Serious, reflective post and concern of our moderator. I think it reflects the situation when 'all is said and done' - the things that used to be so valuable to us, what are those soon when there is no longer 'us', or we are too old to care? This is not only an issue of Rolling Stones, but of 'rock culture' in general, when the big heyday generations - 60's, 70's and 80's - are 'gone'. It is in the hands of those people - us - who keep the 'rate' of the whole thing high, because it has such a big personal (subjective) value. Its worth is still 'given' and taken for granted, and we are treated with whatever kind of books, reissues, vaults stuff, and the old items, such as original vinyls, have a high collector value. Still. But for how long?
I think the Stones realized the situation not one minute too early. Quite the opposite. They should have started opening the vaults a decade - or even two - earlier as they did. Not only that thanks to new techology and chancing of the mediums, their potential target audience - those who really are interested in stuff like that - is not really getting younger. With the Stones that is understable, because their actual interest is playing live, and they have put their energy there (in where the actual big money is). They probably are using better than any of their contemporaries the nostalgia card.
As far as collecting stuff personally go, I actually lost interest in that some two decades ago (at the time when vinyl business was starting to be dead). Before that I was a passionate collector, even a completist in my little and moderate sense of the word. After that it has been mostly the memories, new experiences, and 'mental' things like that, without much need for physical items in my possession. Just hearing and seeing new releases in some kind of form is enough for me. For me writing here - putting all that in words - has been my kind version of being a fan. Writing, thinking out loud, is just explicating what happens in mind. Or we could say that that's my version of 'Buddhism' BV talks about...

Probably my (now 9 years old) kid can cope with the 'heritage', which basically is just a collection of vinyl albums plus some books, DVDs, etc. Anyway, I have started collecting all my writings here at IORR, and it is my plan at the the moment to put them in one piece, and that when I am dead and gone, that is to go with the vinyl collection and the rest (or maybe I should do like BV, to put all the stuff into one electrical form; that's more handy). A kind of personal guide to all that stuff. Be it my son - or grandchildren - who will get some idea what his dad/granddad was doing and what was going on in his mind at his spare moments. There are some other stuff I have written for my living him/they might read some day, but I think this passionate hobby reflection is more intimate and probably funnier...
- Doxa
Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 2015-02-28 14:39 by Doxa.