How do you sort your albums?

Simple:  On PC: Alphabetically by artist, then alphabetically by album title.
Vinyl: Alphabetically by Artist then chronologically by title.

I have a double system to sort my albums:

• I use a tagging machine that numbers each album as soon as I buy it to keep an exact record (I lost some because I lent them to friends).
• Then I add each one to my PC

In my bedroom a have three 400 archives for CD's and I sort them:

1. By favorite band starting with the big six
2. After each band I add all the albums related to members of that band so I start with Genesis - Steve Hackett - Peter Gabriel - Anthony Phillips, Tony Banks - Smallcreeps Day (Of course I don't have any M&M or Phil Collins album) and then all the tributes to Genesis, then Yes - Wakeman - Howe - Squire - Moraz, etc, and at the end Yes Tributes the same whith each band
3. Each artist album is sorted chronologically
4. After the six bands I start by country, first UK, then USA (Because of Kansas), Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, etc
5. Always try to keep very specific genres at the end, Fusion, Prog Metal and Canterbury and whatever elseI have and adter all that Non Prog. One different archive is for Classical.

I know I'm a bit neurotic obsessive, but what can I do?

Iván

artists are arranged intuitively; artist catalogs are arranged chronologically.

The only form of sorting i have going on in my cd collection is putting the one with the prettiest cover on the top of the rack.

Easy Livin wrote: A poll is a good idea. Here's what was said last time this was discussed: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14402 Does nobody have them in order of relationships, like the guy in the film "High fidelity"

well it appears that Gecko and I do use association, but since my very first records (it wzas not relly a problem for the first few, though) it never even dawned on me to order them up alphabetically

I fully agree that alphabetically is boring but it is not anal , though >>> logical is more like it!!! you do not try to think up of alternatives because you probably do not care about such things

An-alphabetical order are more likely to be anally driven, since it takes the reflection (and passion) to think up such weird schemes of orders

let's face it "High fidelity" is pretty anal, even if we all love the movie

Here, we have an uncomplicated yet affective
method.
We have a few book cases that are home to our cd's.
But the little blighters keep roaming, so we have
splinter groups in the kitchen (next to cd player), in
the lounge (next to cd player) in the car, normally a
few in the bedroom (next to cd player) and then there
are always a few nomadic tribes, so you might find a
cd in the veggie rack (checking lyrics whilst cooking)
or in the bathroom (reading booklet in bath)
This system works well, once a month or so we pay
the kids to pop them all back in the correct boxes
and drag them over to the book cases, this usually
ends up in a "we need a new book case" / "I hate
buying furniture" debate, which is ALWAYS fun.
Once in the cases (for the lucky ones we find room
for and don't have to squat in unhappy piles in the
book case waiting area) I tend to like arranging them
by colour of spine. For a lot of cd's it takes on an
asthetically pleasing view of the book case when
passing through the room.
If you were a cd in our collection, the only place you
would definately NOT want to be,is the back of the
car! 'cos that is where we throw the real shockers,
and from then on it's a slippery downhill slope
involving kids, mud, spilt juice and boots, and
eventually either the dustbin, or the "keep that handy
for scaring away unwanted visitors" pile.

Then of course there is the "cd case holding area"
awaiting the return of those cd's that have obviously
elpoed with ONE sock........ 'cos where else could all
those one socks and missing cd's go?

Bet your alphabetising sounds lame now!

'tis ok, there is no copywrite in this plan, feel free to
use it, it's GREAT!!!

Prog-Chick x

I sort them alphabetically on artist, and per artist chronologically. However, most of the times everything gets mixed up anyway, so I have to sort it out again every now and then. But I like doing this, I like being busy with my CD collection.

I have two cd racks that I sort by member relations and country.  For example on one rack I have American bands starting with Dream Theater which is followed by Chroma Key followed by OSI followed by Fates Warning and so on.  On another rack I have Pain of Salvation followed by the Flower Kings followed by the Tangent followed by Tomas Bodin and etc.

Mmmm I don't sort my albums my Windows Media Player does that for me :P

For my LP's (I have 5 orange crates of them  ) I have always had them alphabetical by artist because the ends are so slim that I'd never find what I'm looking for otherwise.  With cds it's much faster to locate titles so I kinda have a "most favored" row instead.