Where Should Sun Ra Be Filed?

[Steve F.]

Archie Patterson used to file his LP collection by the number of releases: all bands with a single album in one spot, then all bands with two albums, then three...

I have a pal who used to file all his albums by the color of the spine.
He had one shelf of white spines and a second shelf of just the lightest off-white gradually going to the darkest shades.

[GuitarGeek]

I have a pal who used to file all his albums by the color of the spine.
He had one shelf of white spines and a second shelf of just the lightest off-white gradually going to the darkest shades.

Ya know one thing that drives me crazy with CD's is the different spines on some things. Case in point: the earlier ECM CD's all had a red stripe on part of the spine. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get all the Pat Metheny and Terje Rypdal albums on CD at the time. So those parts of my collection are a hodge podge of titles, some of which have the red stripe and some don't, which I find aesthetically displeasing. BUt what can you do?

Actually, with regard to Metheny, the only one that I have that has the red stripe is Travels. The others were from pressings that came later, after they dropped the red stripe. Still, in the middle of the Metheny ECM CD's, you've got that red stripe one, with different font from the others, etc.

I'm pleased that all the Whitesnake CD's I bought recently (essentially, their first six albums) are all from the same reissue series, so they all have the same spines, with the same logos, font, etc (except two, for some reason, have a Parlophone logo on the spine, while the others have the EMI logo...but I think I can live with that). Likewise, all my Black Sabbath CD's are from the same reissue series, and as such, also have matching spines (the frell am I gonna do if/when I finally start buying the post-Born Again albums, which weren't part of that reissue series?).

[rcarlberg]

...but I think I can't live with that.

First world problems

[Mister Triscuits]

Ya know one thing that drives me crazy with CD's is the different spines on some things.

I just got the new King Crimson Collectors' Club release (can't believe it's been seven years since the last one!) and it doesn't have a slice of a band photo on the "other" spine.

[FrippWire]

I had a friend who filed his albums in order of purchase going back 20 years.

I also know someone who files his collection by date of purchase. He's a retired postal carrier so I don't know if this somehow ties into some U.S.P.S. way of doing things. He frequently comes into the record shop and asks us if we can look up the release date of some title he's looking for at home. That in and of itself should serve as a clue to him he needs to come up with a better way of organizing things. Having said that I know we're all different and our brains work different ways -- so whatever floats your boat.

[GuitarGeek]

I just got the new King Crimson Collectors' Club release (can't believe it's been seven years since the last one!) and it doesn't have a slice of a band photo on the "other" spine.

And that reminds me of something else that drove me crazy for a long time: I was never able to completely KCCCC collection, so there's gaps in those photos on CD's. I had them turned around so you can see the pictures, but there's bits missing, because several of the titles went out of print before I could lay hands on them.

[rcarlberg]

I file alphabetically only if I have more than one album by an artist. If I only have one then the artist either gets filed according to country they are from or by parent band if they were in a band that I have more than one album. My system sometimes confuses even me!

Way back a couple million years ago, when I had only LPs and I had a DOS computer, I created a relational database in ProFile that listed:

• Alphabetizer (usually band's or artist's last name, but for soundtracks it would be the movie title)
• Second Identifier (usually album title, but again there were exceptions)
• Format
• Label
• Release (catalog) number
• Genre (rock, jazz, folk, classical, etc.)
• Sub-genre (traditional, contemporary, avant-garde, etc.)
• Date of recording
• Date of release
• Country of recording
• Country of release
• Length
• Cross references: this is where I'd put who played on it, or bands related to this release, or "harp" if I wanted to search for all my harp recordings, or anything else searchable

I miss that old database. I had a lot of fun putting it together and using it to find unlikely connections and running reports on anything imaginable. However the company that made ProFile (Norton Utilities or somebody) went out of business, then I gave up on Windows, then I gave up on IBM computers, then I gave up on LPs. I never could find an infinitely-variable relational database for Apple for a reasonable price, and the prospect of entering this level of detail on 8,000+ CDs would be daunting at my age.

There are shortcuts -- listing your collection at Discogs, or the MusicCollector software out of Denmark or wherever they are -- but they never had the flexibility or depth of detail or the ability to customize CD-R releases that would make it worth the effort.

[rcarlberg]

I have a pal who used to file all his albums by the color of the spine.
He had one shelf of white spines and a second shelf of just the lightest off-white gradually going to the darkest shades.

This was the bookshelf in an apartment I stayed in in Amsterdam.
[D58DE8FF-FE40-4D2A-BDF7-E2D9F8F2BB84.jpg

[rcarlberg]

And that reminds me of something else that drove me crazy for a long time: I was never able to completely KCCCC collection, so there's gaps in those photos on CD's. I had them turned around so you can see the pictures, but there's bits missing, because several of the titles went out of print before I could lay hands on them.

My Henry Cow box set is turned wrong-way-out because I already had the original albums.

[rcarlberg]

I may have mentioned before, I decided to draw a distinction between "a stage name" and "a band name." Therefore Jethro Tull is under 'J' but Captain Beefheart is under 'B'. Elton John (if I had any) would be under 'J' but Capability Brown (if I had any) would be under 'C.' Bob Dylan is not under 'Z' while Z.Z. Top is.

Alice Cooper is a tough case. At first it was the band's name, then later Vincent adopted it as his own stage name.

Missus Beastly and Mr. Big under 'M."

The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The GTOs and The Who not filed under "T." But at the same time, Les Vampyrettes, Los Lobos and L'Ensemble Raye filed under "L." Go figure.

[Steve F.]

Alice Cooper is a tough case. At first it was the band's name, then later Vincent adopted it as his own stage name.

Missus Beastly and Mr. Big under 'M."

The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The GTOs and The Who not filed under "T." But at the same time, Les Vampyrettes, Los Lobos and L'Ensemble Raye filed under "L." Go figure.

L’Ensemble Raye goes under “E”, dude!! Experts AGREE!!!!

[rcarlberg]

Experts schmexperts.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

my brother is a computer programmer and he made a database for me back in 1989 in a format I think was called "Clipper". It was very similar to yours... wish I could make it work on my PC now. Back then I only had 4,000 albums. It would take a while to update it now

Way back a couple million years ago, when I had only LPs and I had a DOS computer, I created a relational database in ProFile that listed:

• Alphabetizer (usually band's or artist's last name, but for soundtracks it would be the movie title)
• Second Identifier (usually album title, but again there were exceptions)
• Format
• Label
• Release (catalog) number
• Genre (rock, jazz, folk, classical, etc.)
• Sub-genre (traditional, contemporary, avant-garde, etc.)
• Date of recording
• Date of release
• Country of recording
• Country of release
• Length
• Cross references: this is where I'd put who played on it, or bands related to this release, or "harp" if I wanted to search for all my harp recordings, or anything else searchable

I miss that old database. I had a lot of fun putting it together and using it to find unlikely connections and running reports on anything imaginable. However the company that made ProFile (Norton Utilities or somebody) went out of business, then I gave up on Windows, then I gave up on IBM computers, then I gave up on LPs. I never could find an infinitely-variable relational database for Apple for a reasonable price, and the prospect of entering this level of detail on 8,000+ CDs would be daunting at my age.

There are shortcuts -- listing your collection at Discogs, or the MusicCollector software out of Denmark or wherever they are -- but they never had the flexibility or depth of detail or the ability to customize CD-R releases that would make it worth the effort.

[rcarlberg]

ProfessionalFile was a hell of a shareware program. It could even be used (as it was by me) to create a rudimentary Windows GUI before WIN 3.0 came out.

[aith01]

Man... I miss those shareware days. Was an interesting time.