I have aboot 300 hundred vinlys and decided (in a state of delirium, dear reader) to order them by year – yes by YEAR I tell you.
It saves having to decide about that first name / last name Mallarky and what to do with the The’s.
It is a triumph and am so pleased I had to share.
Any alternatives?
First name/last name malarkey? What to do with the Thes?
Not on my watch, correct alphabetisation, surnames first, definite articles ignored. Beatles in B, Bruce in S
(Albums then ordered chronologically for each artist)
The correct method
Seconded, although I have had to explain to the occasional person that cares about these things that my Alice Cooper records go under A because they are from when it was the name of the band.
My brother files them like Our Price used to, eg Bowie under D etc. What can you do?
Re: “Beatles in B, Bruce in S”
You put Bruce Hornsby, Bruce Dickinson and Bruce Cockburn in S?
Hmmm … an unorthodox approach, but I like it.
I do have exceptions, Jeff Tweedy solo albums are filed with Wilco. Same singer, same songwriter (and he owns the band name)
I’m never sure whether to file albums by “The Wailers” and “Bob Marley & the Wailers” together, or to put the first lot under W and the second lot under M…
Bob Marley albums filed separately from The Wailers albums. Also separate locations for Bunny Wailer and for Peter Tosh albums.
Or else all of them would have to be filed together, which would be daft.
Same rule as for Beatles and ex-Beatles.
@ Mike-H but if choosing a record dont you think I feel like some Wailers, in which case having them all consolidated makes it convenient to peruse the options before making the final selection?
Yep, why I have Wilco and Tweedy together, the albums are also being produced at the same time. I do have solo Beatles separate under their surnames
Ah … the band, name and band, solo artist conundrum.
Paul McCartney – solo and Wings all filed together
Yes, I do that. Plastic Ono Band under L
But why? Seperate artists, separate names, seperate releases.
Year of issue , purchase, your pressing ?
Year of Purchase … an autobiographical method
Year of CONCEPTION!
Remember one time in Hong Kong about 15 years ago, Having just quit smoking I decided to take my mind of my cravings for a gasper by putting all my CDs – then still in their jewel cases – into alphabetic and chronological order – a process that took about three evenings.
When doing so, I noticed how craggy with nicotine all the jewel cases had become. As we were off on holiday not long aft4er, I asked Belle if her one of her Filipina friends would like to earn some extra money by coming in and cleaning the flat – including the CDs – when we were away.
Arrived back to find all the CD cases spotlessly clean but randomly shoved back in shelves in a haphazard order that would have set Melvil Dewey rotating in his grave
I had a break in once at my place. Got a call from the police, they told me the place was a mess, CDs all over the floor. Hmmm, how I left it then
300 hundred – so 30,000?
The advantage of having all my music in a cloud setting, is that I can indulge my OCD tendencies by ordering music by track name, album name, album artist/group name, track artist/group name, date of uploading, genre, playlist and release year – and any combination of the above.
My favourite is also year – where I put albums by year of first release (regardless of rerelease or not), classical albums by date of composition (or date of death of composer death/decomposition), and compilations of artists/groups listed by date of dissolution/death.
Sometime I might even get around to actually listening to them.
Listening? That’s for streaming, so as to avoid any disturbance on the shelving. I’m also strapped for space, so it’s a one in, one out with hard copy, which is itself getting tricky with up to 10 in per month…. Ripped first, of course.
I’m like that except it’s one in, one ripped to WAV before being added to the huge wicker basket full of them that is kept in the attic room. The rip is added to a usb stick with all the rest and invariably never played again.
I have playlist for compilation albums and I play them in order of year. And @fentonsteve thinks he’s sad.
I’m not sad, but I am very dull. It’s the kind of phenomenally niche technical knowledge that only a handful of people on the planet need (or want) to know. I’m not sure I started my career with it as an ambition, yet here I am.
Just in case: sorted by surnames, then chronological; Various Artists & film soundtracks in their own sections (a bit of boundary blurring here), and I don’t ‘do’ genres so Lee Perry is next to Tom Petty.
I apologise for thinking that you are sad, but will defend to the death your right to be dull!
I apologise for typing that I think you are sad when it should have been “typing” that you are sad.
I no longer buy any physical product except at gigs (additional income for musicians). I have 5 storage units full of official-release artist CDs, another load of cardboard boxes full of CD compilations and magazine coverdiscs and a few hundred bootleg CDs. A few boxes of minidisc recordings of radio shows too. Plus about a hundred vinyl albums, a dozen or so 12″ singles and about fifty 7″ singles.
I have no more physical storage space left.
My physical filing system for the racked CDs and the vinyl is the same as for my digitised collection. i.e. alphabetically first name, second name. “The” etc. ignored.There are a very few anomalies.
So shoot me.
The compilations and coverdiscs have no filing system. The minidiscs are boxed by the programme recorded and are roughly in date order. 90% of it all has been digitised and that’s what gets played usually.
I have a kind of order, my lad will ask me where something is and I can point at it with 90% accuracy. The reggae and dub go together, an entire 16 box IKEA shelf unit of spoken word/soundtracks/weird is more of a challenge but adds a bit of digging excitement when I try to find something and discover something else. The Roxy/Bowie/Eno/Velvets/Reed etc are all in the same area, same with Punk, Beatles & Floyd otherwise it’s a bit of a free for all and I gave up on any kind of order on the 7″s years ago.
Mine are sorted in Matrix number order.
I hate to say, I have no system whatsoever. They just live on a few shelves and I put things back wherever I feel like it, and tend to select something at random and play it. I am not really a hardcore collector and feel no need to be any different.
You may have to leave your AW membership card by the door on your way out…
The shame…
You could always rank them 😳
Well I know AWers fetishise their vinyl, but that’s going a bit far, isn’t it? Maybe start with a Frankie Goes To Hollywood 12″.
My records are stored as follows :
Box 1 – Top left – “CHECK THIS OUT” – recent purchases, and records that I have remembered when flipping through, looking for something else. “Yes. I want to hear Blank Generation, but not right at this moment”.
Box 2 – One in to the right from Top Left. “REGGAE AND RELATED – Including compilations”. I don’t have loads of reggae/ska/dub, but it does hit the spot, so this lets me reach in without needing to remember Augustus Pablo’s name, or what that Soul Jazz compilation of Rastafari songs was called.
Box 3 Onwards – MUSIC, by Artist. Then at the end, Compilations, grouped by Genre. Christmas stuff beside Garage, Jazz, Rockabilly.
Separate boxes for 12″ singles and 10″ LPs. Singles stored in 2 groups – “Singles for occasional DJ Gigs” and “Singles”
I know where things are, mostly, but the singles do get in a right guddle if I have a run of gigs.
This topic has been debated 451 times on here and each time I have to remind you simpletons there is only one way to file – ignore The, then file by first letter of whatever artist name appears. Beatles B, Bruce B, Wailers W, Bob Marley and The Wailers B. Honestly, it’s like herding old men into the breakfast room each morning…(numbers are after Z obviously.)
You would struggle looking for books in a library (or book shop)
They’d be under B, dai.
Or L in the case of library
No idea why I commented on this thread – not one single piece of physical music product in my house. You guys….
@henpetsgi
Not every AWer is fortunate enough to have a folly at the bottom of the garden, Lodey…
Me neither. No physical doo-dads pretending to be the music so I can delude myself I “own” it. Which is what all this filing nonsense is about – the satisfaction of owning stuff, “curating” your collection, rather than listening to music, which is something else entirely.
Me n’ Lodey – we’re above all that. We’ve evolved to a higher plane where possessions are seen to be the hindrances they are. The main difference between us is that his music is shit. Apart from that, we’re like monks or hermits or something, looking down on the Afterworders benignly and pityingly as they polish their CD shelves so that they’ll get a pat on the head from Mark Ellen when he drops in for that surprise inspection.
You guys.
Almost every word HP says is true: my music taste is impeccable and, never forget, he likes The Monkees.
New CDs go into a cardboard box (in no particular order at first, then the unloved ones start to congregate at the back and the ones I reach for to play hang out in the front), when full I get a new box and put the old one away, but not very far.
These cardboard boxes gets put away more thoroughly at the beginning of a new year – but eventually they will have to get sorted into a “keep in the flat” pile and a “put in attic storage space” pile, just as my very old CDs already have been divided.
The “keep in the flat” CDs end up on the top shelf of a cupboard where the lower space is taken up by some of my LPs. None of these (CDs and LPs) are sorted in any kind of order. The reason for this is that I very rarely listen to a physical copy of any older album – if I wish to listen to them I listen on my computer, to which everything (bar some LPs) have been ripped.
The rest of my LPs are, equally non-sorted, in a few crates on top of my bookshelves.
I never listen to LPs anymore, so it doesn’t matter.
I tend to only listen to physical copies of new albums, while I get to know them, and until I get another haul to go through. And a few CDs end up in the kitchen to be played while I cook or do the washing up – these must be energetic, upbeat and preferably dancetastic.
The kitchen is also the only place where I occasionally will listen to old cassette tapes from the 80s and early 90s. Home-taped stuff that is unavailable in other formats, mainly.
So the only place where I keep a strict order is in my WMP.
Do I know where any of my physical stuff is? Nope – I couldn’t even tell you if an album is “in the flat” or “in the attic storage”. They end up where they end up, and I don’t need to know, really.
You guys.
I follow the Dai method upthread with the possible variation that compilations, boxsets, rarities and archive releases have a separate chronological filing after the chronological filing of an artist’s main releases. Essential to avoid confusion with artists like Dylan and Neil Young.
I’m referring entirely to CDs as my modest vinly collection was filed under B for bin or C for chazza many years ago.
Neil Young is a tough one with so many live/archive releases. Need to check what I do!
@dai
Given the alacrity with which NY puts albums out, maintaining any kind of order is the very definition of a Sisyphean task
@jaygee
Looks like I put them after the main albums (about 60 CDs not pictured)
I do a similar thing. Given Neil’s annoying habit of releasing albums he’s put out as standalones in Archives boxes and my recent sign up for his website that won’t be happening again, no siren.
That said, Early Daze looks rather tempting…
Looks like Live at The Cellar Door is still sealed… play it! It’s great!
One day! Got kind of saturated with solo live Neil albums from that period
Where do The The go?
What about Les Negresses Vertes, Los Van Van, etc?
Under T for The The.
Les Negresses Vertes under N, obviously. Les is his first name.
@madfox
Is he one of the Basingstoke Negresse-Vertes by any chance?
Mmm, I believe you’re thinking of Howard. Les was from the Wiltshire branch of the family.
I dun a lol.
I’m now a bit concerned that I’ve committed an AW faux pas by putting my Various Artists compilations under V, in completely random order.
Good grief, how many times do we need to say this…?! Basically file them so you know where to find them.
Main bulk….
Individual artists by surname.
Bands by the substantive name, ignoring ‘The’ obviously.
Chronological within the above.
Various artist compilations after Z by genre or period depending on taste. There are various options here – for instance, I put my Motown comps together, but have 60s comps elsewhere, but I know where they are.
Subsequent archive releases (I’m looking at you Neil Young) are in their chronological time rather than release date.
I put Macca, Wings etc. under M.
I put Captain Beefheart under C….so shoot me….I know where they are.
Jimi Hendrix and The Jimi Hendrix Experience are all under H.
Yup … Captain Beefheart in the C section
Macca and Wings together (chronolgically)
Neil Young / Crazy Horse – see above
Generation X / Generation X – together (Billy Idol under I)
Marc Bolan / Tyrannosaurus Rex / T.Rex – all together
David Bowie / Tin Machine – Tin Machine under T (it’s what he would’ve wanted)
Captain Beefheart under C because it’s a stage name, not his real name. Same applies to Captain Sensible, The Captain & Tenille. Lord Kitchener under L, Prince Fari under P. etc. etc.
But Count Basie can be filed under B as Basie was his real surname. Duke Ellington filed under E for the same reason.
Next on How To Feed Your Hamster, it’s ” Peanuts or Ptarmigans, the choice is yours.” We’ll be back with you once Nurse has handed out your tablets…..
And it’s good news for rectal polyp sufferers! All this and more after our Allotment Watch feature!
Due to infirmity I had to give up my allotment after twenty years.
So there will be no allotment watch from me.
Perhaps the Afterword’s upcoming think piece on knee braces be more to your liking! That’s going to get a discussion going!
Well I do have to use something like this, in fact thanks for your timely posting I may purchase a new one like this.
Many thanks HP.
I order them by broad genre (Classical, Folk, Spoken Word and other oddities together) then by the year of the band/artist’s finest/most representative period (in my opinion). So Dylan (Highway 61) comes before the Beach Boys (Pet Sounds) but after the Beatles (Hard Days Night) and so on. Wings crop up in the seventies section around 1973 and Talking Heads around 1979. CD’s and Vinyl are separated and independently ordered. I also have a “recently played” section where all new purchases also go.
This may be closest to my own “system”: Broad genre > alphabetically by artist > chronologically within artist. LPs separate from CDs. I don’t do the “artists most representative period” thang – interesting, but too hard to decide, I suspect. Eg Miles – is the Kind of Blue period or the Bitches Brew period more representative?
Since my comment above, I found I had broken my rules – looking for a CD, I found The Michael Sykes Band was filed under S rather than M, and this got me thinking.
I have Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas under K, the Spencer Davis Group is under D, and the Dave Clark Five are under C.
Having now confessed, I will get my coat and hand in my Afterword membership card at the door….