Today – as is my wont – I decided to listen to Pixies very fine 2019 album Beneath the Eyrie.
No problem – go to the P section, just past Pink Floyd, and there at the end of Pixies CDs sat … Plan B: The Defamation of Strickland Banks.
After some searching (and no little tension) I found it. Before Pink Floyd. OK, a simple admin error there.
And then after a quick shufty I begin to see other errors:
Nick Heyward – sitting between Madness Rise & Fall and Keep Moving
Faces – First Step next to Crash Test Dummies (Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, I said to myself)
A Rory Gallagher Best Of titled Big Guns sitting before Big Country.
REMs Green filed after Out Of Time.
I stopped looking at that point and decided that Christmas week will be time for a complete stock-check and re-file.
Should I file Marc Bolan with T.Rex or keep separate?
And it is it allowable for Various Artists to be filed alphabetically by genre, with Film Soundtracks in their own area?
I have Compilations subdivided by category then alphabetically by title.
As a purist Bolan must be B and T.Rex under T. Would you put Donald Fagen with Steely Dan? Get a grip man.
I may have to undertake a re-filing exercise over the holidays due to the glw having a random methodology towards the alphabet. In other words, she is happy to put a cd back in any random gap that sees on the shelves.
Not a jury in the land would convict.
At least she puts them back. Back in the days when vinyl meant just records, and not something to be worshipped for its own sake, girls – and I do mean generically, all of them, without exception – got their fingerprints all over the grooves, thought inner sleeves were disposable, and left albums out on the carpet to attract fag ash and dog hairs. Bless!
Are we talking CDs or vinly? Just asking as the CDs are now alphabetical and the vinly is chronological, in which case it’s fairly straightforward.
Except it isn’t, as the records are in chronological order as I purchased them, but then coupled together in order of release. Unless it’s less than one release, in which case they are in a different area. See also 12″ singles, they sit alone. Haven’t worked out the 7″s yet, but I stopped buying them in the 90’s so I’ll get to that conundrum in time.
Solo albums would be considered separate.
Hope that helps.
I’m A-Z with my cds but not strictly alphabetical within that A-Z. Sorry.
Same here. However I do try and clump the same artist together, when I can manage.
Yesterday, while I was working from home (yeah, right!) I had to do a CD reshuffle, as my 2020 CD purchases were skewed towards start of the alphabet (especially the letter B – lots of James Brown, Bowie, Beach Boys and Beatles reissues) and they were packed like sardines. The first significant amount of free real estate I had on my CD wall was down around O, so I had to lift and shift each letter in reverse to get some breathing space. If they were fully alphabetised within letters then this would have been a nightmare.
But so very cathartic.
It’s like a form of meditation.
Ah yes. Should have clarified, artists are indeed “clumped “ together in a vague a-zwithin the original a-z. Otherwise it’s just anarchy.
Can y’all stop with the vinlys thing now? It’s worn a groove deeper than the Mariana Trench. It’s up there with “Attention, Massive”.
Bob Dylan Bootleg Series. Should they be filed in numerical order or in chronological recording order? It keeps me up at night!
Similarly, Buzzcocks (still with Howard Devoto in the band) recorded the Time’s Up! demos in 1978, heavily bootlegged but only officially released in 2017.
Before 1978’s Another Music in a Different Kitchen, or after 2014’s final album The Way?
No these type of archive releases should be separate from the main catalogue. But how are they ordered within their new section is my issue? Dylan’s set started then went forwards then went backwards then recently settling into mainly 50th anniversaries, but not always.
Numerical order, surely? They’d look very odd on the shelf if placed in order of the music recorded on them. On the shelf, they are, of course, silent.
EVERYTHING in alphabetical order. Bach, Beatles, Beethoven.
James Taylor under T
Mothers of Invention under Z
That’s correct Mousey, but then do you file Captain Beefheart under B or C? And do your Mahavishnu records sit slightly apart from your McLaughlin?
The good Captain is under C on my shelves, but my argument has always generally been that if I know where to find things, then all is well….so, Wings are with Paul McCartney and Plastic Ono Band are with John Lennon and so on as it just seems sensible. This tends to be the record shop way too, so good enough for me. My main conflicts come when filing retrospectives or archive recordings….in release order? Date of recording?? Bob Dylan, I’m looking at you. He tends to be in release order, but not always..!!
I know we have been here before, but a friend of mine has always filed under christian names, so Elvis Costello is right next to Elvis Presley and so on. I always argued with him on this (obviously!), but then bloody iTunes and so on came along with the the same system and he now feels vindicated.
Mrs F did a lot of the CD packing before we moved house. Hence Pretenders are under ‘P’, but The Pretenders are under ‘T’.
Dearest Chrissie, make up your mind, love.
Hmmm … The Oyster Band did a similar thing, changing their name to Oysterband. And of course, for a while around 1988, Madness were called “The Madness”.
I have never filed my music in any order at all, whether vinlys, cassettes or CDs. I used to enjoy shuffling through and making (re)discoveries according to mood. Never said, It’s Tuesday night 9pm, got to be Steely D and went off looking for it, my gadfly brain doesn’t really work like that.
Same with books. The only concession I make to the sort of orderliness that seems to be an issue round here is categories. EG my Ronald Searle collection all goes in one place, as does Edward Ardizzone. Series (eg old Penguins) go in number order, mainly so I can see at a glance whether I’ve got a particular book or not. The rest is anarchy. Over the years I’ve developed a sort of x-ray vision, so that I’ve got a mental map of where books are in relation to other books. If I want to find Catch-22 say, I fire up my Seebackroscopeⓡ, and that’ll tell me third shelf down to the right of the fireplace. I can still remember shelf arrangements from several houses ago, which makes it confusing sometimes. My system lets me down sometimes (especially when I remember that I sold it ten years ago), but I’m ok with it. Saves me a lot of wrestling with the issues detailed above.
I pretty much agree with your approach, the main advantage being the ‘element of surprise’. The only concession I make to any system is that all CDs are stored on shelves according to packaging. So standard jewel cases are all lumped together, as are jewel cases with rounded corners, cardboard sleeves and boxes. This then gives some interesting combinations. For example, a quick look reveals that Amy Winehouse Back to Black is next to The Flaming Lips The Terror which is next to The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers. On the box side of things, I have a Tim Buckley compilation next to Kate and Anna McGarrigle Tell My Sister next to King Crimson Meltdown next to P.I.L. Live at The O2. Oh yes, all classical music CDs are separate but are not played very often anyway.
I will admit that there are also a number of problems with this method….
As far as albums by single artists/bands are concerned, I file by first name (so shoot me) of solo artist/bandleader or band name. Thus Captain Beefheart is a “C” and Richard Thompson is an “R”. The Richard & Linda albums are thus close to each other on the shelves but not together.
Various Artist compilation CDs currently have no filing system worthy of the name. My Mojo/Uncut/Songlines/Jazzwise/etc. coverdiscs are roughly grouped together in date order except for single-label/single-artist specials, which are sometimes filed with the other coverdiscs, sometimes filed along with single artists/bands as above and sometimes just bunged in one of the Various Artists/Miscellaneous boxes that has some spare room.
Classical CDs are a real problem, because often there can be more than one artist/ensemble/conductor on a disc as well as works by different composers. Sometimes all of these on the one disc. I tend to keep them separate from the rock/pop/jazz/folk/ethnic/etc. stuff, but there are some exceptions such as my CD of Erik Satie solo piano pieces, which is filed under the pianist’s name on the rock/pop/jazz/folk/ethnic/etc. shelves.
Then there are the bootlegs and “unofficial” downloads. They are kept in a couple of cases in a fairly-random mix of alphabetic and date-of-acquisition order.
Box sets are precariously stacked on top of the main filing shelves. Mostly in no order whatsoever except where they can be made to fit.
Everything has been digitised (apart from some of the “unofficial” downloads) and all of it is triple backed-up, apart from what has been acquired in the last week or so. I don’t have a backup plan, as such. I just compare and synchronise the content of the various hard discs often, via an app which does this, as I remember that it needs to be done.