I "really" have a disco record until I have it on the original 12
I feel like this love for the 'real' thing is kind of romantic and not some horrible curatorial impulse that's the sole preserve of Nick Hornby fans. Isn't it?

This prompted by purchasing Dhar Braxton's "Jump back" on sleeping bag even tho I already have two copies of it on reissues, but the sleeping bag one is sort of "touched by the hand" of Arthur Russell, you know?


PLUS - is this shit a "subcultural power move" or can you divorce the external perception from the internal drives AKA are you innately suspicious of any music "collector" activity having any motive OTHER than status?


(this is an xpost with ilm cos I'm curious about the difference in the responses)
 
M

martin

----
I couldn't care less about originals, to be honest - but I wish when people reissued stuff they'd at least try and keep the artwork / design looking the same, or not stick a load of biographical notes all over it, written by some bootlicker. Mind you, with reggae comps, I'd rather just buy a CD with 4 songs I really like on it, than hunt down the original 4 7"s or whatever.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
I buy vinyl versions of things I have already on CD, because on the rare occasions I play out I always completely cock it up if I'm using CDs and bring in at least 2 minutes of silence just where that killer track should have been.

Original presses are nice (particularly in reggae because they often are the "best" quality of a bad lot) but 3 quid for a reissue 7" beats 30 quid for an original any day. Having original presses (or at least something on a JA press and not Soul Jazz or Trojan or Heartbeat) does make me feel unreasonably smug, but I think it's important to be humble about all this, especially having spent an evening in the company of Penny Reel and his monstrous collection of records stretching back until the 1960s.

Blood & Fire currently have a sale on their website where you can pick up CDs for 4 quid. If you want any of those tunes you would completely mental not to get them just because they are re-releases.
 
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