RECORDS COLLECTORS
7 Records I’d save in a fire
Interview with David Rea
29 November 2025
Image: from Norman Maslov’s YouTube channel
Started collecting: 1964
Number of records: 7,000-8,000
Estimated value: $200,000-$400,000
Revolver
1.
The Beatles
Norman Maslov: For me, choosing these seven records wasn't about the best value or the highest value or the best sound. It's records that mean a lot to me. I have a copy of the Beatles’ Yesterday and Today, signed by an old girlfriend, but no way in hell would I grab that!
The first one has got to be Revolver. I was 12 years old when this happened. Of course the whole Beatles thing changed my life. Sgt. Pepper’s is a more important album. It's really when rock and roll criticism was invented. All of a sudden, because of the cover and the music and just the essence of that album, music became fine art.
There's that famous quote, ‘If you haven't heard Sgt. Pepper’s in mono you haven't heard Sgt. Pepper’s.’ I first got Sgt. Pepper’s in stereo, and to me, psychedelia is best in stereo. I think it's a more powerful rock album in mono, maybe, but the stereo swirling through your head, that panning is great. Anyway, Sgt. Pepper’s is a more important album, but I think Revolver is the better album.
The Beatles were away for six months and it seemed like they were away for a decade, and they came back and they looked different, they sounded different.
Blonde on Blonde
2.
Bob Dylan
This is my favourite Dylan. There is something about this period of Dylan, his voice, his attitude. ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ to me is the greatest single he's ever done — that’s on the previous album — but there's something about this album, with the long, elongated ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ and ‘I Want You’.
People get pissy about this blurred cover image. It's probably the first pop/rock double studio album and it's just brilliant. And I would take that in a fire, and not just because it's a double album!
Fifth Dimension
3.
The Byrds
I saw the Byrds at one of the early shows in San Jose, California. It was right after Gene Clark left in 1967. Some people say ‘Eight Miles High’ was the first big psychedelic song. I think that’s a perfect song on here. But the opening track ‘5D (Fifth Dimension)’ has always captivated me because it's like a drone. It's just the way he sings, it's folk music.
I just love this whole record. There are a few things you could quibble with, like ‘2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song)’ at the end, where you hear the astronauts talking and just them going around and around in a psychedelic oral mess. Again, I prefer my stereo version of this album.
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
4.
The Kinks
We're going for the Kinks and I'm going with Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). I would have obviously picked the one before it, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, which is always top on everyone's list. That's a perfect album. But for some reason, this record really connected with me in a different way. The harmonies on ‘Young and Innocent Days’ are very heroic, very Beatles, very Beach Boys. And I just think this is a perfect album.
I was at a track meet (I ran track in high school) and I was walking to the bathroom, and I saw cheerleaders rehearsing, probably for a basketball game or a football game or whatever, and they were doing it to ‘Victoria’. Now every time I hear ‘Victoria’, I think of cheerleaders!
I was 12 or 13 when these records came out, and they've been with me forever. These records, amongst others, influenced so many bands. I was in London when Oasis announced they were going to get back together and it was all over the press there. You couldn't have Oasis without these records.
Warren Zevon
5.
Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon is a great American songwriter. He writes the best dark noir passages of LA. This album is very descriptive, very poetic, but he also writes about American history. He studied composition and he's very influenced by the composer Aaron Copland. So he's got that Appalachian rodeo, Billy the Kid type of American classical music in his orchestration, which he arranges and writes himself. And this album is a who's who of LA at that time. He's got Buckingham and Nicks from Fleetwood Mac, he's got Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys, Jackson Browne who produced this record, and the people who played on it, David Lindley and Linda Ronstadt and others. They're all on here.
It's a darker record than something like the Eagles. And his voice, it's not perfect, it's strong. He has these beautiful harmonies around him by these other singers: Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, John D. Souther, Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Jackson Brown — beautiful voices to augment his own. It's very similar to what Leonard Cohen would do with his female backing vocals. I love the cover… so Hollywood. Every song on here is great.
The Boatman's Call
6.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I am a massive fan of Nick Cave. I kind of put him on a level with Leonard Cohen, who's got this darkness, this broodiness, and sometimes depressing lyrics. The lyrics on this album are personal, they're sensual, they're sexual, they're religious.
He does talk about religious topics, God and the problems with God, what he likes about God, that whole thing. I love his lyrics, but this out of all the albums, this is more piano based. It's an easy-going record. It's very moody and it's so beautiful I can't even imagine.
Hounds of Love
7.
Kate Bush
When I first went to London in 1970, my friend picked me up at Heathrow; we got in the car and he turned the radio on. The song I heard, I couldn't believe what I was listening to. It was ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush. The next day I went to Oxford Street to either Virgin or HMV and bought the 45” single, which I still have. And I'm so pumped in the last two years that she got this [recognition] around the world [with the TV show Stranger Things]. ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ got some airplay in America. All of a sudden, she had a new audience.
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