Organizing records combines two of my favorite activities: listening to music and being fastidious. The system I'm currently using to sort/find records is to divide the discs by category, and then to alphabetize by band name with multiple LP's by a single band in order by release date. By sorting my records this way, I find that I can typically find things very quickly. Lena wants everything organized alphabetically with no reference to genre, but I find that's just not how I listen to music or decide on what to listen. I like to browse.
Here are my categories:
If you can't read my Microsoft Paint scribbling, that's:
Folk, Irish Folk, Comedy, Beatles etc., Springsteen, 7" and 10", Local CD's
Country and Western, Curiosities, Jazz, Crooners, Blues, General Rock and Pop
General Rock and Pop (cont.)
There are problems with this system. One is that it's not always easy to divide by genre, especially when a band can span genres. For instance, most of the Byrds output probably belongs in "General Rock and Pop", but where do I put "Sweetheart of the Rodeo"? It's a relatively straight country album played predominately by Nashville session players. I could create a separate Byrds category, as I've done with The Beatles and Bruce Springsteen, but those are exceptions to the system which only serve to make the general rules less useful.
The Springsteen exception, which only exists due to some sentimentality about my favorite musician from middle school, is going to end with the current reorganization, but I'm split on The Beatles. As Jason Bourgeois asks on the forthcoming Bourgeois Heroes EP, "Is Wings filed under 'McCartney' or 'W'?" With "Beatles, etc." as a category, there's an easy answer: Wings and McCartney are under Beatles. I'm not into McCartney enough that I want to be looking for him as a solo performer, even if I have a solo album of his. My mind will be thinking, "Beatles". For this reason, I have a bad tendency to break the system while filing solo albums released by band members of more recognizable bands- Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark get put with the Byrds, the Ginger Baker Air Force with Cream…it's all a mess. But ultimately, if a filing system allows one reliably to find what one is looking for, it works, right?
What is the better system? What do you do? Why do you do it?
-Ryan
p.s. Lena got me a bunch of these record labels from a local record store. I haven't yet labeled them with my own categories, but will probably do so once I settle on a system which serves both my desire to find things quickly and my need for coherence in such a system.
i liked reading this post. It reminds me of the livejournal days.
^ That is almost illegible, sorry. It says, "I liked reading this post. It reminds me of the livejournal days.