My Boyfriend's Record Collection

I'M GOING TO LISTEN TO IT ALL. Rock n' Roll frontman/music industry dude starts dating music-loving chick who thought she knew it all. She was wrong. So each day they pick a record from his (ever growing) collection to review. HE writes about it, SHE writes about it (no sharing before posting) and then it's onto the next. Note: Posts are best read when listening to the choice song (http://songza.com/listen/my-boyfriend-s-record-collection-EmilyNewman/) .

May 7, 2012 10:21 pm
default album art record default album art default album art CD reflection
  • Samba Pa Ti
  • By: Santana
  • Abraxas
  • 0 Plays

Artist: Santana
Album: Abraxas
Released: 1970
Label: Columbia
Choice Song: Samba Pa Ti

HIS:  When I was a kid I used to steal away to my father’s record collection, quietly pulling out certain albums and slowly going over and mesmerizing every inch of the artwork. I was far too young to operate the old man’s hi fi so this would have to be my only connection to his massive stacks of LPs when he wasn’t around to drop the needle for me. I’d sit there for hours, pulling out record by record, remembering exactly where to return it so as to not disturb the alphabetic rigidity of my father’s collection. Some covers made me think of the greater universe (Boston’s Boston, ELO’s Out Of The Blue), some gave me nightmares (Emerson, Lake And Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery, Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love) and still some made me wonder what each band member on the cover was thinking (The Who’s Who’s Next).

But then there were a few others which forced me to stare in befuddled amazement. The most important one of these was Santana’s Abraxas. I had no idea what the fuck was going on here. Of course, I had yet to hit my hallucinogen phase, so of course I couldn’t fully appreciate the psychedelic bazaar that was the Abraxas cover. All I knew was that it was exotic and wild and scary and engaging and that as soon as my dad came home we were going to put on this record.


HERS: The boyfriend and I recently moved in together. Typically when a girlfriend moves in with a boyfriend, the mixing of their stuff usually involves at least one couch getting thrown out, her filling up his closet with shoes and their bathroom overflowing with buckets of test-sized cosmetics. This isn’t exactly the case here. I mean, mostly anyway. Sure, the Irish Spring soap has been replaced with a fragrant “stress-relieving” body wash** and a purple loofah (What is a loofah??) and the bed has doubled in pillows. But there’s no ManCave with a leather couch and no garage filled with phallic toolbox toys. There are, however, right next to my vanity, no less than 6 guitars. While other women move into garages of sports cars, I’ve moved into a makeshift music studio. It could be worse. Guitars stack up nicely in their cases and amps sit handsomely while doubling as great laptop desks. Though all are heavy. Very, very heavy. I was watching him play the guitar just yesterday, actually. When he’s on stage rocking out and the amp is turn-it-up-to-11 loud, it’s hard to really appreciate the intricacy this instrument requires. But when he’s messing around quietly and manipulating the thing, it’s a different story all together. Sometimes he hands me a guitar and says, “you do it.” I’m useless. My hands feel too small, the guitar itself is heavy and I can’t seem to reach my fingers far enough even though I can hit a full octave easily on the piano. No wonder he idolizes icons like Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana. In all my boyfriend’s 6’4” glory, his guitars look like finger puppets in his hands. Carlos stands about 5’10” Google tells me, but still the guitars look like putty in his. He plays the guitar like it’s a piano with countless keys making it do whatever he wants in any which way. I wonder how many guitars Carlos had in his first apartment he shared with a girl.

February 10, 2012 11:28 am
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  • Rave On
  • By: Buddy Holly
  • Buddy Holly
  • 50 Plays

Artist: Buddy Holly
Album: Buddy Holly
Released: 1958
Label: Coral Records
Choice Song: Rave On

HIS: This album might as well be called “Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits.” It’s got all the classics. Just look at the tracklist and you might think you’re holding one of those cheesy “20th Century Masters” CDs. Peggy Sue. Listen To Me. Everyday. Words Of Love. Rave On! Those are five of the greatest rock and roll songs ever written and they’re all here on a single album. Appetite For Destruction be damned. This may be the most singular collection of rock and roll music ever made. I consider it arguably the first definitive footprint of rock and roll. It’s the first draft of our thesis statement. But the greatest thing about this album - the thing that’s always intrigued me and endeared me to it more than the music - is its eery cover art. Record packaging back in those days had a certain vibe. Good times. Sunshine. Smiles. Laughs. But this cover is dark. It’s foreboding. It’s almost frightening. Buddy doesn’t even look like Buddy. He looks sad, somber, like he already knows his fate. Gone is Buddy’s Texas-sized smile. He’s taken off his trademark glasses so they won’t break in the plane crash. He’s worn a nice clean suit so they can take him straight to the funeral parlor. He’s probably being told to look at the camera but instead he’s looking straight past it, as if he’s staring down the ghost of himself.

HERS: Not all that long ago, there was no rock n’ roll. What would a guy like the HIS to my HERS do if he were born at a time when it was all petticoats, horse carriages and lutes?? I mean he’s not just some guy who owns a guitar to hang on his wall and pick it up every once in a while. This isn’t a ‘just for show’ game. In fact, the man owns no less than 7 guitars, 3 enormous amps, and more pedals and wires than anyone could fit anywhere—I know this because many have overflowed into my apartment. If he doesn’t pick up a guitar at least once a day, he just doesn’t feel right. When he does have a guitar in his hands, he can’t hear you. He won’t respond. And he’d rather not be touched. He daydreams about his next guitar purchase and cruises eBay building his dream guitar wish list. He’s not just a product of his times. It’s in his blood. It’s who he is to the core. I can’t imagine what he’d be doing, who he would be or how he would survive if not for rock n’ roll. The man can’t even stand to put on a suit for fancy functions. If born in the waistcoasts and top hats era, he would have been screwed. (Actually, I take that back—he’d rock a sick top hat.) In this post I’m sure the owner of said record collection will tell you more about the history of it all and how Holly would influence basically every single rock n’ roll icon to come in his blink of a career. But judging that Buddy Holly only had 23 years to change the face of music forever, it was clearly in his blood, at his core and he also couldn’t help but release the rock n’ roll within. Goes to show we just are who we are. Can’t help it. And hopefully you find a guitar or something to hold onto for the ride.