Where do YOU keep your "related artists"?

Easiest first, I file Page/Plant as a separate entity (although, it happens to immediately follow Page, Jimmy, in my shelves).

I'd group Finn & Finn Brothers together, Neil Finn on his own as separate, then any other side groups/collabs under each of their own names.

Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam is a true tricky one. I could see this going under each name, or all under Cat Stevens.

One of my tricky ones is Alice Cooper. I tend to group the band and solo albums together, even though I never feel great about it, using the mix of solo and band on the GH albums as justification. The times when I've broken them up, I feel stupid (and pedantic) for doing that, too!

 

Or you could shift to a strict birth name system and put him under G, Iggy under O, Little Richard under P, etc.

 

Intriguing thought. Would be odd seeing Bob Dylan right next to ZZ Top, though.

 

My most prominent genre is classic British prog ...
so I keep all those related CDs together in chronological order.

Since most of these acts worked with each other on some level at some time,
it makes the overall connection make sense to my brain.

(example bands: The Nice, King Crimson, ELP, Yes, VDGG, Genesis, UK, Asia)

 

Genre..primarily because when that certain mood hits(which can last up to a month) a lot of one album wonders may get forgotten.
So if I get into a Byrdsian bag, I don't want to skip say, the Dillard and Clark option.

 

Pink Floyd under the P
Syd Barrett under the B
Dave under the G
Rick Wright under the W
Rog in the trash

 

I keep related artists filed in with the band they are most associated with, so Pete Townshend's LPs are in with The Who. Very rare exceptions are when solo artists are as well known or more well known for their solo output (i.e. Ozzy Osbourne is filed separately from Black Sabbath), if the artist's output spanned multiple bands, or when the album is more appropriately filed in a separate section (i.e. Keith Emerson's soundtracks are in my Soundtrack section rather than with Emerson Lake and Palmer).

That said, to my own surprise, I found that I sometimes file CDs differently than vinyl, I think simply because I don't use CD dividers like I do with my vinyl collection to make logical sense of the divisions.

 

Alphabetic to the point of absurdity. Young Rascals filed under Y, Rascals filed under R. Same for Small Faces & Faces. Paul is under M, John is under L, Wings is under W (unless it's Paul McCartney & Wings, which is under M). Classical is filed by conductor or artist, whoever had the recording contract.

 

James Bond film scores are all grouped together under "B", arranged chronologically right to left, with compilations at the end.

 

I go with the association approach, solo artists with their bands where appropriate. Related bands nearby.

I separate by format... vinyl in one location, CD's in another, SACD/DVD-Audio in another, etc...

the main thing is, I know exactly where everything is located.

 

One thing I do is with my hip-hop CDs I will file alphabetically by first name. it was too weird filing Ice Cube under "C" and Snoop Dogg under "D", it works pretty well by first name though.

 

With a small number of obvious exceptions like keeping the Wings albums under McC, strictly alphabetical.

One other thing is that folks like DJ Shadow and DJ Spooky are under SH and SP respectively.

 

i have a very idiosyncratic filing system but would keep related artists together.i do group my jazz vinyl together than by favorites......my rock artists sort of start by favorites but quickly de-evolved into just putting things where ever.

 

If I were running a store, I'd keep solo efforts with their related groups, but I'm not.

 

This for me, simple and reliable and things are easy to find. If I started sorting related items together I'd never remember where things are. Sorting by genre would be even worse - it's just too hard to decide for some artists and I feel those labels are often deceiving anyway. I'm of the "only two kinds of music, good and bad" school and I like to think my collection doesn't include enough bad ones to file them separately, although doing so might make for a fun afternoon...

 

Yep, I'll do that with "DJ" as well, just treat it like a "The" otherwise it gets confusing I find.

 

Usually alphabetical, though I'll usually throw in one-off side-project albums with the main artist. Like I just filed the Tweedy album with Wilco.

 

I don't separate out by genre (although I do keep an extensive and idiosyncratic list of genre tags in iTunes!) in terms of popular music forms, but I do keep a few things to the side. So it's like:

Single-artist albums, alphabetical by artist name -- this is like 85% of the collection right here
Compilations, alphabetical by title
Spoken word/standup comedy -- alphabetical by artist (compilations alpha by title at end)
Classical music, single composer -- alphabetical by composer
Classical music, multiple composers -- alphabetical by performer or conductor, as applicable
(One of these days, I'm probably going to move to a chronological breakdown in my classical stuff, but since the vast majority of it is 20th century composers, it's not a pressing need)
Soundtracks, alphabetical by title
And finally, the ethnographic folk/world music section is my wife's domain and is filed in her own idiosyncratic geographical system that I don't really get so I let her file those

 

The only ones who are kept separate are The Beatles who are followed by solo Beatles...from the Tony Sheridan days to the latest McCartney album, they are in one long chronological "thing" with all bootlegs sitting in place accordingly. This goes for my standard LP's and CD's. The 180g Beatle LP's are kept in their own cabinet.

All other artists are arranged in chronological order whether they are bands or solo artists from specific bands. There is, however, seperate shelf space for CD boxed sets.

 

I am trying to be more alphabetical but for solos that were never really that popular on their own I tend to group

Fleetwood Mac members are all together.
Lou reed and VU are separated.

This is not a hard rule so I have to check both places thus I am tending to move towards alpha.


I do have genres and am trying to stick to a decision on what artists go where. I like my classic rock different from alternative rock. I have artists 1990 and newer separate. Jazz seperate.

 

Genre > Alpha > Date, although for rock i go Rock > Decade 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000+ > Alpha, Date. I like the decade thing because it helps me browse better when i'm in the mood for an era but can't think of anything. Band gets filed into the decade in which they started.

 

I keep them separate as they intended.

 

My collection is mainly ordered alphabetically, and in case there are more albums by the same artist, they are ordered chronologically.

So there are some exceptions:
"Mudcrutch" is filed under P for Petty, Tom. Right in between "Highway Companion" and "Mojo".
"Original Soundtracks, Vol.1" by Passengers is filed under U for U2, right in between "Zooropa" and "Pop".
"Electric Arguments" by the Fireman is filed under M with the McCartney, Paul albums.

However, "Retail Therapy" by T.D.F. is not filed with the other Eric Clapton albums but under T instead, and you won't find Latin Playboys albums filed with the Los Lobos albums either.

 

Forgot to mention in my OP...
I keep Christams, Classical, OST, Compilations etc. in Alphabetical order also, but they are all seperated into their own groups, after the other LPs, but still in Alpha order.

I keep all my artists in Alpha and Chronological order.
Pink Floyd is under "P", and Roger Waters is under "W".


How about something like Lynyrd Skynyrd? Its not a real name, so do you file it under "L" or "S"?

 

Alphabetical with one exception - I keep my Garfunkel solos next to my Simon & Garfunkel albums.