Sizing Up Record Collections: Gender and Connoisseurship in Rock Music Culture

Sizing Up Record Collections: Gender and Connoisseurship in Rock Music Culture
Written by: Will Straw


In this chapter, the author explored the many facets involved in record collecting--particularly among men.  Record collectors are mostly made up of men.  The author looks at why it is seen as a masculine pastime rather than including women.  Women are seen as collectors--but the things they collect do not have much prestige.  Men are seen as collectors of history and they use their collections as a way to interact with one another.  They have to have the right amount of knowledge and the right type of knowledge in order to avoid the labels of nerdy, dandy, or others.

I found a website meant for record collectors. The website is for "For and about collecting vinyl records, with a rapidly growing club to join, a chatroom, messageboard, and information on record care and maintenance."  While I poked around on the site, I got the feeling that it was composed of a majority of men. 
http://www.recordcollectorsguild.org/

You Tube:  The World's Largest Record Collection
I found this video on YouTube.  It is an excerpt of a documentary about a man who holds the largest record collection.

As I was thinking about men and their collecting that represents the history of the item.  I thought about the book and movie Dear John, not because I necessarily like it, but because the father in the story is a coin collector.  The collection started out as a way the father and son bonded.  After the son hit those dreaded teen angst years, it became a pastime of the father that he gained joy from and connect with other coin collectors.  Each coin collector in the story is a male.  This is another or different representation of the masculine collecting the author speaks of in the chapter.

Father tending to his coin collection in Dear John.

Discussion Questions: 

1.  What types of collections to women use to share identities or find similarities with each other?  Meaning similarities in the collection predicting similarities in other areas of life.

2. What advantages do men really gain from having record collections?  Why is it a disadvantage to women? Does the author over exaggerate the absence of women in the record/music scene?