Organising records in the order in which they were released is known as The "John Peel" method. Peel, (now deceased) record collector and BBC Radio One DJ of over 4 decades, catalogued, 26,000 LPs and 40,000 7" Singles in order of their release. I like it. Works for me! It really expands ones knowledge.... Cheers Peelie!
You gotta remember when they were released if you wanna find stuff mind, that's a lot easier when you're a radio DJ who gets sent the music when it's released.
I just got into collecting about a year ago. The main thing that I collect is film soundtracks, especially horror films. Of the 84 albums I do own, 69 of them are soundtracks, and I organize them by the release date of the movie that they're from. My collection starts with The Bride of Frankenstein, released in 1935, to Priscilla, released in 2023. As for non-soundtrack albums, I organize those by artist.
The best thing to do IMO , is to copy the lp Record title into a cataloger database or something and the assign an incremental ID to each record, and store the records in ID order, and use Free db or dis cogs or something to fill in the missing data. in that way when its complete you can search by any category
Alphabetical by artist name, but in release date order in that artist section. When I have like 500+ records (have 320 now) and room it’ll be by genre/alphabetical by artist, release date earliest to newest in that genre section.
See I’m weird. I organise my records by artist name alphabetically (excluding my big boxsets) but I organise my dvds by mood/vibe. So like I keep the abyss, war of the worlds, battleship and Independence Day together and stuff like Harry Potter and pirates of the Caribbean together. I guess it’s kinda genrery but it’s actually how they make me feel.
Since I collect electronic music, therefore I found usefull to have them organized by genre in step one, and then by label. This also means ofc, that labels can be across different genres as well. A DJ should limit oneself with genres, so my collection consist of mainly 4 electronic music genres, and few pieces are other genres, but those are on one separate shelf. Similar to what Billy Mueller wrote, I use discogs, as many of us I believe, and I also have for further evidence an excel file with deep analytic data like specific genre within genre (e.g. house >> melodic house), some notes for every track about the trrack itself (by heart to have closer details), bpm, key, energy level, to be able to prepare records for a mixed set. Doing all this on the fly without a helpfull analysis might work up to a certain part of the collection (mostly records and tracks that you know the best), but with hundreds of records and currently in my case with thousands of tracks you are not fast enough to pick a track, find the record, match bpm, ... and let it play within roughly 3-4 minutes.
I have around about 2000 dance music records for mixing and they are so much harder to organise well compared to other styles of music, I tend to find by label generally works best but it’s far from perfect. This method will keep most of your favourite artists and sub genres together but you will always have some stuff that just feels completely in the wrong place because the artist did a few tracks for a completely different label. Also you have to decide which is more important for classification of a record, who made it or who made the remix you actually want to play, and if you want to play various mixes by different artists from that record…. It’s an endless series of branching paths with no right answers. You just don’t get this with your average pop or rock record. I did find the video interesting but it didn’t really help me find any solutions to how to deal with a situation like this well
Interesting video. For me by genre, then alphabetically by artist surname / band name. For an artist like Bowie with 25+ albums, by release date. Still have to spend ages looking for some records as they're stored in several locations round the house.
right now mine are in 5 sections: all the Rap / Hip Hop in one crate... all the christmas albums in a record case so I can bring it downstairs for the holidays to play on the turnable in the living room... all The Beatles and Beatles solo projects and, compilation albums of people doing Beatles songs in one shelving unit... all the Movie and TV Soundtracks and other various artists compilations in another section at the end... and then everything else alphabetically by last name of artist... but I also have subsections which combine groups and bands by common singers or guitarists... for example I have all the Soundgarden, AudioSlave, Temple of the Dog in the C section with Chris Cornell... the Mad Season record with Layne Staley singing and Jerry Cantrell's solo albums are all under "A" with Alice In Chains... all the Sammy Hagar, Montrose, David Lee Roth in the V section with Van Halen... all the Ozzy albums with Black Sabbath, all A Perfect Circle and Puscifer albums together in the T section with Tool because they have the same singer... all the Deep Purple and Rainbow albums under D with Deep Purple because they have the same guitarist... the Traffic and Blind Faith albums under W with Steve Winwood's solo albums.... and any albums Prince played, produced and/or sang on, credited or not, are in the Prince section
Alphabetised Chronology for me, firstly by artist (group or surname), then in chronological order within the artist and finally in alphabetical order by album name if multiple releases within a year (it’s a rarity but it happens sometimes) I’ve just got round to making a spreadsheet containing all the information (artist, album, genre, release date, label, cat no, format (lp, ep, single), record size, rpm, media condition, sleeve condition, last cleaned date and a general comments section) Taken an age to document but it makes organising so much easier, also knowing what I have and able to pick what I want to play from a list then flick through to find it.
I just thought of a new way you did not mention just by listening to this video - organize by Discogs... when you enter all your albums into Discogs to keep track of them, organize them in the order that Discogs does - the problem I see with this is sometimes Prince was "Prince", sometimes he was "the symbol", sometimes he was "The Artist..." - of course you can fix this by having a Prince section LOL...
I have a modest collection of around 1200 that are organized as a set I would play in a live setting. Genre specific, mostly chronological that starts with Pub Rock and ends with Classical. It gets tough connecting the dots but for example, I go from prog rock, to krautrock to ambient to electro to hip hop... It works for me and I am constantly shuffling and searching for the perfect order which keeps me in tune with my collection. Some things are nonsensical as I separate early Kinks from 70s Kinks but have the Who altogether. I never get tired at going through stacks and it helps when I can't find the time to shop.
If you have a lot ( like 1,000 +) and have no organization, I would Alphabetical order, then number each one with some sort of number tab That sticks out. Create a digital list, with every name(albums or artist )and give them a number that matches the number tabs. I guess the newer records would just fall in alphabetical order, and numbered as they come in.
I’ve seen people say that they organize their collections by the following: Artist (usually Last name) - Release order - Record Company (yes, some do this one) and finally year of release.
Currently mine are in the controlled chaos method. Only because I only have about 100 records (give or take) so not too difficult to find what I’m looking for. Right now I’m adding all my albums to my Discogs collection, then I’ll start ordering them chronologically
I organize them according to the record company. All Capitol Records in one bin, all Columbia Records in another bin, all Warner Brothers records go in another bin and so on. I also put all my imports and reissues in one bin and all of my picture discs go in another. It's easy to find them that way!!! ✌️
I collect now for 50 years [1972-now] of CONNIE FRANCIS. They are still in boxes, but i intend to get the 4x4 KALLAX shelve from IKEA GREECE. I will organize them in COUNTRY, YEAR[CAT NO.] Same goes for Reel,78's,45,EP's etc. I will also get dividers [with the countries starting with AMERICA to YUGOSLAVIA.
I resurrected my collection in 2018 having been in storage for a long time at my parents house. I have these in alphabetical by artist then chronological by release order. The couple hundred I have bought since are in a bit of a chaos order, kinda sorta order I bought them. One thing else to consider is if stored in a kallax type unit, do you go right to left or left to right with your order? Logically you'd go left to right BUT if you are used to crates you'd have A's at front and Z's at the back, which if turned to the side would be right to left. First world problems 😅
Genre/Alphabetical/Chronological for titles with an artist. Various artists are organized by label and then chronological. Soundtracks are by year and then alphabetical.
I have two Rock and Roll shelves little over 5ft.each... then Blue and Jazz on a 5" and alternative on a 5" and then 6 ft. of country total on 3 shelves then movie sound tracks and classical on a 2 ft. Then Top Shelve Is New Stuff that I have no room for all mixed up stuff.
I have a fairly moderate collection currently (~250 albums, ~120 singles) and I like to organize alphabetically. I put various artist compilations at the start of my collection, think Nuggets style garage stuff.
Alphabetise by last name and band name. Soundtracks (only have 3 out of a collection of around 350 records) go under V for various artists, unless it’s one artist that does the soundtrack, then under the artist name. After that, or further on, the artist and bands are then organised in chronological order of when the albums were released.
For me it’s kinda hodgepodge. Everything is sorted by artist name, then by chronological release of the artist’s album. BUT, I have different sections for records - some by reissue label, new (90s - present), old (80s and back), then new/old audiophile pressings are together, jazz has its own section, prized original pressings have their own section, etc. Typing it out makes it seem so random, but it seems really prefect to me.
I think I’m going to go by band and genre. Bands in alphabetical and if I don’t have enough of a band for there own section I’ll put with another band of the same vibe
Another method would be to organise by record label. Certain labels sound better than others and some enthusiasts revolve their collections around acquiring these. Probably more prominent in classical music collectors than artist/bands but it is still a viable option.
My friend organizes by record label, chronologically by catalog number -- all Deccas together, all Polidors together etc. I think there would be probems if an artist changes labels though
My organization is just going to seems like chaos to anyone else but I can find anything. Its organized between what I listen to often, moderately, and rarely. Then those are sub organized by genre and artist. The artist are sub sub organized chronologically.
Autobiographical chronologically makes sense. Ordering records based on when in my life I purchased them. That's pretty nice. Able to look at my record collection and be like "oh yeah, I remember buying this when I was on holiday in ilfracombe in 1984" you gain context of when records entered your life. Also makes additions to your collection really really simple, just add to the end.
