Flipping through the vinyl bin of the local Salvation Army store is not archaeology. The looters have already been here before me. This is not science. I am a Zabbal pawing through that which society has cast off. No, this is not science, but it is a slice of cultural and economic history. Not only does this exercise provide an insight into what people once bought, Herb Alpert and 101 Strings LPs in their hundreds and thousands, but a snapshot of what is valued today. If there's any demand for it nowadays it will most likely not be found in this bin. The gems are glaringly obvious by their absence. The rare exception to the rule, whenever actually found, is the jewel in the midden.
You could create a map of sonic culture this way, going from country to country, junk store to junk store, cataloging the offerings in the dollar, pound, or euro bins. Batches of Vaughn Meader turn into Heino or Rolf Harris as you move from country to country. And, at least in my imagination, as you reached the thrift stores of China (for such things do exist in the China of my mind) you would likely find bin after bin of propaganda-jacketed vinyl from decades past.
On January 28, 1967, Billboard magazine reported:
Red China Chairman Mao Tze-tung has cut a record. "Red China's millions are being urged to Sing Along With Mao," reports Edward Keilan, a correspondent with Copley News Service. "Things being what they are in Red China," Keilan said, "the platter is bound to 'sell' more than a million."
Online auction lists show that during the 60s and 70s China produced a sizable number of discs, LPs of political speeches and EPs of screeching choirs of schoolchildren singing hymns to the State, often as embodied by Chairman Mao. Do these relics of a lost past now sit dust-covered in the record bins of Nanjing and Chengdu? Or are they suppressed, long ago relegated to the incinerator or landfill? Or have Western collectors simply snapped them up for their camp value?
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