How do you sort your LPs? By: 1. Alphabetical Genre 2. Alphabetical Artist 3. Most listened 4. Others I have procrastinated in organizing my collection. No excuses now.
I no longer own any LPs and my CDs are ripped upon arrival then
go to storage however I still face many of the same issues devising a digital
archive. I have about 53,000 songs from
about 4,000 CDs. I add about 400 CDs each year to my
archive. I have spent considerable time
and effort working out my rules so I pray this may be useful to others.
CDs are first sorted by genre. As noted this can cause issues with performers
who cross genre often. I use Allmusic as
the authority, what ever Allmusic.com lists as the first/top genre for an
artist that settles the issue. If for example Willie Nelson is a Country artist
than even his gospel CDs are Country genre.
I want all of an Artist’s work in one genre where I can find it by
artist.
I see no benefit sorting by micro genre or decade and I often
combine major genre which helps categorize many performers. So Jazz and Blues are combined into Jazz-Blues. As is Rock-Pop, Stage-Screen and
Country-Folk.
I have a genre for Christmas which includes all holiday
music, another for Classical of course.
Audiophile genre is sorted by record Label such as Chesky, Telarc, Works
of Art (AudioQuest).
Almost every genre has a “Various” directory for
compilations.
Recording artists are alphabetical by first name with in
genre so Jazz-Blues starts with Al diMeola then Al Jarreau and Al Jolson.
I discard any “The” preface.
And any second billing isn’t. So I also discard “Quartet” for
example. Arthur Fiedler gets all the
credit and the Boston Pops is ignored. Cannonball
Adderley was a solo act by my rules because that is how I want to look it up
and I want all the Cannonball Adderley in one directory no matter the billing.
Within an artist’s directory CD’s are prefaced by (yyyy) four
digit date so the artist’s work is always sorted chronologically. The exception is within Stage and Screen which
are not by artist but in the format Title (yyyy) so I can look up the movie by
name. Example: West Side
Story (1984)
I have a genre “Easy Listening” which includes many
difficult to file CDs. London Symphony
Orchestra has numerous symphonic rock-pop CDs. Is it Classical or Rock or Pop? It is all easy listening.
One can created play lists by copying file into a directory. So I have Demo directory for music to
evaluate or show of systems. A few artists
have a directory titled BIN so I can listen to their entire repertoire with out
jumping from CD to CD.
I hope this helps.
What works well for a digital archive may not work for LPs.
When I had LPs I had all those sticky color coded end tabs
that one uses to file physical office files I would two tabs per LP so I could look across
the room and see where a where on a shelf a LP belonged from 15 feet away. I can’t find any now on Amazon but any good
office supply place will have them and I highly recommend them.
Record store style. Worked at one in the 70s. Stuck with me. Genre. Within genre alphabetized by last name of artist or band name. Jackson Browne in rock under B. J Geils Band in rock under J. Amount of records would be a consideration. I you only have 200-300 records it might not make sense to put them in genres.
Mostly listened to classical rock when I was young. Then came kids and of course life went in a different direction. Got back into music as they got a bit older and started listening again in the mid 90"s. So only three categories for me; Classic rock, mid 90's and later, jazz and other (movie sound tracks, comedy etc). Alphabetical within categories.
I don't organize my jazz by artist as so many are multiple artists capable of filing. The Poll Winners I did file under (Barney) Kessel but I had to put a Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster as a jazz instrumental group recording, Hawkins. Sometimes, it is difficult to pick whose name will a recording will be filed under, especially jazz. Not so much in vocal, classical or ethnic music.
I have 25,000 LPs, 7,000 78s and 7,000 CDs. My CDs and LPs are organized by genre, alphabetically and by vocalists/instrumentalists. There are many genres. I have excluded Direct to Disc and Japanese 45 rpm/DD LPs onto a separate shelf. I also have 5,000+ LPs not in the collection with 1/2 sorted by genre, alphabetically and others just by genre. As to CDs, the large boxed sets are nearly all Classical and located in two rows on top of 6' long CD storage cabinets (I use Can-Am steel cabinets from Canada). The LPs are stored in custom built wood/melamine in a music storage room (storage shed & garage for 5,000+ LPs). The 78s are stored mostly in the music storage room by genre and size 10" and 12" on the bottom levels. Also, unsorted in the storage shed and garages (I just haven't gotten to them and moved last year). I don't have more than 100 CDs on a rear corner of my listening room-a major coup from my last home. Just equipment and seating.
I really can't imagine any practice other than basic alphabetical filing. Yes, I have a separate section for classical, and also for greatest hits collections that include multiple artists. (I collect radio station greatest hits collections. Please don't ask why.)
My LP collection is large enough that it has to be spread over two floors. So for convenience, it is filed A through Z on each floor. And in my listening room, I have a small "hot box" in the rack to file new purchases as well as current favorites, so that they don't have to be constantly refiled.
I have over 3500 LPs at this point. I occasionally find duplicates and forgotten music. A less random arrangement would likely be better. It is fun to rediscover music though.
LP's? What are those? <g> Actually, when I first moved to AZ and needed money, I left my stereo but brought all my albums. I sold them at a swap meet in Tucson for $1200 lump sum. Boy was that a mistake. I'd always open the album, throw the paper liner away and replace it with a plastic lined liner, and the opening was always 90 degrees to the cardboad liner, and NEVER EVER touch the grooves.
Here's one I haven't heard yet: due to the size of my record cabinets (IKEA makes some great ones, I have different configurations ranging from one cube to 2 x 3 cubes that can put placed either way), I separate rock by American artists/groups versus British artists/groups, then in alphabetical order. I have so many Beatles (group and solo) records and Beach Boys (also group and solo) records, that they merit their own separate cabinets.
For my collection of about 3,000, I do what others have noted, sorted by genre, then alphabetical, and the genres within rock are arranged in a loosely narrative way.For example: 1 - before the Beatles 2 - surf and hot rod 3 - garage and mid-60’s verse-chorus-verse stuff 4 - late 60’s hippie stuff 5 - country rock 6 - Southern rock 7 - mid to late 70’s American pop/rock 8 - British Invasion 9 - British rock after the British Invasion 10 - American singers and songwriters 11 - 80’s rock 12 - soundtracks 13 - blues and guitarists 14 - 70’s hard rock 15 - heavy metal 16 - power pop and 70’s verse-chorus-verse stuff 17 - female singers 18 - R&B 19 - protopunk & 70’s punk 20 - 80’s punk 21 - 80’s garage rock revival, cowpunk, Paisley Underground-related, and other non-punk underground rock 22 - countryish singers and songwriters 23 - jazz 24 - pre-70’s country 25 - female country singers 26 - 70’s and 80’s country 27 - instrumental country 28 - bluegrass 29 - folk 30 - comedy 31 - classical 32 - miscellaneous I do this to make sure I can find what I’m looking for and so that some records don’t get forgotten. For example, when I was filing a Beau Brummels record away, I did a little browsing and saw The Buckingham’s first album, Kind of a Drag, a great little garage rock record before the band got lame and added horns; I hadn’t looked at or thought of that record in a year or two. There are many great records, like that one, that might otherwise get lost if I did everything alphabetically. Other times, I might say to myself, "I’d like to listen to some Chicago blues," and I can go browse the blues and guitarists section, and it is all there in one place; I don’t have to go to several different places. There are all kinds of "does this go here or there?" questions, and I enjoy pondering those. For now, for example, Led Zeppelin goes in hard rock instead of British Rock after the British Invasion with Elton John and Dire Straits. Anyway, that’s what works for me.
Lol, I don't sort any of them due to laziness. I could not tell you where one record is from another as they are pretty much all over the place but neatly stored if that makes any sense. I probably have several thousand by now and it is too monumental a task to go thru them all. Maybe someday I'll come accross that Who album again and play it lol. I'm too busy with all of life's other crap to worry about it right now.
New Arrivals/The Rest-Sometimes regret this when hunting for something in particular but generally works well. I have gone through alphabetical, genre, but found this overall gave me the best listening possibilities. My only misgiving was it difficult to discover misappropriation although it's less of a problem in my later years.
Just like almost everything else in audio there seems to be a diverse set of opinions, methods or philosophies applied to LP sorting. Who would of guessed that :) Thanks for the good ideas.
I like the idea of having an area or section to queue LPs. My current loose method needs a little work. Weeding out the "unlikely to be used again" LPs will help too.
With Classical being the exception (I don’t have too many Classical LPs because I got no class), all LPs are in alphabetical order. First letter, ignore “The”.For example, The Doors are in D. The Cars, C. Thelonious Monk, T. ZZ Top, That’s a tough one. Do i go with the first Z or the second one? Anyway, this works well for me. Especially since I finally found a psychedelic, fluorescent, astrological sex position, alphabet poster.
No one has mentioned this method, but I think that it’s genius. I had a childhood friend who simply kept his records sorted in order of acquisition. The advantage is that he never had to shuffle them around them to add new records. (This task becomes ever more tedious as your collection grows.) And because each album was always in the same location, it was surprisingly easy for him to get to a particular record.
Many times I have regretted my attempt to keep my own collection sorted alphabetically by artist. There are many issues that arise which make that simple task more difficult than it sounds.
Using Ikea’s gift to the audiophile world, Kallax, my LPs are sorted into jazz, pop, classical, celtic/folk, and audiophile.
The jazz is sorted by major performer, same for pop, classical by composer (makes finding a specific performer or conductor a bit of a pain) and the audiophile by label.
The only way I can think of to make it easier to find things would be to create specific location with all LPs and locations in a database file. That is a lot of work. I am (barely) up to returning the stack of played LPs to the shelves before it gets too high.
I have four categories: Pop, jazz, classical, and "other". Within the catagories I go alphabetical (performers for pop and jazz, composers for classical). "Other" is things like seasonal records, novelty records, test records, comedy, and anything else that I can't fit into pop, jazz, and classical. I also have a section of "current" interests, which includes new recordings and stuff that I have queued up for listening. If I know what I am looking for, this system makes it easy to find. More often than not, though, I'll just browse through the collection and pull out whatever catches my eye. That's where the genre classification helps out. Usually I have a dozen or so records ready in the "current" section, so I go to that first. Another important feature in my collection is that I keep it manageable. If I buy new records, I will take out the the same number of old records that I don't listen to anymore and get rid of them. I don't buy very many CDs anymore (those have been fiercely culled down to about 100). LPs are currently at about 350 (and I have plenty of material I am willing to part with when new stuff shows up). I am mostly culling pop material and so-so classical. I keep exceptional recordings and, of course, obscure stuff that I can't stream. I have gone from over 500 records and over 1000 CDs to a much more manageable and meaningful curated collection of physical media. I could cull the collection more, but I now have adequate storage space and no compelling reason to do so.
Alpha by Artist and then chronological within Artist. All genres except Classical. Classical has its own section. So that means I would have the bassist, Stanley Clarke, in the “C” section...
Classical by composer. Jazz by instrument. Vocals by female/male/jazz/folk/rock/era. Classical guitar by artist. Separate area for audiophile and demo stuff.
If I want to listen to Chet Baker, I go to the trumpet section. If I want to listen to Cal Tjader, I go to the vibes section. For Cannon Ball Adderley, I go to the alto sax section. For Kenny Burrell, I go to the guitar section.
I also have a special section (my favorite) for the ’50s West Coast jazz. That’s where guys like Brubeck, Desmond, Shelley Mann, Conte Condoli, Buddy Collette, Chico Hamilton, and Bud Shank reside.
I listen to vinyl 99% of the time. Separate storage for classical LP's (about 300) vs. everything else (about 1500). Alphabetically within each pile. For listening I just go through each collection in alphabetical order from Abba to ZZ Top and from Albinoni to Wagner. I was wasting too much time deciding "What should I listen to today?" I put a CD on when i need background music for a nap.
Paradoxically perhaps, the sound quality of LPs is influenced by not only how you have your LPs arranged but how you have your CDs arranged. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, are you out of mind?
Only have 300 or so..... So alphabetical by artist. 2500 CDs most ripped and got rid of (dohh) of the 300/400 left classical, world and jazz separated... The rest together. SACD nearly all dylan and only 15 in total.
I've known folks who deliberately put their music collections in totally random order so that people who come over won't be able to choose what to put on. As a matter of fact, I may have done this at one time.
@noromance (and other genre-ists ;-), I get it now. My Pop collection is almost all one genre anyway: Americana. Just kidding.
I would love to be able to have my LP's cover-facing-out, but available room precludes that possibility. I spent a lot of time with my head cocked sideways!
There is one record store I've been in that puts there entire inventory in alphabetical order only, no genrefication: Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas. I immediately realized that would make browsing by genre, as most people do (I think), impossible.
@bdp24 As a genre-sorter, may I offer my rationale? The most important aspect of my filing is that I use the record store method. Albums are easily flipped through in their relevant section. I remember with some accuracy where albums-by-artist live in each deck. I tend to browse rather than search for a specific artist. Admittedly, some go "missing" only to be found again! I could not stand the creaked-neck-album-spine filing method.
Major majority in my small(300) album collection is jazz. So what has worked well for me is instrument of artist. Piano, guitar, sax, trumpet, drums, vocals.
I have a decent size (to me) collection of LPs. Most of them are originals, meaning I bought them new when they were first released, and are in great condition. I still buy LPs so the collection is still growing but at a reduced rate. I'm trying to enjoy what's here hence the quest for better organization.
Now, they are loosely grouped by genre but not all in the same place. For example, there is the classical section on the right side of the room (the I don't listen to often side) and the classical section on the left side of the room (the most listened to section). I chose genre because that's how I usually select what to listen to. For example, if in the mood for jazz then I go to the jazz section and then narrow it down from there. I'm not good at remembering names but I remember cover art.
I'm not obsessing, at least I don't I am. My goal is to spend less time searching and more time listening. Also, I want to weed out between 1000 to 1500 LPs that will never be used (by me) again. The "I listen to these LPs most often pile" seems to get out of control too often.
Thanks for the suggestions of Discogs and similar. I will check it out.
By coincidence I just sorted 750 albums by artist and title. I keep track of them on Discogs...I exported a csv file... opened in Excel....got rid of most of the columns...copied and pasted into Wordpad (Word and Notepad proved to not work well)....now cross checking and making sure they have been sorted correctly and adding ones that I hadn't entered into Discogs. Dana
Homebuilt, mobile, vertical shelf unit, sorting alphabetically by artist's core name (i.e. "Who", not "The Who"). Also considering special cases, so; A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,Ktel,L,M,N,O,Polkas,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z Yes - I have been doing this for a while (1970's). We did some DJ work in the early 1980's with vinyl record albums, so my collection needed to be mobile and easily accessed. Our last job was for the Clear Lake Classic Car Club outdoors; our album covers and sleeves were blowing across the parking lot. Yikes.
@bdp24 One of the benefits of organizing by genre is that you have storage flexibility to break the collection up by it. You can keep a favorite genre close at hand and keep things you listen to less frequently in a different part of the room. At least that's how it works for us.
Not to be a pest, but I remain curious about the rationale for organization/separation by genre. When a collection becomes "large enough", it becomes necessary to organize the LP’s in some manner, to allow finding any particular title easy. For myself (and others), simple alphabetization is all that’s necessary to achieve that objective. What purpose does "genre-fication" serve? I’m not saying my question demands an answer, I’m just curious.
Separating Classical makes perfect sense, as there is no single entity involved: composer, composition, conductor, orchestra, even record label. I understand separating out audiophile labels as well: Sheffield titles in particular don’t seem to belong mixed in with music. ;-)
Alphabetical by group name or artist last name, starting top row, left to right, top to bottom in the cabinet. For both Lps and CDs. I have a separate cabinet for those few hundred for sale I take to record shows.
Firstly by genre, then alphabetically by artist. Then there’s the LP’s I’ve been listening to the most at the time. Just need to not let the latter pile get out of control, and remember to file them back, then repeat the the process again. I also like to catalog my collection on Discogs, but still have a couple thousand records to add, but that just sorts a list of em for you so you’ve got a list, of course. Also a cool way to figure out exactly which version or pressing you’ve got too and leave notes about grading or anything else.
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