Pay no more than 45 copies: The collection legacy of the Crass Record, Reality Asylum (1979)

This article sets out an auto-ethnographic and theoretical account of the journey of 45 collected author copies of the 1979 Crass Record Reality Asylum. The principle aim in this piece is to document and theoretically situate the production, reception and individual journeys various pressing variations of the record have encountered. The theoretical account is concerned with how and what ways various traditions in semiotics, fan/audience research, critical theory and Derrida’s concept of Hauntology can be deployed in explanatory terms to account for the enigmatic, haunted journey of the recorded musical artefact. The article also captures this collection prior to public display, prior to them being resold as the collectable sixth, ‘haunted’ pressing of the record.