Woman Honors Father By Sharing His Record Collection Online
A 24-year-old woman in Canada is honoring her late father in a unique way: By sharing his record collection of 10,000 albums online.
Jula shares her father’s record collection online via the Instagram account @soundwavesoffwax. She picks a record at random, listens to it, and then gives a bit of a review about the record. So far, the Instagram account has only 80 posts, but it has amassed 334,000 followers and counting.
In a piece for The Guardian, Jula explained that her father, Richard, was a multi-instrumentalist and would also write songs. She said he started using his allowance at age five to buy records. His record collection is the last physical piece Jula has left of her father, who passed away a few years ago.
As rare as this sounds, one of Jula’s favorite parts about her Instagram “listening party” is reading the comments from people about certain records. While comment sections can often be volatile, the comments Jula receives are often about whatever album she’s sharing.
Jula told The Guardian, “These people really keep my father alive for me, because he was always talking about music. I’ll mention an album, and someone will give me a fact about it, or a little tidbit, and that makes me feel like my father’s in the room, because that’s what he would be doing.”
In the process of sharing these albums, Jula has been able to process the grief of losing her father but still feel close to him, and even get to know him more through the music he enjoyed.
Jula enjoying such a large record collection in such a public way is undeniably cool. What’s not so cool is this weird fact we reported on back in July: Despite vinyl sales being solid, it hasn’t translated into people actually owning turntables.
According to a report from Luminate (h/t Music Business Worldwide), 50% of consumers who purchased music on vinyl in their 12-month study don’t own a turntable. You know…the thing that actually plays the vinyl!
So, what’s the point of owning vinyl if you don’t actually play it? Music Business Worldwide cited a 2016 BBC story that talked to a vinyl customer who didn’t own a turntable. This customer told the BBC, “I just collect them and put them on my wall, I think it looks great. I literally do it based on how it looks, or if I feel like I have a connection with the artist… If I think it’ll look good on my wall, so be it.”
While the concept of owning music you can’t play still seems silly, displaying vinyl sleeves is incredibly popular. A simple internet search of “vinyl wall display” yields a wide variety of results for nearly every price point. Clearly, there is a demand for this, but it still would be nice if vinyl owners actually owned turntables, too.
