Premium Records versus the Dollar bin

by Keith in Uncategorized

Premium Records versus the Dollar bin

You know, a tough decision sometimes faces you when you’re searching for records – what’s the right balance between pricey records (I would define them as anything over $15) and dollar bin records?  It’s weird in a way – I think nothing of spending $25-30 on my tenth Philadelphia Phillies hat because it’s a different colorway, yet react like you’re asking me to finance the Hope diamond if a price tag on a record reads that same $25.  If you have a store with a massive dollar bin, the decision gets even tougher: now, that $25 isn’t just relatively expensive compared to the majority of used records out there, it’s TWENTY-FIVE dollar records.

Twenty-five! That’s at least fifteen hours of music, all for the price of that record in your hand.  So what decision to make? How does one find the right balance between the collectible records and the mighty dollar bin records? I’m here to offer a few ideas that may help you make the tough decisions. (Keep in mind: I’m cheap.  I’ve never spent more than $40 on a record.  So if you’re cheap like me, this may help.)

1. Buy music you like over music that’s collectible. 
I’d been hunting for a tough record to find recently, a jazz record by Bill Cosby (yes, that Bill Cosby) under the name ‘Badfoot Brown and the Bradford Bunions Funeral & Marching Band’.  Talk about hard to find, it was near-impossible (note: it’s not impossible any more, it got reissued on CD. You owe it to yourself to check it out if you like jazz fusion). When I finally found it for $33 I was thrilled… because I knew I’d love the music – I had heard a sample of it a long time ago. On similar notes, I’ve gone to a store and bought up tons of Hall and Oates records because that’s what I was in the mood for (don’t you dare front on Hall and Oates either. Respect pop genius!). If you want it because you like it and don’t get too caught up in the whole collectible aspect, music bears good fruit.

2. Overselect your records, then whittle. 
I’m a big fan of this actually, I hope I’m not dropping some science that flies in the face of everything you’ve ever believed about records – I’m not intending to give you the red pill from the Matrix or anything.  I like taking a first pass through the store, to the point where your arm hurts from holding so many records.  After you’ve made your selections, you whittle them down to the ones you’re going to buy – and you get to have all of the potential records right there in front of you, price and all.  Maybe that $25 record pales in comparison to a $10 and a $12 record you’re interested in, and maybe there are nine dollar records you can’t wait to listen to.  Of course, you could always just buy them all couldn’t you?

3. The CTA rule. 
Because dollar bins sing their Siren song every time I’m in a record store, I took a long time and then finally developed a hard rule to help guide me through the dollar bins.  Dollar bins are awesome, but too much digging in them can not only fry your brain, but place the entire Barb Streisand collection in your possession (which is okay I suppose for people that are actually fans of Barbara Streisand). So if you need to temper your dollar bin – digging, I’ve found this rule to be helpful: I stop digging through the dollar bin once I come across ‘The Chicago Transit Authority’.  You know the record, the record so named before the group renamed themselves Chicago. The one with ‘Does anybody know what time it is’ on it.  It’s in every dollar bin of every store in the world (a true, validated statistical fact.  Rumour is Dollar bins ship to record stores with CTA already in them).  And that’s the beauty! You know you’re going to come across it at some point, you just don’t know when – and when you do, the dollar bin expedition is over.

Happy digging!
-Keith aka K.R.O.