Shelving: Record Collecting for Girls

I have to admit, I groaned a little when I saw the title Record Collecting For Girls. Maybe it's just my natural reluctance to embrace anything marketed exclusively to "girls," especially all things music-related. I've been recording collecting with the boys for a good chunk of my life, and I think I'm doing just fine, but, come on, the truth: the whole record geek phenomenon isn't exactly hospitable to women. There isn't really a female equivalent to High Fidelity's Barry. With the recent release of the Ellen Willis anthology, Out of the Vinyl Deeps, a lot has been said about the lack of female rock criticism, but women aren't just underrepresented as writers and critics, but as fans, too. Or we're dismissed as swooners and groupies, swayed by a good beat and a tight pair of pants.

Record Collecting is a short enjoyable book about being a girl in the boy's world of music fandom, something I've been wishing for since my own entrance into the world of music was through older, male collectors and dingy mom-and-pop record stores and thrifts.  Though reading it, I think I'm a music nerd without actually being a music snob. I own my terrible taste, and oh, I can listen to some egregiously "bad" music -- which brings me to the concept of "guilty pleasures." There's a meaty chapter on the music you love, but have a hard time defending to your friends. Call it a function of age, he anonymity of buying music online, or realizing whose music is considered art and whose is commerce, but I'm solidly in the "I don't have guilty pleasures" camp.

(Oh wait, I do: country music. Not the acceptable-to-the-liberal-minded-and-college-educated "alt-country" like Wilco or the Old 97s, though I like those too, but the 70s and 80s radio country I grew up with. Country music comes with a lot of baggage, and has long-been the domain of the NRA bumper sticker crowd. And a lot of it is indefensible, like naming a band Lady Antebellum without considering the historical and cultural implications of that, but I was raised on mainstream country, and secretly like a lot of it.)

Also included: what to do if you find yourself dating a musician; the whole "Beatles vs Stones" debate (usually I sidestep the issue and answer "Kinks*"), and your song vs "our" song and claiming ownership of a band, something I'm sure you're probably already familiar with if you've spent any time with music nerds.

If I have one small issue with Record Collecting it's that I wish it wasn't so indie-centric. But this is one of my long-standing pet peeves when it comes to music criticism in general, and goes back to what I said about whose music gets labeled art (rock bands and singer-songwriters, especially those of the white, male variety) and whose is product to be moved (women, particularly pop and R&B stars). There's great dance pop and shitty indie rock, and ideally one shouldn't be privileged over and another.

*This is totally a cop-out, according to the book, but I think I really do prefer the Kinks to either The Beatles or The Stones. They seemed so intrinsically English to this recovering Anglophile.