Despite the fact that Apple Music, Spotify and of course YouTube have made it easier than ever to get your hands on new and old music alike, there are still people that like to collect physical media. Collecting CDs however, is considered by some, “uncool” and the real action is to be had collecting the OG music format, vinyl records. It’s no longer just a fad these days either, vinyl record sales all over the world have spiked massively over the past 24 months, and it’s not uncommon to see hit albums being pressed on to vinyl and sold in your local Walmart. Discogs is a service that helps vinyl collectors log their collection, as well as look for missing items to help their collection grow, and now they’ve launched an Android app.
The whole point of the app is to be able to catalog your music collection, making it easy to see which record you either have or don’t have when out and about, because your shelves of vinyl are written down in your smartphone, ready to go with you when hunting for new hotness. This is enough for a lot of people, as creating a way of keeping on top of a substantial collection can be difficult at the best of times, but Discogs goes further than this thanks to integration with VinylHub. The Android app will not only tell you where your nearest VinylHub store is, but it will help you formulate a “wantlist” and hunt down the record that you want, giving you an upfront price and the ability to purchase it there and then. For those collectors that are perhaps more in it for the money than anything else, the Discogs Android app has an estimation tool that will give you a rough idea of how much all the items cataloged in the app are actually worth all together.
Niche apps like these are perhaps one of the reasons why mobile apps took off in the first place, and it’s nice to see something like this finally launch on Android. The team says they’re working hard on improvements to sorting of catalogs and such, but with 4 Million artists already included, this is a pretty solid solution.
