EDITORIAL > MOVING ON
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Moving on | 6 December 2014
I buy most of the new stuff. I do. But it took about three months before I opened the Waterloo deluxe edition. And it took even longer before I had the urge to thoroughly browse through the official photo book. To be honest: I am ABBA'd out at the moment. Very tired of this ABBA anniversary year with so many releases that you can hardly keep up. One reason for losing interest in collecting ABBA is 2013. Last year was my all-time ABBA high: I was in Stockholm for a week and it was fabulous. Everything that came later was (and is) less interesting. I can't help it. Sorry. Second and most important reason: my age! I am 52 now and when the ABBA internet fandom came to life I was in my mid-thirties. And it was magic. But times have changed, family life have changed, interests have changed and life in general has changed. Maybe I grew up. Maybe I realized that there is more to life than collecting ABBA. Now I know that it is OK if you don't have the number one ABBA collection in the world. When going to a record fair (yes, they still exist) I can easily leave highly interesting items there. I don't want to spend hundreds of Euros anymore on silly little plastic discs. The urge to buy is still present, but there's only a handful of items that I want. And only for a pretty low price. Hey: I'm Dutch, so I'm cheap. But old habits die hard: I still browse through eBay every single day. Without buying much of course. I can live without that single from India. Or Mexico. Or whatever country. Currently I have about one thousand ABBA related records. And you will agree that it is more than enough. Most people only have ABBA Gold or The Definitive Collection. Which would also be fine. I have a zillion books about the group. And I have yet to read more than half of them. Being a collector is a true nightmare. Once you start collecting, it is very difficult to stop. It is a drug. You can't stop, because you might just miss that ultimate release or fabulous new item. But I feel that I slowly reach the point when I say: enough is enough. The famous point of no return. And 2015 might be a good year to put this ABBA collecting thing to an end. I might finally start doing something useful with my spare time. Or my life. It's time to move on from ABBA. It's not too late. The decision has been made: in 2015 I will definitely stop collecting. Until the moment when that ultimate Japanese ABBA item crosses my path. Damn! Is there an ABBA Collectors Anonymous group out there? |
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