Alphabetize... by Last Name or First?

I imagine filing simply by chronological order as to when you purchased would basically just drive you mad.

 

argh
Dewy Decimal System=numbers relating to subjects or genre. I hate when I haven't had enough coffee, as I am sure I learned about that in Jr. high school.
I was referring to an early post where it was mentioned and I took that as face value meaning alphabetically by first letter of group name and first letter of last name for actual names of people.
Since I am having a hard time figuring out what to do with Alice Cooper, Jethro Tull and Elias Hulk now I think I will actually adopt this system,

all I have to do is assign number groups to the different genres of music. Color coding the shelves to help find the sections will help, ..then assign numbers to each lp according to ...date of release?.. Alphabetical?...colored number tags on the spine maybe?
Oh well, who needs spring cleaning, I have cataloging to do...

 

iTunes now allows you in the tags to have the artist name be John Lennon, and Sort Artist as Lennon, John. But I just don't feel like making all those updates. it slightly bugs me that my digital collection sorts by first name , but not badly enough to update all those tags.

 

Bebe Buell under "B"
Elliot Easton under "E"

 

Last name unless it's a band name, then it's by the first name.

It was only in the last few months I realized there is no Danny Wilson in the '80s band, Danny Wilson. Subsequently, those records took a trip from W to D.

This can get confusing. Brinsley Schwarz is found inh B because that's the name of the band. If I had a solo record by the British guitarist Brinsley Schwarz, while it should go under S, I'd still probably file it under B, just to keep everything together.

 

P - The Alan Parsons Project/I Robot - for Parsons, not for Project.

S - The Stooges/Fun House (1970)
S - Iggy And The Stooges/Raw Power (1973) - See Huey Lewis, below.

P - Iggy Pop/The Idiot (1977) - In this case, if there is a very discernible split between band and new solo career, under most circumstances the solo efforts get filed under surname, or "P". Exception in my collection is Paul Simon and Simon and Garfunkel, because they're very close to each other physically in the collection anyway. Garfunkel's solo works go under "G" though.

M - The Wailers/Catch A Fire (1973)
M - Bob Marley And The Wailers/Natty Dread (1974) - See below.

L - Huey Lewis And The News/Sports - Often bands start out as a name such as "The Turds of Misery". Then a prominent figure in the band, a bandleader or lead singer, will take center stage, "Frank Freep and the Turds of Misery". Then they might drop the misery bit and become "Frank Freep and the Turds". Pretty soon, it's just "Frank Freep". In all of these cases, I'd file under F for Freep, as Freep is the assumed surname. So all versions of Huey and his band get filed under "L".

A - Alice Cooper/Billion Dollar Babies (1973) [as band name]
A - Alice Cooper/Welcome To My Nightmare (1975) [as solo name] - This instance falls under the Huey Lewis rule, barely. The band was named "Alice Cooper", then the bandleader assumed that persona. Filed under... Wait. I guess I need to move these from "A" to "C", don't I? LOL

H - The Jimmy Hendrix Experience/Are You Experienced - the Huey Lewis rule

B - Band of Gypsys/Band of Gypsys - I assume that "Band of" is part of the name, that they aren't literally gypsies in a band.

M - Paul McCartney/Ram (1971)
M - Paul McCartney & Wings/Band On The Run (1973)
M - Wings/Venus And Mars (1975) - As in Huey Lewis, I file under the bandleader. Unusual to this circumstance is that usually it will evolve as band - bandleader + band, then bandleader alone. Ex, "The Crickets", "Buddy Holly & The Crickets", "Buddy Holly". In this case, "Wings" is credited as a group much later, rather than earlier in the discography. No matter, I file them together under bandleader.

M, M, L. Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía/Friday Night In San Francisco [three artists, and two have prepositions] I drop the prepositions.

Xmas Various Artists/A Christmas Gift for You from Phillies Records [produced by Phil Spector] - I have a special category for Xmas, else V for Various.

 

This right here. I must credit my elementary school teachers for hard wiring the DDS in my brain.

I just noticed recently in my collection that I have Steely Dan filed in the "D's."

 

What about John Cougar Mellencamp?

 

I file Echo and the Bunnymen under "E" but always think of them as "The Bunnymen"

Similarly Siouxsie and the Banshees under "S" b ut I refer to them as "The Banshees"

Ian Dury and the Blockheads go in "D" but I think of them as "Ian Dury"

Elvis Costello and the Attractions go in "C" but I always think of "Elvis"...

Nothing like consistency is it?

 

All under M.

 

I keep that one under the sink.

 

Actually it sounds like you follow the same rules that I do.

 

Expanding this thread: Does anyone take this any further and organize by genre, audiophile pressings, reissues, or originals?

I have mine organized by pop/rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop, and boxed sets...all alphabetized dewey decimal style. If I have doubles of an album then originals are on the left, and reissues are on the right.

 

Send it to me instead. I love The The and Matt Johnson!

 

If he'd had his way, there'd have never been a "John Cougar". M.

 

Those nome de plummes are the ones that always make me scratch my head. I had one friend who filed them under "Morganfield" and "Burnet."

 

There are supersets to which the rules that I use apply.

Classic Rock/Pop/Folk, which is the main collection.
Classical
Country
Polka (my dad is a polka nut, and I've amassed quite a collection in doing vinyl transfers to build his CD collection)
Bluegrass/Hillbilly
Jazz/Dixieland
Christmas
Big Band/Crooner

Most crossover artists end up in the main collection, i.e. Johnny Cash, Dave Brubeck, Al Hirt, Willie Nelson.

There's probably 3000 records in the main collection, the next largest is Polka, probably 400 of those, followed by nearly equal amounts of most of the rest, amounting to around 200-300 or so each. I lucked out years ago and came upon a rummage sale with boxes of mint Musical Hertiage Society classical discs. I bought the whole works for $50.

 

I like playing with the sort feature on Music Collector, so that in the "Ms" it'll read: Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp, and John Mellencamp, and, also, Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney and Wings, Wings, and The Firemen. As far as sorting, it's mostly the same, except I keep The Firemen in the "Fs".

 

I just file everything under "M" and be done with it.

 

I have one melting pot of artists (alphabetically organized from A-Z) in my cd cabinets. Only composers of classical music and compilations of different genres (from reggae to X-mas albums) are meeting my law of apartheid

 

Nope. Easier to just be alphabetical. The only thing I sort out are classical and I do have a separate section for SACD, but that's mainly because I also have one for DVDA, though the odd sized packaging sort of mandates segregation for DVDA, whereas it doesn't for SACD.

 

For my CD collection I use the last name or first letter of the band system,
but on my NAS I alpahbetize strictly by the first letter - by accident because when I began downloading files this was of course the way they appeared on the hard disc.

 

I still can't get over Seederman with all the "T" artists. Wouldn't that be about a third or quarter of his collection? I just can't envision my "T" section trumping the "B" and "S" ones.

 

And where does he file The Pink Floyd, or The Can?

Another question – what about Dr. John (not a real "Dr."): D, J, or R? Professor Longhair? Sir Paul McCartney?

 

I was just thinking last night if I wanted to go through the effort of moving Alice Cooper from "C" to "A". I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks of these things.

Now do I put Miles Davis under "M" or "D"? "Davis" is his last name, but everyone I know calls him "Miles".