"I've gone to therapy for 40 years to try to explain this to myself"

August 8, 2014 1:32 PM

The Brazilian Bus Magnate Who's Buying Up All the World's Vinyl Records. By age 30, he had about 30,000 records. About 10 years later, his bus company expanded, making him rich. Not long after that, he split up with his wife, and the pace of his buying exploded. "Maybe it’s because I was alone," Freitas said. "I don't know." He soon had a collection in the six figures; his best guess at a current total is several million albums.
posted by soundofsuburbia (14 comments total)

Sometime in the future while on a business trip, his fed-up wife will have a visitor.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 1:36 PM on August 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Sometime in the future while on a business trip, his fed-up wife will have a visitor

That was a deleted scene? I swear I saw it but I must be remembering it from the book.

Anyway the Brazilian has a hoarding problem but there's probably a great record collection in there somewhere.
posted by rocket88 at 1:50 PM on August 8, 2014

All the world's vinyl records? Then explain all the Eddie Arnold, Mitch Miller and Montavani albums that are still kicking around all the thrift stores around here.
posted by usonian at 2:06 PM on August 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

I wonder if he's looking for someone to be a curator and build his hoard into a viable collection, or series of collections?

If so, I'd love to do it.
posted by motown missile at 3:04 PM on August 8, 2014

All the world's vinyl records? Then explain all the Eddie Arnold, Mitch Miller and Montavani albums that are still kicking around all the thrift stores around here.

I'm convinced that it's in the rules that if you open a thrift store, you must always have some Herb Alpert records in stock.
posted by NoMich at 3:08 PM on August 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

He's not collecting records, he's collecting record collections.
posted by anazgnos at 4:51 PM on August 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

I go to estate sales to pick up vinyl. It's the best, cheapest entertainment in the world, and sometimes you score something wonderful.

Probably half of the collections consist entirely of show tunes and "best of" albums. They are the snoozers. You're lucky to find anything even worth your time...except that for every one of these sales, there is a masterpiece in waiting at another sale, and you can't tell which is which.

Of the other 50%, you'll always find one good classic Christmas album if you want to stock up, something that is an original pressing of a classic performer, not rare, but in good shape and worth the effort, and always - ALWAYS - either a Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream & Other Delights or two or more Hawaiian music albums. If you find both, boy, you're in a gold mine and keep digging - this person was INTERESTING.

My favorites to find, and most recently I've started to pick up (I am crushed I didn't start a collection at the start) are motivational LPs, sales/teamwork/management guides that are unintentionally hilarious, "how to be a lady" type LPs, and well...the following...

Mixed into about 5% of the collections containing Christmas albums, multiple copies of Whipped Cream, show tunes, and compilations of the "greatest hits" are the dirtiest, weirdest, kinkiest, most outlandish albums you'll ever see. I have one that is a full production musical that is, I kid not, entitled "Let My People Cum." I believe it was mixed in with albums of Nixon speeches.

You can't make this shit up.
posted by Muddler at 5:09 PM on August 8, 2014 [8 favorites]

...best guess at a current total is several million albums

Sure, but a million of them are by Cherlene.
posted by buzzv at 5:29 PM on August 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

I have one that is a full production musical that is, I kid not, entitled "Let My People Cum."

Coincidentally a recent discovery of mine as well. The buried lede is that the music is actually fabulous - listen to that double-tracked vocal.

As an occasional record nut in an era no longer suited to it, I am mixed; sympathy for this fellow who's a summation of all that's compulsive about collecting hobbies, tied with a desire to fly to Brazil and mount a prog rock heist.
posted by solarion at 6:16 PM on August 8, 2014

I'm convinced that it's in the rules that if you open a thrift store, you must always have some Herb Alpert records in stock.

Never ever forget, Herb Alpert is the A in A&M Records, one of the finest self-standing labels from the heyday of the LP. (The M was Jerry Moss.)
posted by hippybear at 6:27 PM on August 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

And there is ALWAYS one of these "My Fair Lady"
posted by boilermonster at 11:24 PM on August 8, 2014

> I'm convinced that it's in the rules that if you open a thrift store, you must always have some Herb Alpert records in stock.

And James Last, Lester Lanin, Ray Conniff and Max Bygraves. Apparently they all sold ten billion albums, none of which anyone kept. And here in Toronto every pile of thrift store records has at least two copies of this for some reason.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:28 AM on August 9, 2014

I know of a couple of large collections. It's strange to think of them inexorably drifting into this aggregate which is slowly taking on the dimensions of the great pacific garbage patch.
posted by cleroy at 7:20 AM on August 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is not necessarily a happy story. He's not just hoarding the other crazy hoarder's collections, but important collections created by critics and artists. The costs and organization required to properly curate / endow this foundation to survive beyond Freitas' lifetime will be considerable. Should the foundation not be properly structured, what is the fate of all of this vinyl? Warehouse space ain't free.
posted by Scram at 8:45 PM on August 9, 2014 [2 favorites]