I'm just curious as to how others sort their collections.  Generally there would be a primary and secondary scheme (for example: primarily sorted alphabetically by artist and secondarily sorted chronologically by title).  In this poll please put your primary scheme and include extra information as comments.

Pretty random, but CD's for each artist are placed chronologically.

Alphabetically by artist, then all cds in chronological order.

Very uniform I am.

The LP collection is sorted geographically by country and then by how much I like them. For example:

King Crimson (sorted by release date) is followed by solo albums from Fripp, Sinfield, McDonald & Giles, Bruford etc. Which would then be followed by Yes followed by solo albums from Squire, Anderson, Banks etc. Flash would follow Yes as I've always veiwed Flash as an off shoot of Yes. Followed by Genesis blah blah blah, you get the idea.

The CD collection is sorted alphabetically. That is so much easier.

Wherever I put them in the shelf, so the ones I listen to recently usually end up at one end

Bj-1 wrote: Pretty random, but CD's for each artist are placed chronologically.

Same for me too. I always have alittle of both styles, a little order mixed with a little randomness. After all, variety is the spice of life.

Valarius wrote: Alphabetically by artist, then all cds in chronological order. Very uniform I am.

exactly

I have  Prog and Non-prog towers of Cd's. Then I sort them by chronological release. My favorite bands are first (Crimson, Yes, Genesis, etc.) then the rest. But I've really given up trying to sort them because when I buy new ones the order gets screwed and I'm just too lazy to resort them so eventually the new ones and favorites are on top.

kind of ny artist- that's all- its a mess, actually

I have my classical collection, and my more modern music seperate.

One case has my Classical composers
and I have a few others for my rock/blues/prog/metal (anything other than classical to sum things up)

and in a few cd binders,I have my non classical music collection, I have it arranged alphabetically, and chronologically under each artist.

Its a bit too much to figure out out the dates for classical music, or I would do it that way as well.

people tell me i spend too much time organizing it because I spend time on the first day of every month reorganizing it because I'm always getting new albums

I sort mine by year, genre, alphabetically (by record label and artist), chronologically if the artist released more than one album that year.

I have OCD, this is nothing compared to how many times I wash my hands a day or how I have other things sorted.

Sort?

I have a 4 sided swivel stand that is 6' high. I also keep my DVD's in there. too.  I am going to get the alphabetacly eventually once I get them all in there.  I am writing a Database for the rest of the info.  I don't like mp3's at all except to share something for review. I don't have I-pod  and I guess it would be really hard for me to not have a physical package of material to accompany the music. 

Primarily sorted alphabetically by artist and secondarily sorted chronologically by title.

I convert them to mp3 and the machine allows me to "tag" them as I want. The "corpse" of the CD is thrown into one of the many huge cardboard boxes where I store them. For my most respected (and collected) artists, I have small boxes, very pretty, so as not to scare the visits (and my wife).

The cardboard boxes are hidden in several locations of my parents' house, my office...  My appartment's not very big.

I used to sort alphabetically when I was young. I read High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and he said that sorting alphabetically was the most boring way of sorting your albums. I'd never thought that there was any other way of sorting. Now I sort by genre:

• Classic prog
• Prog metal
• Neo prog
• Psychedelic
• Pop
• Metal

I like it this way. It makes it easier to choose what to listen to.

My neo prog collection is a bit small so I'll build on that one next.

martinprog77 wrote: my wife asking meif a have enought cd's and i said''not yet''

You can never have ENUF.

First by genre: Prog Rock/Prog Metal/Metal/Jazz/Electronic/Other. Then alphabetical by artist, then chronological by year.

Valarius wrote: Alphabetically by artist, then all cds in chronological order. Very uniform I am.

I do the same, but I also sort my CDs according to their genre.

no set rulesbut alphabetically always bothered me , because I never wanted to seeTraffic in between or next  Robin Trower ,Triumph and Pat Travers>> all of whom were guitar rock where Traffic were rather guitar-less

So I work by association mainly.

First by genre/style>> ex: Zeuhl, hard rock or Folk Prog

and most likely also by related artist too>> I will keep Tim Buckley and John Martyn close to Pentangle because of jazz influences as well as Danny Thompson who played bass on all three >> and since Pentangle is Folk Prog, I keep them nearby folk rock/prog

but inside those "groupings" I keep the albums chronologically by group.

But I will try to keep also some kind of order by nationality if the genre will allow it to as well

For those I have not yet found a place for with the guidelines above

then a chronological order working around when the Artiste was most influential

Makes sense?

Doesn't matter!!!!

My Cds are in a mess right now. I have it on racks (3 giant racks actually, prog and non prog stuffs) Im contemplating on arranging it even before reading this thread.

I think, my favored CD's are the ones on top. Right now, the 1st 5 on top of the stack:

1. Meshuggah-- Catch 33

2. Kansas-- Leftoverture

3. Vital Tech Tones ( Fine Jazz Rock by Victor Wooten et al)

4. Red Hot Chili Peppers-- Blood Sugar Sex Magik

5. Dream Theater-- Six Degrees of inner Turbulence

... and thats just rack number 1!

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 - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14402

Does nobody have them in order of relationships, like the guy in the film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146882/ - "High fidelity"

I have one box in the loft filled with ABBA, Boney M, Enigma and the likes. I drag it out on rare occasions of partying with girls (well, if girlfriends of my youth still can be considered as girls - approching 40 years of age, strange though -  many of them are still pretty much OK, or it's only IMO).

I have one larger box in the loft - it contains all sorts of metal icluding Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Trouble and Megadeth - all great heavy metal bands, did not touch it for last 5 or 6 years though.

I have one quite large box, containing quite big collection of progressive metal stuff (from Fates Warning till Heaven's Cry). This box is still getting filled up slowly, any prog-metal CD gets there after 3-4 listening and practically not coming out of it afterwards. 

I have big section in wardrobe totally devoted to classical music. Unfortunately I dig into this collection not often enough - approximately couple of times per month.

And the largest (and growing by the day) collection I have is PROG, occupying nearly all wall space of my tiny flat. All albums are arranged in alphabetical order by Artists name. (A.C.T. uptill Frank Zappa, plus numerical - 4/3 De Trio and XII Alfonso).

i have two places to put my cd´s, in one place i have all the progressive alums, and i sort them alphabetically , and in other place i have all the non progressive rock albums, and i sort them randomly

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 - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14402 Does nobody have them in order of relationships, like the guy in the film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146882/ - "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 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146882/ - "High fidelity"  is pretty anal, even if we all love the movie

artists are arranged intuitively; artist catalogs are arranged chronologically.

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