I was having a conversation about ordering your CD collection last night & all the posible solutions. But, as appears to be a problem for some people to understand the importance of ordering your music, let me explain…
You have 2 CDs. If you CD you pick up is not the CD you are looking for, the chances are, it will be the next one.
Now imagine you have over 100 CDs… GET IT?!
OK, back to ordering. There’s many ways to order your collection & so you need to find the format which suits you. So here’s a few to think about…
- Alphabetical
- Ahh yes, trusty alphabetical. Simple & pure. Surely this favourite will never let us down?
- Chronological
- Order by the release date of each item. Maybe a bit tricky?
- Colour Coded
- For the more artistic approach, create a rainbow effect by sorting your CDs by the spine colour. Would have worked when back when I studied the CDs whilst listening, but not now. Although, I may attempt this one day.
- Genre
- If you want to pick your music by mood rather than artist, the iTunes can help a lot with this one. Can be problem when you can’t decide what flavour your obscure artists are.
- Network
- Like a family tree, group your CDs by who knows who or who has been in what band or who featured on that single? This could work if you work for maybe… NME.
- Autobiographically
- For the true geek! As demonstrated by Rob (John Cusack) in High Fidelity. CDs in order of when you acquired them… whoa!
- Length
- Just thrown this in at the end really. Napalm Death at the front, Godspeed You Black Emperor at the back maybe? Could work if you know how much time you have… …no?
Currently I’m running a merged format. It’s alphabetical & then each artist is chronological, which works for me. A problem I am having though is artist names. Jeff Buckley is under ‘B’. Right? Well that’s how I’ve always done it. But now where does Ben Folds Five fit in? It’s the guy’s name, but he’s turned it into a band name. Busta Rhymes, he’s not going under ‘R’ is he? What about Howie B?
iTunes gets round this problem by simply ordering artists by the first letters of the name, so Elliott Smith under ‘E’. Maybe I’ll have to come round to that method. But then what about compilations or [spits in disgust] soundtracks?
Funny you should write about this! I was just discussing your plans to order your collection by colour the other day. Something I saw at MetaFilter reminded me – http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/37024 – a guy persuaded the Adobe Bookshop in San Fransisco to allow him to order their books by colour!
While out shopping on Saturday in Purves & Purves, I saw a present that might interest you – http://www.suck.uk.com/product-design.htm
As for how to file using your method above, I adhere to a strict rule of using last names if the artist has a ‘proper’ name – ie Ben Folds Five would be filed under B as it’s a band name, but Busta Rhymes would go under ‘R’. Just my 2 cents!
That Adobe book store is a beautiful thing.
I take it you mean the A-Z CD Dividers at Suck UK? http://www.suck.uk.com/azcd.htm I tell ya what… I love the idea of lighting up all my CDs like that. http://www.suck.uk.com/cdshelf.htm