Needles & Grooves

I recently put together a spreadsheet doing this. Sometimes it was difficult to find exact dates for older albums. Best you can find is the month it came out, if that.

I've considered doing that with my jazz records. One issue you may run into are the records that were shelved for years and then release years or decades later. Same with recently-released live albums from concerts that happened ages ago.

@bettim84 gonna go with original source date

I have too many records to do this. If I was drunk and wanted to listen to a specific record it take a lot of digging to figure out where it was on my shelf.

@TenderLovingKiller® but think of all the cool stuff you would rediscover while searching for that one

I mean, if you are considering it, then you may as well go for it. Personally I have a very good memory for chronological stuff, which is why I organize my collection in a rough chronological order, with the artists clumped together by genre/style. For example, I have a cube with 70s art rock/punk; another cube that 80-90s US grunge/indie, and another with 90s-00s UK artists. And so on.

I came upon that system when I rocked dual turntables and fooled around with "DJ sets." It was easier for me to find the next tune if similar-sounding artists were close to each other. I've switched back to a single TT years ago but it's still the system I use. Alphabetical doesn't work for me because I would straight up forget about albums that have a skinny spine.

Tldr: DO IT!

@feesrevenge for me, that would not outweigh the frustration and anxiety that would arise when I couldn’t find what I was looking for when I was looking for it. I have them arranged alphabetically by artist (per Discogs) then by release date within each artists discography. If I want something random I can just “shake” my Discogs app and see what pops up.

Do I need to come over and bop you on the head?

I think that's an awesome idea.

That feels like a nightmare to actually find an album you want to play as cool as it might be conceptually.

@waruv Then I can play how long can I deal with this before changing back! Haha

It's really hard. For example, Robert Johnson recorded in the 30s but his album didn't come out until the early 60s. What about source dates? Well, some artists will work on a song for one year, another the next, and so on, then drop an album that may contain a decade of work on it. You'll find yourself making constant judgment calls, so inconsistency is going to creep in.

@nolalady I could go for a visit sans the bop on the head. Haha

Artist -> then release date

I second @Melt Face Molly Drop, I do artist then release date. Helps particularly when I have a large artist disco that spans over different "eras" (Dead, Phish, Miles, Zappa, Beatles).

Not gonna lie, I won't stack records for even a few minutes at a time because of this scene.