“Records are my favourite conversation starters.”
“I share my flat in Brighton with two other songwriters. We keep all of our records together in a line underneath the glass coffee table in the centre of our living room, with the titles facing upwards. This way, whenever anyone comes over for a tea and sits down on the sofas surrounding the coffee table, they can look down through the glass and see what vinyl lives with us.
Owning a record doesn’t just mean you like the music, it means you’re proud of it. You don’t listen to it privately through headphones or exclusively when you’re in the shower and the sound of the water disguises your guilty pleasure playlist of Katy Perry’s “Swish” and “Reflection” from the 1998 Mulan movie. No. You’ve bought a 12 inch large body of work that you handle with more care than your own body. Someone scratches me by accident? No problem whatsoever. Someone scratches my favourite record by accident? YOU F*CKING WHAT MATE!?
I love people sitting down and flicking through our records. Asking questions, offering their opinions, giving recommendations. Records are a great way to unintentionally start interesting conversations about music and its role in people’s lives. You can discover a lot about a person by entering their home and seeing what records they have on display. Sure you could ask to scroll through someone’s phone to search through their recently played Spotify artists to get a grasp of what they’re into but A) they’ll probably say no if you ask (too scared you’ll find booty pics instead of Dilla hits) B) you’re more likely to find a list of random singles that they potentially only listened to once rather than whole albums and you’ll have absolutely no idea what they were listening to 5 or so years ago and C) you’ll look like a proper weirdo for asking in the first place.
I got to hear all about my friends’ and families’ various music and fashion phases growing up by questioning their eclectic record collections. “You should’ve seen the state of me back then” photos brought to the surface, showcasing how even their hairstyles changed over the years depending on what they were listening to at the time. I only started buying my own records when I moved out almost two years ago and had to leave the family vinyl behind, so my collection is small but tasty (Miles Davies, King Krule, Billie Holiday, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Sinatra, James Blake etc).
I’m looking forward to growing it and watching how my own music taste changes over the years as my life (and potentially hair) changes too.”
—Chloe Bodur
“Glory,” the debut single from Chloe Bodur is in stores now.
