Organizing your record collection

One of the most important decisions for any vinyl enthusiast is how to organize your records.

It’s not only a system that enables you to find what you’re looking for easily. I think it can also say a lot about how you approach and think about the music you love.

At the very least, it provides a potentially interesting talking point when you have someone come over to listen to records with you or if someone asks you about your record collection.

Let’s consider a few methods, with the caveat that this is not an exhaustive list.

Alphabetical

The most obvious and well used method, particularly if you have a lot of records, is alphabetical.

This way you’ll always know where to find something – and retrieve it quickly.

Sadly, this method doesn’t make for much of an interesting discussion when a visitor or fellow vinyl enthusiast invariably asks you about how you organize your records.

If you want to be a bit more adventurous, there are a few other methods to consider.

Chronological

Organizing your records according to year of release can also be a relatively easy way of remembering where to find a record quickly. Provided, of course, that you have a reasonably solid grasp of when all of the records you own/listen to were released. This may be especially difficult if you own a lot of records or like to indulge in mind-altering substances when listening to music.

If you want to add a layer of sophistication to this method, you could organize by first release of each band/artist. This way, each bands’ records are kept together, even if releases stretch over a number of years. (This is particularly helpful, for instance, with a band like The Fall that started putting out records in the late-1970s and is still going strong today.)

The main problem with this method, if you’re like me and wish to keep some semblance of priority in favour of bands/records you love, is that you end up with some amount of records you’re not particularly fond of placed closer to the front than you might be comfortable with (or feel comfortable with others seeing).

Don’t get me wrong, Joni Mitchell’s Blue is a great record but it doesn’t seem right to me having it placed before London Calling in my collection.

By preference

Does this mean it’s better to organize records based on how much you like them and/or listen to them? It seems to me that this method quickly becomes untenable (at best, it’s unwieldly and aggravating) once your record collection starts growing.

To be sure, most people have a relatively consistent group of bands/artist they would classify as favourites. And there is a certain merit to organizing to some extent based on your preferences.

But what happens once you start picking up old Pursuit of Happiness or Teenage Head records for $3-$5 in the used bin? Do these slot in at #147 and #162 on your list? Do you really have the time or inclination to be putting much thought into this? If you’re like me, probably not.

By genre

For me, the most compelling and interesting method (and, indeed, the one I currently use) is to sort by genre. My collection, in descending order, is as follows:

• Proto-punk;
• U.K. punk and post-punk (1970s);
• U.S./Canadian punk and post-punk (1970-1990);
• U.K. post-punk and indie rock (1980s);
• U.S./Canadian punk (1990s-Present);
• U.K. indie rock/pop (1990s-Present);
• U.S./Canadian post-punk, indie rock/pop and alt-country (1990s-Present);
• Singers/songwriters/solo rockers (no defined time range);
• British invasion (mid- to late-1960s);
• New wave and general rock/pop (1970s-Present);
• Miscellaneous; and
• 45s.

This method, as I apply it, allows for some borrowing from other methods. Within genres, I tend to sort by era and/or decade(s). Following that, I sort by band/year of release. I also combine certain genres where my collection is a bit thin (I’d probably have a separate alt-country category if I had more than a handful of records).

One of the other variations I like to use is to combine solo outputs from members of bands belonging to a particular genre with that band’s records. Similarly, later bands and side projects are also included with what I consider to be the seminal band’s records.

So, for example, I keep all of my Paul Weller records and my Style Council records with The Jam records in U.K punk and post-punk (1970s), even though neither are appropriately classified within that category. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea but, in my mind, it’s just easier to know that all of the music Weller has recorded can be found along with the band I most closely associate him with.

One of the most interesting aspects of this method is the potential for interesting debates on what constitutes a genre worthy of distinction, what years it should be sub-divided into, and what bands belong in which genre.

At the end of the day, I think organizing your records should be methodical, convenient (for you, at least), based on a system that is relatively easy to maintain and, most importantly, fun.