street singer Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 Well, after watching my stacks of CDs pile up higher and higher over the last couple of years, I finally decided to do something about it. I purchased a CD rack from Boltz last week and it arrived today. I've since put it together and put all my discs in and now I'm sitting here wondering... How do you all categorize your CDs and records? I assume that most do it alphabetically by artist, but I don't know...maybe some of you out there have a different system? The only thing I have decided on is that, first and foremost, they must be categorized alphabetically by artist (last name first, ofcourse). Beyond that, I'm not so sure. I could go with categorization by recording date, or maybe original release date...or simply alphabetically by title? Do you categorize by genre at all, or do you simply lump all your discs together? What about Various Artists compilations - what do you do with those? And where in the world do you put that Jazz @ Massey Hall album? Under C. Parker, or D. Gillespie, or...'The Quintet'?! Looking for opinions here. What works the best for you? This could be the most anal-retentive post of the year... Oh, and one more thing: that Boltz rack is highly recommended! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Burke Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) The only LPs that I alphabetize are jazz and rock, because I reach for them most often and I have considerably more of them than any other genre. Folk, classical, reggae, Brazillian, blues, and all of that stuff have their own place as well but it wouldn't take me as long to find any one particular title. At least not long enough to warrant alphabetizing.... Something like the 'Massey' show I would put under Parker but.......in the grand scheme of things, who gives a damn. No one's going to look for a specific title in there but you so do what comes naturally to you. Split BN doubles and other things like that usually go at the end of jazz in my scheme, regardles of who's on it, and in no particular order. But that's just me. Edited December 9, 2003 by Brandon Burke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazz Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 If there's one thing I learned from the movie High Fidelity it's how to go about organizing your records: Autobiographical "I can show you how I got from Deep Purple to The Soft Boys in 25 moves and if I want to find Landslide by Fleetwood Mac I have to remember it's in the purchased for someone in the fall of 1983 pile, but didn't give it to them for personal reasons..." Anyways, I would organize by genre subcategorized by alphabetical last name with the compilations coming last by alphebetical title. The ones with lots of players you like, pick the player that is your favorite or most listened to and use his/her last name for organization. Um, did that help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 One word categorizes my collection: CHAOS. I have been amassing LPs for decades. The jazz albums were filed alphabetically until I ran out of space several years ago. It's been chaotic ever since. And now that I am buying all these CDs, things just get worse. I had a special cabinet built when I moved to my new apartment in the late '80s. The cabinet has been chokefull of CDs for the past couple of years. Creating more chaos. The non-jazz albums (including James Brown/Beatles/Rolling Stones/Dylan/Mozart/Stockhausen and others) have been banished to the cellar where they gather dust. And please don't ask me for a copy of that rare Sonny Clark session! I've got it somewhere. But it's going to get me hours - not to mention a damaged back - to get at it. I keep telling myself to stop adding items but can't seem to be happy without that unissued Duke Ellington that just came out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 And please don't ask me for a copy of that rare Sonny Clark session! I've got it somewhere. But it's going to get me hours - not to mention a damaged back - to get at it. Hey what are you talking about? Couldn't you pleeeaze... (vive la république! by the way...) My jazz CDs are alphabetically, with a "Various" section at the end (there you find stuff like "World of Jazz", "Birth of Third Stream", the "Jazz & Cinéma" series, the Lost Sessions etc.). I try to order albums by date of recording, as good as is possible, but that often gets mixed up of course. Then I always have several piles of CDs and LPs lying around to be listened to "right now"... And piles of Tapes and Minidiscs recently filled with broadcasts from radio... so it's part chaos part order. Maybe the taxonomy tree printed on Diderot/D'Alemberts Encyclopédie could offer further help B) ubu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 Hell, I'd need about three of these (http://www.boltz.com/cd/cd1800.stm) to fit in all my CDs. Send PM to ask for my bank account... ubu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottb Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 My main categories are Jazz, Rock/Pop, Blues, International, Counrty (my Willie and Johnny discs + my wife's discs), Christmas Then I go alphabetical by artist. Within the artist's section I arrange chronologically by recording date with compilations at the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robviti Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) personally, i don't care much for the "brass and bolts" style cd racks. this past weekend i finished staining and varnishing a pine cd rack (i prefer oak, but $$$). how big is it? over 7ft tall and 4ft wide. friends say: "now you'll be able to put all your cds in that, right?" no way jose. this will go on a wall adjacent to my 7ft by 3ft rack! that should give me some "growing room," for maybe a year! anyway, i shelve my collection alphabetically by genre, artist, and album title; with special shelves for oversized items and newer acquisitions. a friend of mine does the same thing, except he arranges the titles by recording date. Edited December 9, 2003 by jazzshrink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WD45 Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 A to Z baby, A to Z. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noj Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 I have my jazz section broken into sections by the instrument of the musician leading the date. So I have a sax/flute section, a trumpet section, a trombone section, guitar, bass, piano/organ, percussion sections, etc. Then I have a compilations section, an oddities section (for harp-led dates and other weirdness). There is a fusion section for your Weather Reports and Mahavishnus. Then there is a rock, hip hop, reggae, soul/funk...within each section it is alphabetical, within each group chronological...an ongoing struggle to keep it organized... I also have a separate shelf of burned cds well into the hundreds, organized similarly. It has a special section now for BF Tests... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rooster_Ties Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) Major categories are... JazzClassicalRock/PopAnd, I have the Jazz split into roughly two subcategories:Jazz my wife will listen to without giving me a dirty look.Jazz my wife will surely go into a flying range over if I try to play it in her presence.The former category is limited to piano trios, solo piano dates, and piano trios with non-horn instruments (vibes, guitar, flute, etc...). My wife dislikes saxophone (and hates clarinet), and she doesn't care for anything but fairly lyrical trumpet or trombone playing. Oddly enough, she can stand ballads by Charles Tolliver, and Lee Morgan's more lyrical stuff (ballads, and his entire "Standards" album), and also sometimes ECM-ish recordings by Kenny Wheeler and/or Tomaz Stanko (at low volume levels). Anyway, there's about 40 or 50 discs I have that she's "OK" with me putting on, and sometimes it's just plain simpler to have them all split off from the rest of the herd, when I'm looking to put on something that she won't tell me to shut off. I've been thinking about splitting my classical down the middle too, into stuff she'd be OK listening to (pretty much anything composed before 1900, plus neo-romantic 20th Century works), and all the modern stuff I love that she doesn't care for. However, that would require having a "wife" classical section that was a whole lot bigger than just 40 or 50 discs. Still, I may do this sometime, just for the heck of it. I think she's tired of wading through hundreds and hundreds of classical discs she doesn't like, just to browse through the hundreds that she does like. Actually, most of the times that she's looking for discs to take to work with her, she asks me to pick out ten discs for her, so she gets some things she's not as familiar with. (I think we have about 1,500 classical CD's.) PS: Within Jazz, Classical and Rock/Pop, I typically sort by artist, and then try to file the discs chronologically. I have a small handful of discs that I don't file by the name on the spine, but rather the name of some major sideman - if it's the main and/or only reason for owning the disc. Edited December 9, 2003 by Rooster_Ties Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catesta Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 And where in the world do you put that Jazz @ Massey Hall album? Under C. Parker, or D. Gillespie, or...'The Quintet'?! I've got no real system. I donit have anything in alphabetical order so my Massey Hall is right after Parker and right before Gillespie, since they are side by side. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rooster_Ties Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) And where in the world do you put that Jazz @ Massey Hall album? Under C. Parker, or D. Gillespie, or...'The Quintet'?! I've got no real system. I donit have anything in alphabetical order so my Massey Hall is right after Parker and right before Gillespie, since they are side by side. B) I've always filed Massey as if it were a Parker album. The recent "New Directions" disc on Blue Note is filed under Osby (the one with Osby, Moran, Harris, and Shim all as sort of co-leaders). I find some way to pick who the functional leader is (or could have most logically been - if there's any question), and file it under that guy's name. For true "various artists" discs, I ususally put it where I feel like it at the time. If there's one or two cuts on it that I like above all the rest, I'll maybe file it under one of the artists for one of those cuts. Or all stick it at the end of the alphabet, after "Z". Edited December 9, 2003 by Rooster_Ties Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazz Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 My wife dislikes saxophone (and hates clarinet), and she doesn't care for anything but fairly lyrical trumpet or trombone playing. You know, before I liked jazz (and well into half a year of liking it), I couldn't STAND saxophone (really hated it). The two players who really turned me around were Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz. Both had beautiful beautiful tones to my rock-conditioned ears. I'm sure you have probably already tried this, but you might want to play some Mulligan/Baker stuff around her (Or standard Getz fare like Girl From Ipanema) and see how she reacts... If you've already tried something like that then I apologize for my unwanted advice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) Chaos rules at casa Armstrong/Haggerty (or is that Haggerty/Armstrong---anyway my wife has not taken my name and I don't care.) I have some stuff all together by artist, but not much. Most of it is just strewn around the shelves and positions are changed. Helps me listen more randomly or makes me work for continuity which is a good thing. Edited December 9, 2003 by jazzbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danasgoodstuff Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 I would catagorize my music collection as really excellent, obviously compiled by a man of exquisite tatste if not wealth... Seriously, the LPs are all together, alphabetical by artist, chronilogical within artist, except where I split the studio and live (Charlie Parker may be the only one I do this way, Jazz @ Massey Hall is Live Parker on my shelves), and various artists after Z. The LPs are on a mix of home built and store bought wooden bookshelves around the perimeter of my music room (the former garage, refinished at great expense). Conversely, the CDs are broken into catagories and scattered around the room on various storage devices according to the available space; kinda the way we do things at the library... Jazz CDs are on the aforementioned bookshelves, pop/rock on one side of a spinner, R&B on the other side, blues on a wood rack on the wall, C&W in a wire rack standing on the floor, etc. Mosaics have a special space in the entertainment center housing my stereo equipment, as do unsorted 45s, James Brown CDs, and other odds and ends. As I run out of space I find myself inventing catagories like Things From Memphis (Stax & Hi) and Art Pepper CDs which get their own wood crates. I've got neat little drawers for K-7s but haven't finished putting them away. And, of course, lots of piles of stuff 'to listen to' sitting on the floor and on top of file cabinets, etc. And my wife calls it "a mess"!?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AfricaBrass Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 A to Z baby, A to Z. I've always had my music categorized and alphabetized. I followed your standard record store categorization scheme. Lately, I realized that I'm tired of putting music into categories. I have so much music that could fit in multiple categories. I figure music is music. I'm going to go A-Z. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe G Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 Alphabetical by artist (or composer if it's classical), and multiple releases by a single artist are in chronological order. However, there's an ever growing random stack (actually 3 stacks) sitting next to my cd player... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 Things I like / Things I don't like quite so much anymore. Most of the jazz is together and, at one point, was close to being in alphabetical order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeBop Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 My Massey Hall is filed under "C", for Charlie Chan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 I categorise by record label. Within the record label alphabetical order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 My Massey Hall is filed under "C", for Charlie Chan. C for Charlie or C for Chan? ubu (mine's with the other Parker stuff, by the way. Why not get seven of it, one for Bird, one for Diz, Bud, Mingus and Max, then one for Q as in Quintet, and one for Chan?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danasgoodstuff Posted December 9, 2003 Report Share Posted December 9, 2003 I knew someone once who did them by record label and in catalog # order! But then I knew a guy once who carried around photo's of his record collection to show off like they were his kids... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted December 10, 2003 Report Share Posted December 10, 2003 I have the standard A to Z by artist for jazz, but gave up on chronology. Hell, if you find the artist you should be able to find which disc you want, right? Well, so far... My C/W, Rock, Classical and New Wave sections are just thrown together. That covers the CDs... How do I organize my LPs? I don't. Most recently played is to the right; most neglected to the left. The search I abhor in CDs I love in vinyl. Go figure... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quincy Posted December 10, 2003 Report Share Posted December 10, 2003 I follow the JazzMoose method for CDs. I still make attempts at chronological, though depending on how you do that (release date or session date?) one can spend too much time wondering where the hell to file Directions. LPs are a mess determined by space and furniture. A few (uh...12?) years ago I filed all of my albums by mood or genre - it made sense while under the influence at the time. So part of about 5 1/2 feet of vinyl wedged into an Arts & Craft cubbyhole follows that method, as punk-alternative heads into country-reggae; and then abruptly Dylan,Young and The Who/related are tacked on as this is prime real estate. A LP cabinet bought at an antique store holds the (non-Who) British Invasion, and then a 6 foot crate in another room holds the lesser loved albums. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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