How Your Music Collection Is Organised

Barbu wrote: Non-alphabetical chronological order.

My favorite answer.  My old prog friend had his massive collection this way, down the very day of release....it was fun to see it that way.

BaldFriede wrote: Finnforest wrote: Barbu wrote: Non-alphabetical chronological order. My favorite answer.  My old prog friend had his massive collection this way, down the very day of release....it was fun to see it that way. Makes it difficult to find something. Also finding the exact release date may prove to be difficult.

For me I would totally agree, it was. 
For him, he could spot the disc he wanted like a raptor eyeing a vole.  Knew right where every title would be. 

format > artist, alphabetically > album, chronologically

the only reason we differentiate between classical music and the rest is that it does in our opinion not make much sense to sort classical music by performer. I don't think "I want to listen to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra or Friedrich Gulda now", I think "I want to listen to the Brandenburg Concertos or the Moonlight Sonata now"


Edited by BaldJean - June 17 2016 at 01:32

Dean wrote: So, all you lovers of Alphabetti spagetti - how do you actually do it?  I mean in reality, in the real world, how for example do you physically re-organise half your collection just because the next CD you've bought is from an artist whose name begins with "M"? [...] Do you leave gaps in every section on the off-chance that the next purchase will slot into the vacant space, or do you shuffle everything along one space each time you buy an new album?

For my part, I reorganize my collection each time I bought new CDs. In fact, the new CD will spend a few days out, near the record player, before joining its comrades once I "domesticated" it. So, I can wait the week-ends to spend at least half an hour to do the musical chairs with my records.
Now, my biggest problem would be records with an unusual format:
- CD coming with a book or some heavy booklet (Alice Cooper, Orphaned Land...)
- CD sold in a 25cm cover like if it was a 45rpm, or CD from Yoshida Tatsuya's own label Magaibutsu;
- CD put in a metal box à la PIL (cf. Jean Louis' second album, Morse)
I had to take a shoe box to put these... "special cases"...

1700 CDs? Wow, you must need a whole room for them!

I am in the process of getting rid of all jewel cases (really don't like them, and very inefficient) and storing the CDs and booklets in boxes like this:

It would drive me crazy if my albums were not in alphabetical order. If I'm looking for a specific album I have to at least know where to start looking.

Finnforest wrote: BaldFriede wrote: Finnforest wrote: Barbu wrote: Non-alphabetical chronological order. My favorite answer.  My old prog friend had his massive collection this way, down the very day of release....it was fun to see it that way. Makes it difficult to find something. Also finding the exact release date may prove to be difficult. For me I would totally agree, it was.  For him, he could spot the disc he wanted like a raptor eyeing a vole.  Knew right where every title would be.

Yep, Finn.

Strict alpha, release, album, CDingle order with oddities at the back. I cannot (this has happened) find a CD album if say, the 1993 release is where a 1995 release is. Rock , jazz and classical (composer) are the three main sections. Bootlegs in CD bins which are a hideous sight and remain covered. Genses and Zappa bootlegs have their own boxes; the Zeppelin Floyd and other usual suspects are stupefyingly vast in quantity. These are kept (hopefully) in strict date order or nothing would be found...

Used to store "proper" CDs in wallets. Turned out to be a poor idea, damaging art etc. I dislike jewel cases still.

The dozen or so LPs (waste of time etc) sit in a corner. So much for the LP of Lucifer Rising.

Space is limited so a tremendous amount remains on hard drives. I now have to organise these. Improvised shelves happen now. It's all very Heath Robinson but without the sanity. Especially filing the oversized items.

One of my primary cases has shelves that are level, but not consistently wide. That... is so annoying.

Movie DVDs are in no order. To paraphrase The Who, I Can see For Piles and Piles....

Y'know how it's bad when GFs, etc...  hate your collection (for some ungodly reason); I have so much stuff someone else's GF had to weigh in (help share the hate). Solidarity sister... (I think she was actually ok with her bf's mindbogglingly huge porn collection - I saw it once - but my music was a bad thing...) That was ages ago.

I was once taken seriously when I said I could not go out as I had to alphabetisize my t shirt collection. Fortunately these are not as plentiful as they were...

This collection has been moved and it takes on a life of it's own when they get shelved in corridors and go round flats and house interiors.