Filing your music alphabetically - C/D?

Sometimes I don't know specifically what I want to listen to, but I know generally what type of music I want to put on. If the CDs are grouped by type, I can browse more easily that way.

Agree that there are many different similarities they could be grouped by. I just go with the ones that stand out the most for me.

Were you me? (My roommate for a laugh did color once.)

For a while I had chronologically by country, but the collection got too large...

now how can i rationally divide all of dance music into six styles (drawers)?

So alphabetical - with the stuff I don't listen to in a box somewhere else, and freebie compilations on a different shelf organised by magazine, then date - is the only option left. And, you know, it kinda works.

Ethnographic/field recordings come after the compilations, filed alphabetically by country of origin. That's probably the only real cop to genre...

But, and its a big but:

Broadly speaking, the stuff I DJ with ends up in one area of the floor. But then I always find things on albums I want to DJ with so it gets moved. And I DJ with a bloody massive range of stuff.

Spoken word records tend to end up in the same place, except when I DJ with them.

Then I have vast piles of rarely listened to stuff.

And Scott 1, 2, 3 and 4 look lovely next to each other on a bookshelf.

OH! and cd's. we've got about a thousand but i don't care where they go or what order they are in. they can go up the chimney for all i care. tapes are in boxes and every blind handful is a decades-old surprise.

i'm surprised you don't use dewey Nick

is Led Zeppelin filed under L or Z?
what aboout Jethro Tull - J or T?
The Band - B for Band, or under T?
Iggy Pop and the Stooges - P or S?
Thin Lizzy - T or L?

maybe I'm just stupid, but I always have trouble with this alphabetical system. After a while everything devolves into little piles of various discs scattered throughout the house anyway, so maybe I should just forget the whole thing.

Answers:
L
J
B
P
T

but I'm inpsired by this thread to put all the CDs together and order everything chronilogically. That sounds fun.

Spot on!

vinyl: 12"s by label name in alphabetical order. albums are not in order because i dont tend to buy vinyl albums and therefore dont have a lot.

cds: alphabetical order but they are split into 4 very general categories: jazz, classical, dance, rock/pop/hiphop/indie/etc. my policy for synth pop is to place it in the rock/pop/etc. section, probably because a lot of those artists (ie Gary Numan or New Order) come from the post-punk tradition. dance is basically kraftwerk then detroit techno, chicago house and everything that has come afterwards.

Iggy & The Stooges go under S for me, because I have two Stooges records and only one Iggy & The Stooges record and they need to be kept together.

A Tribe Called Quest is a difficult one because I would group the word "A" in with the word "The", but currently The Low End Theory sits between DJ Assualt and Babybird.

But where do your hardcore/hardstyle records go? And drum 'n bass? Electro?

Anyway, about the Stooges thing, 'Raw Power' just mentions "Iggy" and not the word "Pop", so it sure as shit goes next to 'Funhouse'. The real problem occurs when you've got things like the one I have with "Cock In My Pocket" and all that shit, it's called "Raw Power" (even though it isn't!) by "Iggy Pop And The Stooges". Where the heck does that go?

My quirks:
When a proper name is part of an overall band name, I'm consistent about where I file those. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, I file under J. The Dave Clarke 5, I file under C. I don't know why.

And I file compilations in alphabetically with everything else. (ie. Nuggets is somewhere in between NRBQ and Gary Numan).

Does anyone file movie soundtracks by composer? I was gonna do this some time ago, but never did. I don't have, like, an Ennio Morricone section. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly LP is right there in the G's.

I use those Ikea units with the 33cm square sections and sort boxes by mood. So edgy/tense; sexual; chilled; muscular; melancholy and euphoric kind of covers it... (except hip hop gets its own section)

i also have these metal boxes from ikea to store any cds like the mego releases mentioned above - anything oversized or with really lush packaging. this storage method bothers me because these are the cds that should be displayed. i don't want them getting dusty though...also cds or sets that fit nicely in a bookcase are with my books.

vinyl is by label. kind of.

i want to try the filing by color idea, but it would become impossible to find anything

Fastest retrieval for collections greater than a few hundred, surely? At least, I remember spending literally 5-10 minutes looking for a particular CD, before deciding anything other than alpha was now folly.

Although sorting by spine colour does suddenly seem appealing in a perverted sort of way.

Do y'all store CDRs entirely separately from the rest?

i file chronological by release date within each artist.

Compilations spanning a large number of years are tricky though. Date of latest recorded/released track or date of compilation?

Yeah, I do. At first I filed them by title, but then realized I wanted to have all my Morricone together.

I also tend to stick in solo stuff with the corresponding group, assuming it's more of a 'side-project' thing and not a full-blown, separate career. I.E. Neil Halstead in with the Mojave 3, Mark Kozelek stuff in with the Red House Painters, McCulloch in with Echo & The Bunnymen, etc.

Most stuff is alphabetical together under the dubious 'indie/rock/pop' idea in my head, with totally different sections for:
Dance (anything club-ish that you can actually dance to)
Electronic/Ambient (stuff you CAN'T dance to)
Downtempo/Hiphip (a tricky section - everything from stuff like Kruder & Dorfmeister, Kid Loco, Theivery Corporation, through to Ninja Tune stuff and then straight Hip Hop)

All above alphabetical because I have a lot, but other stuff such as Classical, Jazz, Blues is just all stuck together mostly by label since I don't have much.

Hiphip sounds like the best genre evah.

Now its: A-Z, singles and albums together, chronologically within artist (by release date, so comps after original albums), solo with band, Iggy under Stooges, CDRs in with the rest, separate section for comp albums, separate section for the masses off Idlewild singles I have for reasons I can't remember but all the Super Furry Animals in with the rest cos they have pretty spines.

How do people deal with free CDs given away by magazines? Separate section for me.

It'll take a while before I file my vinyl though. There's more of it and I like the way it kinda SPREADS across any room its put in, even if I put it all away neatly. It seems to breed and give me records I don't remember buying.

God damn you all to hell. And I really mean that.

But what about PJ Harvey (& John Parish) re: file by first name?

http://blu.stb.s-msn.com/i/CE/BDEF77ADBC4FCF24487FB64DB4A6B0.jpg
http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2009/03/pj_harvey-a_man_a_woman.jpg

Their fault for changing the order of their names?

i assume the change in order indicates significant differences between the two projects and wd file them separately accordingly

I file it under the "spotify" icon

i assume the change in order indicates significant differences between the two projects and wd file them separately accordingly

yeah this, see also the 3 David Tibet/Steven Stapleton albums which I think are in different order depending

I'm proud of myself. I now group all Bill Callahan and Smog records together, under C. Asmus Tietchens and Hematic Sunsets records together, under T.

if you file by upc code number, all of these problems are immediately solved.

and then you just put some upc code detection software into your phone and everything is easy to find.

brothers johnson goes under "b" yes?

I think I'm inconsistently consistent. Tom Robinson Band under R, Bram Tchaikovsky (a pseudonym) under T.

I've had them under 'b' forever, but just had a momentary doubt thanks to this thread when I wanted to play strawberry letter 23

I have ~350 records sorted alphabetically (and chronologically for artists with multiple entries) in 4 categories (rock/pop, hiphop, jazz, soundtracks) with rock/pop being the biggest of these

thinking of rearranging them to form a top 350 of my collection, rating and ranking my collection

I'd do it for fun and to shake things up a bit, and while atm it's nice that friends can easily check what Neil Young records I have by going to Y, it'll perhaps be even more fun to have them offended when they find that Trans has been relegated to the lower shelves (or smth)

anyone tried this?

what sort of person looks for neil young records?

it's be fun arrange the records so that the best ones are directly next to the record player, the merely good albums kind of trail off toward the hall, the meh ones are near the front door, and the worst ones are kind of casually flung next to a box marked "free records" outside by the garbage

i just want to bump this to draw attention to the first few words of my post just above, i did a great job

You did a good job, you stacked the letters in each word very neatly

My records mostly look like this, I dont remember what most of them are called but I do know that spring is coming

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/161566344572-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

it would be very easy for you to arrange your collection by color

By Pitchfork score, duh.

Old system, until this afternoon:
- Collections for each decade, with each decade alphabetized.

New system:
1. All my 5-star records are in a separate section on the top shelf, alphabetized.
2. Jazz gets its own section. Though I may backtrack on this decision during the next re-org.
3. Everything else alphabetized (I collated all the decades in a massive merge sort operation)

Seems reasonable, my mate has always advocated a separate section for the best stuff, the theory being it will encourage more listening of favorites over endless crate digging.

sorted by whether or not the pile has been knocked flying recently.
With most recent purchases on top or possibly most recently played.
Always make sure you have more than one pile of cds around you and that most of them are obscured either by having other stuff piled on top of them or by the rest of the pile. So when you go to find something you are bound to find something else entirely.
Keeps your listening fresh or not as the case may be.
the Pollyanna system.

Idgi - if you organize by rating, don't you have to remember the rating of every record you own in order to find anything quickly?

For records: Alphabetical by size (12", 10", 7"), and then one square dedicated to new purchases, old favorites, and passing fancies. That square gets wheedled back down to a handful every few weeks as it slowly fills up and spills over into the turntable area. Another two long shelves are "to be sold" LPs/12"s and 7"s, which are every so often sold and every so often re-evaluated and put back in the main collection. My wife's LPs are another shelf, and another section is absolute dreck I was given by friends who know I like records and which I should throw out but...

CDs: In boxes in the garage attic. Not convenient, but no real CD player anymore and no room in the house. Hoping to get a dedicated CD player again when we do some remodeling and regain some space, and then these will come back in.

Cassettes: So few left, but these are in two small boxes nears the LPs. Getting my old Aiwa refurbished so i can play these properly again, as I've purchased two cassettes so far this year (Poison Ruïn and Angel Bat Dawid) so maybe more to come.

Idgi - if you organize by rating, don't you have to remember the rating of every record you own in order to find anything quickly?

― Taliban! (PBKR)

Yes I do, but it gives me a chance to reevaluate each time I play an album.

Also, I have my entire collection rated in discogs, so I can always fall back on that.