you don't win friends with salad

Geek emoji

For the last few weekends, I have spent my afternoons quietly and stoically updating and cataloguing my record collection. This is a task I find much happiness in!

I've been collecting records since I was about 12, and every so often, I trundle down to my garage, dig them out, give them a spin, and admire the artwork. I've amassed c.3,000 records over the years, and there's a particular joy to record collecting that only a few ever get to understand and experience.

One of my weekend tasks is transposing everything into a digital format. I spend my time ripping records to my Mac and making sure iTunes is all neat and organised with the right year, genre, and - of course - correct casing of the song titles (yes, I'm that bad). Also, because I'm a perfectionist, I can't stand searching the Internet for the album artwork, because they are all of differing quality and size. I will find a bright, high-resolution, high-definition cover for one album, yet see a grainy, wonky, blurry cover of another. I've tried scanning the artwork myself, but I can never really make it 'pop' as it does in real life. I took the opportunity to create it myself. Everything conforms to a simple, uniform, text-only affair. The only difference is that individual artists have a different highlight colour (for their name). Singles have a white background, and albums have the highlight colour background - this makes it easier when scrolling through the iPod to identify an LP over an EP.

Maybe I need to swipe a bit more on Bumble.

previous / next