Home Grown: “If I’m having a bad day, all I have to do is pull out a record”

Because every record collection has a story.

Home Grown is our series profiling you lot and your excellent record collections. Taking our cue from the brilliant submissions to the #VFRecordCollections thread on Instagram, we want to share a little of your hard-earned love for vinyl with the world.

Each week, we’ll be profiling a different collector from around the world and finding out what makes them tick. Want in? Send us a pic and a few words about your collection to [email protected]

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Name: Ally

Instagram: @vinyl_ally

Location: Toronto, Canada

# of records (approx.): About 700 LPs and 100 7″ 45s

How long have you been collecting for?

I had a few Beatles 45s when I was a teenager in the 90s, but I regarded them more as part of my Beatles memorabilia collection rather than a record collection. (I was and still am a big Beatles nerd.) Around 2008 after exploring a local record shop I decided I wanted to expand my Beatles record collection and get a turntable. I fell in love with the experience of listening to vinyl so much that I quickly expanded my collecting beyond just Beatles records. I’ve been actively collecting ever since.

What part of your set-up are you most proud of?

My set-up is admittedly very modest, however it works wonderfully in my small space and was within my budget. The part I’m most proud of is my turntable. It’s a Teac TN-200 and it’s a decent entry level turntable that does the job. Eventually I’ll upgrade my set up but in the meantime what I have now makes me happy.

What record(s) are you most proud of?

In general I’m most proud of my Beatles records (which is probably not surprising since my love of their music brought me to record collecting in the first place). I collect different pressings and variants from multiple countries. I have a lot of UK first pressings which I’m particularly proud of.

What does your record collection mean to you?

I find records and music are so intricately linked with emotion and memories. If I’m having a bad day or just want to change my mood, all I have to do is pull out a record and put it on the turntable and my mood is lifted or I can be transported to another time and place.

There is something very special about how present and mindful the experience of listening to a record is, more so than any other medium. The act of putting the record on the platter and dropping the stylus requires active thought and care.  You listen to the entire album in the order the artist intended it to be listened. Sometimes you find something cool even in the filler songs that you would have skipped and missed if listening in the digital world.