Heavenly: Heavenly vs. Satan

I'm not quite sure what got into me when I bought this. It was the acme of my shorlived vinyl binge in October 2002 (mentioned before). You know how the boutique second-hand record shops where they have a bunch of rare records on display on the wall at eye-watering prices? I've always just looked away, figuring that I'm not a Record Collector subscriber, so I wouldn't know if I was paying the 'correct' price — and, anyway, the true value is likely to be much less. Heavenly vs. Satan is, I think, the one exception I made to that rule. In more prosperous times.

But why this record, in particular? I've never been a twee pop guy, and I'm not sure I knew who Heavenly were, or that Amelia Fletcher (also of Tender Trap and The 6ths) was a member. I just knew that Sarah Records had/have that cachet with the cool kids.

The price label says £30, but I think I was savvy enough to make a lower offer. Eil.com currently has the record for £32.99 while MusicStack has it at £50.75. Even if you take the lower price, the record has probably performed better as an investment than the volatile stock market (not as good as a Savings Account, mind) over the past seven years. I know it's sacrilege to talk in these terms — that's partly why I'm doing it.

And partly because I have no other scale to evaluate whether buying the record was a clever thing to do (it certainly wasn't wise). I can't remember whether I played it even once at the time; and I haven't played it now, preferring the convenience of listening on Spotify to guard against any risk of wear to the record. As they used to say on Round Table, the music "just kind of washed over me".

In another ten years, it may have doubled in value, or it may have fallen to a tenth. Who knows? At some point the people who care about these artefacts will die off, along with the turntables to play them on, and rare records will be waste plastic — no?

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