Coming from a generation where Teenage Noise was dominated by the Rolling Stones it’s more or less natural to use the Stones as a starting point, but you could come up with any number of other examples, and start from somewhere apart from Teenage Noise.
But assuming we’ve got a Stones fan with acquisitive tendencies, what distinguishes an Obsessive Fan from a Collector or a Music Freak?
All three are going to buy large quantities of recorded product.
In the case of the Obsessive Fan those recordings are going to be part of a collection that will probably aim to include as much Stones-related ephemera as the Fan can manage to accumulate. In the process, the Fan in question will transform their bedroom, or possibly a large area of their living space to a shrine to Mr Jagger and his confreres. The Obsessive Fan’s collection may well include a copy of every issue of every known Rolling Stones fanzine.
This is the type of dude who could well end up on The Einstein Factor with a special subject like The Rolling Stones.
A Collector who has started off with the Stones as Teenage Noise will go on and collect much of the same recorded output, but the Jagger-related material will probably form part of a larger collection that includes the complete works of a couple of other performers. This dude’s collection may include Stones fanzines as above, but they’ll probably tend to concentrate on the ones that contain significant amounts of discographic material.
This is the type of dude who ends up on The Einstein Factor with a special subject like English Rhythm and Blues 1963 to 1968.
The Music Freak, on the other hand, while collecting Stones records will have picked up on the fact that the early albums contain significant amounts of material that doesn’t come from Jagger-Richards and would have headed off to investigate Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and the rest of them. The Music Freak’s collection will possibly include some Stones fanzines, but will most likely have them filed beside various publications devoted to the blues and other musical styles.
This is the type of dude who’ll give The Einstein Factor the big flick pass and rock on over to RockWiz instead.