Alan Zweig
Vinyl

★★★★

A pretty funny and harrowing view into the life of obsessive record collectors. As someone who buys records, this was especially interesting. Not that I can see myself as the people in this documentary (who the fuck buys that much easy listening), but I enjoyed recognizing some of the behavioral habits and the dialog between Zweig and the collectors. The director himself is included into this whole story, and it's honestly pretty disheartening at times.

All of the collectors on here have something hilarious or interesting about them, and really it's more about how this obsession, or any obsession, can drive people to further distance themselves from society. Even the director shows a personal example, although he's never been in a serious relationship he sits a girl down and is able to tell what records she would like. 

The humor is dry, sometimes you can feel conflict or anger rising with some of the collectors. It's obvious that they've been hurt or ostracized in some way or another. A lot of them seem to pretty exposed in ways they haven't been before, some even are delusional. Although it may be funny, especially when they make fun of Zweig, it's pretty sad to see people live like this. 

There are plenty of quotable in here and I think any serious musical collector will find enjoyment and something to think about while watching. I'm also happy to see an example of a director truly being part of the narrative and issue he seems to be portraying, I'm sure it helps. Last I checked Zweig seems to have a child and wife, giving up his record collection. And I'm sure that he's done "dreaming about records that don't exist" 

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