Mrs Japanese and I are currently in the process of moving out of our tiny, one-bedroomed flat into a much bigger multi-bedroomed house. With that comes the inevitable sorting of junk we have accumulated over the time spent living in our current residence.
Perversley, despite the apparent spacial opportunity for more, it was decided by Mrs Japanese that we owned too many CDs and needed to ship some off to the local Charity Shop. For a someone who has spent the last three months buying second-hand albums from Music Magpie as they make their way through the 1001 Albums book, this wasn’t entirely unexpected. After numerous discussions about the merits of still owning the Klaxons’ debut album, we decided to combine our CD collections and relegate my ‘lesser’ albums to a folder (more about that later). In the meantime, she removed any duplicates from her collection that I already owned and ceremoniously dumped the ones she no longer desired.
So now we have two towers of CDs ranging from Abba to the Zutons. She has agreed to accept my filing strategy of putting solo artists under their surnames, rather than their first names (like she chose to). We have both agreed that when any of our ‘cool, sophisticated friends’ come along and scoff at the Busted album we own, we can blame the other person for buying it (it’s hers). Likewise with the Saturday’s debut album (that one’s mine).
Eventually I want to be able to reincoporate the albums I’ve filed away back onto the shelves. I have thrown away the jewel cases and kept the artwork (and actual CD, obviously). I’ve ordered a set of those slim disc cases, so hopefully they’ll provide an acceptable solution.
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Recently moved from a three room flat to a house. It’s hard work. Good luck with everything!
Two towers of CDS doesn’t sound like a particularly large collection. Why don’t you just download them all and bin the lot?
There shalleth be no binning of music.
– Luke 15 12
This is what lofts are for Shirley?
I like The Klaxons debut and still play it from time to time, now I’ve edited the bloody annoying gap to the hidden bonus track, which is rather good for a bonus.
*tone of outraged shrieking incomprehension*
Solo artists filed under their first names???
What heathen abomination is this?
That is beyond belief.
I read that and had to go and pour a glass of wine to recover.
I’d have done the same if I wasn’t at work. I settled for some silent (but nonetheless total) incomprehension instead.
Andy’s Records used to do that. And they went out of bidnis in about 1996. So think on.
That sneaky bastard Andy just wanted his sorry, forgotten solo album close to the front of the pile, didn’t he. Serves him right.
Apple default to that on the iPod which says it all really.
Ah, but how to do otherwise? Even if we assume there’s some way of identifying a two-word name AS a person’s name, there are those fun anomolies such as Jethro Tull (indisputibly filed under “J”) and PJ Harvey (solo act under “H” or band under “P” – who can tell?). There’s always the “album artist” tag which can be tweaked.
In iTunes you can also (under “Options”) define where an artist’s name should be filed. There’s no way a software can identify whether Mary Chapin Carpenter or Van Dyke Parks (or Dr. John) should be filed alphabetically. And besides, as the singer said, who put the alphabet in alphabetical order?
You can file artists in iTunes as Beatles, The, and then Carpenter, Mary Chapin etc
Yes, you can. But can you be bothered to?
About 90% of downloaded versions of files will be either “Beatles” or “The Beatles”. I have yet to see “Lobos, Los”.
I am a naturally lazy person with a huge digital music collection.
When I digitise an album to include it in my library, the databases used by the software to tag the files almost always return results as «Firstname/Prefix» «Secondname».
Direct downloads from artists and downloads from Amazon pretty much universally use the same convention.
When faced with the choice of altering the sort order of a relative few tracks labelled one way, or changing all the rest of the 100,00+ item collection to suit those few, I’ve chosen to take the lazy way. So shoot me.
You don’t have to re-name the artists. You just state your preference (Mary Chapin Carpenter = filed under “Chapin”) and that’s it. And iTunes ignores articles like “The” or “Los” anyway, so “Beatles” or “The Beatles” or “Die Beatles” are always filed as “Beatles”. (Which is unfortunate for German band Die Ärzte – who want to be filed under “D”)
As someone who paid attention to stuff like that from the beginning (iTunes 3.0) it’s not very hard (or time consuming) to keep everything in order. I would go crazy if I came across something like “Parks, Van Dyke” or “Mann, Manfred” in my home – I’m not a tax office.
Mrs Wilson has the endearing* habit of not putting CDs back in the proper case, just whatever one is handy. So while there are plenty of albums of hers in our combined collection that I’d like to listen to, the likelihood of the disc matching the cover is slim. It’s like a primitive randomiser.
* not at all endearing.
If I were you she’d be the ex-Mrs Wilson. Completely inexcusable behaviour. My lawyers would wipe the floor with her.
What Foxy said.
Before her new car, Mrs Japanese had a habit of borrowing CDs for her travels and putting the discs in whatever case was within reach everytime she listened to something new. I’d then be tasked with sorting out a pile of ten-fifteen albums every few months.
At least the boxes are found. I have a small pile of orphaned discs, freed from glove-box purdah in Mrs P’s Fiesta.
I once lent my copy of The Smiths Best Of to a girl I liked. She returned it a few months later minus the disc.
Perhaps she had an especially wobbly table? That’s all I can think of.
The Glove-Box Purdah – you’re on after Blossom Toes.
I was going to critique that behaviour. But the only response is “Christ!”.
Mrs Wilson has just asked, as she occasionally does, if there is any interesting chat on the Afterword. ‘No dear, other than the general condemnation of your actions…’
If you use plastic wallets, rather than thin cd cases, you can store (keep) a lot more.
Granted, you need to fold the back cover/cd tray artwork to make it fit, but it doesn’t show should you put them back in jewel cases later.
Yes, this. I have over 2,000 taking up about 10% of the space they used to. Still never play them though (they are all ripped to a hard drive)
Combing record collections…. madness. Brushing occasionally, yes.
Thanks, Mouse. I hadn’t noticed the typo until this morning.
You’re welcomb.
All this makes me realise how frightening the real world is
Mrs. T always complains that she can’t find anything on the CD shelves…’They are in alphabetical order’ say I….’Yes, but I don’t know what I’ve got…we’ve got too many’ says she…we agree to differ and move on…
I don’t let Mrs Steady have her cds mixed with mine which seems entirely right and proper.
Separate i-pods* is the secret of a good marriage.
(*remember them!!)