Titanic Rising – Weyes Blood

BY NEAL MARTIN | MAY 29, 2019

My vinyl fetish has become serious. It is not simply the fact that I abandon my kids to spend endless hours in dingy second-hand record shops or that the highlight of the year thus far is finding an original RCA orange label copy of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory. I am currently addicted to “Discogs”, the über-successful, crowd-generated catalogue of every music release and variations thereof. Apparently, there are now over 8 million singles, albums, picture discs on the database, from shellacs and FLAC files.

It began innocently enough with an inquisitive search to see the value of a couple of twelve-inches. That’s all. No more than a minute. Unfortunately, it led to me cataloguing the vinyl records one-by-one, over 600 items with two more boxes in storage. I learned several things. Firstly, I did not have much to do on that weekend. Secondly, most CDs are worthless unless they are  from Japan. Thirdly, I own much more Madonna than I thought. Lastly, I wish I still had all those 1990s Britpop albums on vinyl because they are now worth a small fortune. All these records documented a period of my life. Select any at random and I could instantly bore you of when and where I bought it. From obscure indie labels to cheesy pop designed to fill dance floors, some of my records remain classics and others went stale quicker than natural wine. You can allow the public to browse through your entire collection, which would probably reveal more about that person than actually meeting them. Maybe I will once I have finished entering them, although I will keep it private for now.

For every record and its iteration, Discogs details not only the median value but also the number of “Haves” and “Wants” on the market, allowing you to gauge supply and demand. If the latter exceeds the former then expect demand to push prices up and vice versa. For example, you might consider One Direction’s last album to be the equivalent of Pet Sounds and price your copy at one thousand dollars. If nobody agrees then it languishes unsold and your notional price is meaningless. Value is governed by what people are willing to pay and not what the vendor believes it is worth.