ABSTRACT
The vinyl record is literally the material trace of a voice; it is never an instrumental record in these rites of passage films, and digitally encoded CDs have yet to achieve the same narrative resonance. This inscribed voice melds with the girl's voice, whether her acoustic voice or her metaphorical voice/self, to express who she is. The materiality of the ritual objects does matter. However, it is not as a point in a hierarchy of knowledge and achievement, but as bearers of essence, of voice, of authenticity, of connection. The picture may not be as consistent as the lonely, object-and-system-oriented male collector, but there is a constellation of issues that are engaged with varying intensities. As a ritual object, the record is inscribed with power, but it is an ambivalent power. The importance of records, as artefacts to venerate and relics of sound and self with which to resonate, is central to the symbolic narratives of girls finding their voices.
