The pandemic has hindered many a reunion: friends outside one’s town or city have not been seen, let alone hugged, for months, or even a year. Family was last visited for Christmas 2019 – or so it is in my case. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I managed to sneak in one big reunion amidst all the doom and gloom.
I moved to the UK in 2014 for another (ultimately fairly useless, but nonetheless enjoyable) university degree, and then somehow stayed. Those six years have seen a lot of upheaval in personal as well as public ways: Brexit being the single most devastating event during that time (the pandemic being in a league of its own…). One thing was constant, however: all that stuff that I had left behind in Germany, in storage, which I paid good money for every month, and the transfer of which to the UK I kept postponing due to the effects of the Brexit disaster. After all, who wants even more physical baggage when everything is so uncertain?
Nevertheless, I was beginning to feel the separation more and more. Amongst the things in storage were two things I had really struggled to be without in all this time, and especially during lockdown: my dad’s old stereo and speakers, and his extensive CD collection.
Now I’m not saying that online music platforms are evil (although…) or don’t have their uses. I’ve subscribed to Spotify like everybody else. But I’ve noticed that the music I listen to on there doesn’t stay with me in the same way. I’ll often find myself wondering what album it was that I’d been listening to over and over a year ago, and I’m always stuck for an answer. I have to go into my history and see what on earth it was I’d been enjoying so much on there only a short while ago. This doesn’t happen with physical music. The attachment is real, and it is forever.
My dad passed away in 2013, and I have since been the caretaker of the collection he had painstakingly been building since the late 80s. I’ve never counted them properly (though I did once order them alphabetically, a fact that Rob in High Fidelity would be disgusted by), but there are about 2000 of the little plastic squares. One of my fondest memories of my weekends with my dad is when I would tell him about an album I liked at the time or a singer I had discovered, and him going: “Ah, well if you like that, you’ll also enjoy this…” And off he’d trot, spending a quarter of an hour in front of his shelves and putting together a stack of CDs for me to investigate. Weekend sorted.
There’s no question about it: music was the bond between us. I didn’t need record shops – he was my local record shop, with perfect recommendations every time. (Which is not to say I don’t love record shops – there’s a cracking little number in Bakewell in the Peaks that I very much hope has survived the pandemic.)
Of course, you can create playlists and share them. But the experience is much more ephemeral, and there’s much less commitment in it. Spending money on an actual CD is – well, putting your money where your mouth is. (And your heart, to become perfectly sentimental.)
If my dad had stored his music only on a computer, I would now be at the mercy of a hard drive (and various backups). And I wouldn’t have a clue as to what he actually liked, really. As said above: downloading something is too easy and done too spontaneously, whereas you only buy stuff you actually care about. So, with his collection at my fingertips, I keep a connection with him that is by no means indestructible (CD cases can be frustratingly flimsy), but comfortingly palpable. He only bought one album by this artist? Then he can’t have cared for him that much. He bought an obscure-looking Japan import by another one? The opposite must be true.
Another thing that will always make CDs (or vinyl, of course) infinitely more alluring to me than a music app are the booklets – the liner notes. Perusing them while listening to the music gives you more of a sense of occasion. You’re not just having it on for some background noise, you’re dedicating yourself to the listening process. What is more, my dad used to cut out the reviews he’d read and stick them in the CD case – they are now incredibly helpful when I’m trying to decide which album by one particular band to listen to first.
And there are the memories attached to these objects: not just of him handing me a selection of music, but of the record shops we always went to on holiday in Denmark or the choice of discs we’d take in the car with us.
The long-awaited reunion with his collection last autumn gave me the idea to start a series of blog posts – this one being the first in it – about the music that my dad, in his life and later, has introduced me to. It’s also a way for me to chart my continuing journey through his disc world, and the discoveries made along the way.
Rambling On... 