Home Grown: “Every individual record is like a time-machine”

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: Jessie Lee

Location: Royal Leamington Spa, England

Size of collection (approx.): 600-700

How long have you been collecting for?

I started collecting when I was twelve, the year I discovered The Beatles and began listening to old music. That was six years ago, and since then I’ve gone a little bit mad on collecting. I’d been given a smattering of Beatles singles by a family friend, but felt like I needed to expand as soon as possible. I was very excited.

I remember first entering a vintage store in my town with a friend and feeling blown away by the sheer magnitude of records in that one shop. It got me thinking about how many albums there are out there, and that’s where the obsession began. I commenced in regularly buying records from that day onwards.

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

My record player. It may not be expensive, astoundingly high-quality or renowned, but I spent a long time saving up for it and it’s provided me with many hours of well-spent listening. I saved up for so long that once I had it, it was kind of overwhelming. It has allowed me to listen to any record, any time, and that’s really special.

What record(s) are you most proud of?

I own two albums by Jacques Brel (‘La valse à mille temps’ and ‘Ces Gens-Là’), which I bought online from a store in France. I am a big fan of his, so to get old copies of his albums from another country made me very proud to be a collector.

I also have a couple of coloured “7 singles by The Dickies, one pink and one white, as well as an orange Trainspotting soundtrack. They are very, very cool. They’re the only coloured records I have, so I’m proud of them.

What does your record collection mean to you?

As I never experienced any of the music I like first-hand, vinyl is an important part of my connecting with the artists I adore so much. Every individual record is like a time-machine. Vinyl has the power to take you back to the time it was recorded, which I feel isn’t possible with any other media form. Each generation, decade and era had a sound, and you can find it within the many sleeves of a record collection. Music has a lot of power, but vinyl has the power to move people in a different way to digital music. My record collection is my own personal and private mode of time-travel. Whether it’s The Beatles, or Lou Reed, or John Cooper Clarke, each record has a voice and a time, and that’s really important to me.