How do you Organize!

TAYREL713

TAYREL713

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May 22, 2019
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Cleveland, Ohio
Not 100% sure this fits here but it seems more specific than dropping it in MIsc. How do you organize your collection. I mean shelves, to alphabetical by title or group. Put it all out there. I currently have one 4x4 Kallax in this grey/green color IKEA no longer seems to offer with LPs organized by album title, 45s just tucked to the side along with 12 inch singles, the random 10 inch and picture discs also tucked off to the side.
 
Alphabetical by artist. I started off wanting to go chronological by recording date because I wanted to take a trip through musical history, but that went to crap really fast because of compilations, re-releases, lack of information, and it took me a while to find anything when I looked specifically for it. Then I alpha’d using artist last name and band name, but I got kind of irritated by that because it wasn’t intuitive of me to think of (for example) Lana Del Rey as being in the D’s. I then realized Discogs orders your collection by a kind of alpha system, so I just put them in the order Discogs has my collection in. The consistency has made it a lot easier for me to locate stuff quickly.
 
Pretty much everything is sorted alphabetically with some loose groupings by genre. I have a 4x4 Kallax about half is non hip-hop & most of the other cubes are hip-hop. 2 of the other cubes are VMP subs & exclusives and one is holiday music & comedy records. I also have a 2x2 kallax with signed albums, 10's, 7's and possible albums to PIF or sell/trade.
Then in my listening area I have a 2x4 kallax with mostly recent grabs. One cube is new unopened albums, 2 cubes are frequently spun hip-hop, 1 is frequently spun non hip-hop, 1 of recent VMP stuff, and a last cube of unsorted stuff I've recently listened to that needs to be sorted in to other areas. It's kind of a messy system but it works for me.
 
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My records are organized chronologically, by original release date. I like having some historical context to my listening and this approach makes it easy. Posthumous compilations are filed under the final year represented on the comp. The albums within each year aren’t organized by month or anything like that, mainly because it would be too tedious to keep up with.
 
4 bins and a long shelf
bins are:
1 Jazz
2 Blues and Soul
3 World music
4 Hip Hop and Rap + last arrival (no more than 10 in there)
The long bottom shelf has all the rest, Rock, Indie, Pop, etc... with Soundtracks by themselves at the end
Each individual section is organised alphabetically
 
I have sections for:
African
African compilations
Latin
Jazz
Rock (includes country and blues)
Rap
Soul
Reggae
And two special ones for Poly-Rythmo albums and 45s

All are sorted alphabetically on artist except Poly-Rythmo, which is chronological, and African and Latin compilations, which are sorted by country alphabetically. My one anomaly is that Van Morrison is under V for reasons I no longer remember.
 
Right now my collection is organized by "I'm pretty sure that record is...." but I'm going to do alphabetical. My CD collection is smaller and newer so I'm staring that out right instead of waiting until I have like 500 records to decide I'd better organize...
 
Same as my books, loosely. They are grouped by artist and then ordered very subjectively by maybe genre, style, age, or links between artists. My collection is relatively small so I'm not sure I can keep it up forever, but I like having the feeling that the whole collection is sorted like a gradient of all those factors where every album is adjacent to the next closest thing, I can still easily tell where everything is so it must be working.
 
I had everything alphabetically by artists and decided to re-order by genres (or groups of genres when I don't have enough), and alphabetically (by artist) then chronologically (recording date) in each genre. And then order the genres chronologically.

So it starts with trad/folk, up to EDM. Some things got mixed up when an artist spans multiple genres (e.g. Beastie Boys) so I put them in the main, most well-known-for genre. I also created subs for punk/hardcore by country as that was too much otherwise, and I'm still confused about soundtracks (what about Bohemian Rhapsody, Woodstock and Tommy!?). I also have box-sets stored separately.

But it's been fun and probably a never-ending work in progress (and I now need the same for 7" and CDs, and decide what do to with 10") :)
 
Loving this thread - I am realising I'm not neurotic and weird about this.

Right now only have about 160 records so not too hard to organise. But all alphabetical based on:
  • 1 shelf just Hip-Hop & beats (aka Erykah Badu, Sza etc)
  • 3 shelves everything else
I am looking forward being able to organise by Rock, Indie, Britpop, 80s and more... MUST HAVE ALL THE VINYL
 
Okay get ready for this. This breakdown only means something to me. I have 2 4x4 Kallax on opposite sides of the room, using 4 cubes for cds right now.
5 cubes for Bowie stuff (just shifted to get that 5 cube - bothers me its not all on one row)
Alternative/Indie is my biggest section (almost 6 full cubes now)
Rock
Jazz/Blues
Soul/R&B/HipHop
Country/Folk/Acoustic
Classical/Modern Classical/Ambient
British (broke it out from Alternative)
Southern Cross (Aus/NZ) also broke out of Alternative
Kosmiche/Prog

Alphabetical by artist last name and then be chronological. If I have a lot (Bowie, Dylan) it is by studio albums, then live, then compilations (unless the compilation is time specific like some of the Dylan bootleg series and then its files by date with the regular studio albums).
 
I have 2 4x2 Kallax at home. All are organized alphabetically, with solo artists alphabetized by first name.

Top 8 cubes are rock.
2 bottom cubes for jazz
1 cube for world music (African, reggae, etc..)
4 cubes for r&b, funk, rap, soul
1 cube for record supplies
 
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