Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, Record Collections etc
Oh, man! It's one of those posts that invites a response from the blogging community! Like the 'Fave Beatles Song' thing! Hey, remember the 'Fave Beatles Song' thing?
..."I like Maxwell's Silver Hammer best!" "Maxwell's Silver Hammer sucks! I like 'Flying' best!" "Flying sucks! I like The Ballad Of John & Yoko best!" "The Ballad Of John & Yoko sucks!"... Good times.
When I returned home from work today my old lady was Having A Big Sort Out of all my records, reason being that due to post - DJing sloppiness on my part we are increasingly plagued by that most irritating of music geek phenonema:
That thing where you suddenly really wanna hear a particular song (let's say it's Dark Star by the Grateful Dead) you rush to your record collection, spend 20 minutes starring at row after row of LP spines muttering "I put it here...I know it was here...I just saw it the other day...oh, man...I swear to God these things move themselves....(shouting upstairs to girlfriend who has 'just got out of the shower') REBECCA! REBECCA! I'm trying to find Live/Dead! WHAT? NO! The one with the cartoon guy smashing an ice cream cone over his head is Live in Europe '73! This is just Live/Dead! Yeah, they're both live albums! They did quite a lot of 'em! They're the most widely bootlegged live act in rock history! I'm tying to find the one with the title in big medieval script on the front! Yeah, the one with 'Dark Star' at the start! WHAT? Dark Star is certainly not a dull hippy jambourie which at 18 minutes is about 17 minutes too long...OH, MAN! FOUND IT!" Only. To. Discover...that the record isn't in the sleeve. DUH DUH DUHHH!
So I was wondering if anybody has a system for filing their CDs / LPs / C90s / Wax Cylinders. I've 'genre-ised' my collection a couple of times after I've moved house, but I've only ever managed to keep it up for a week or so. I've NEVER alphabetised or chronologicised. Does anyone have a particularly interesting system? Or one which is super easy to maintain? Does anybody have any hilarious record collection related anecdotes they would like to share?
"So I said to him, 'uh, I think you'll find that 'Revolver' was released in the US a week later than it was in th UK, and yet here on your February 1966 - June 1966 shelf you've got the US version filed before the UK version?!' Yeah! Way to be chronologically accurate!"
..."I like Maxwell's Silver Hammer best!" "Maxwell's Silver Hammer sucks! I like 'Flying' best!" "Flying sucks! I like The Ballad Of John & Yoko best!" "The Ballad Of John & Yoko sucks!"... Good times.
When I returned home from work today my old lady was Having A Big Sort Out of all my records, reason being that due to post - DJing sloppiness on my part we are increasingly plagued by that most irritating of music geek phenonema:
That thing where you suddenly really wanna hear a particular song (let's say it's Dark Star by the Grateful Dead) you rush to your record collection, spend 20 minutes starring at row after row of LP spines muttering "I put it here...I know it was here...I just saw it the other day...oh, man...I swear to God these things move themselves....(shouting upstairs to girlfriend who has 'just got out of the shower') REBECCA! REBECCA! I'm trying to find Live/Dead! WHAT? NO! The one with the cartoon guy smashing an ice cream cone over his head is Live in Europe '73! This is just Live/Dead! Yeah, they're both live albums! They did quite a lot of 'em! They're the most widely bootlegged live act in rock history! I'm tying to find the one with the title in big medieval script on the front! Yeah, the one with 'Dark Star' at the start! WHAT? Dark Star is certainly not a dull hippy jambourie which at 18 minutes is about 17 minutes too long...OH, MAN! FOUND IT!" Only. To. Discover...that the record isn't in the sleeve. DUH DUH DUHHH!
So I was wondering if anybody has a system for filing their CDs / LPs / C90s / Wax Cylinders. I've 'genre-ised' my collection a couple of times after I've moved house, but I've only ever managed to keep it up for a week or so. I've NEVER alphabetised or chronologicised. Does anyone have a particularly interesting system? Or one which is super easy to maintain? Does anybody have any hilarious record collection related anecdotes they would like to share?
"So I said to him, 'uh, I think you'll find that 'Revolver' was released in the US a week later than it was in th UK, and yet here on your February 1966 - June 1966 shelf you've got the US version filed before the UK version?!' Yeah! Way to be chronologically accurate!"
Labels: Beatles
¶ 11:13 AM
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Hmm... I used to sort my books by publisher (partly because they would be more likely to be the same / fixed sizes so would easily shelve together. And I have tried to sort records by genre. I do know people who store by record label and alphabetical within that...
Good question.
With CDs I tend to categorise in genre (gay, classic, country, folk, pop and modern) but this never ever lasts long. Whenever I have a sort out I find a pile of CDS that I think "Why on earth did you buy this; big Mould?" and intend to get rid of it and never do. The best of Clannad for example. What was that about?
Books is much harder. Harder as in impossible. Alphabetical by author is no good because it causes size issues. Genre is no good for the same reason. But size is so banal and superficial. So I tend to opt for completely random.
With CDs I tend to categorise in genre (gay, classic, country, folk, pop and modern) but this never ever lasts long. Whenever I have a sort out I find a pile of CDS that I think "Why on earth did you buy this; big Mould?" and intend to get rid of it and never do. The best of Clannad for example. What was that about?
Books is much harder. Harder as in impossible. Alphabetical by author is no good because it causes size issues. Genre is no good for the same reason. But size is so banal and superficial. So I tend to opt for completely random.
I used to sort my CD's into artist and have these in order of my personal preference. (From listen to it everyday to oh my god surely I didn't buy that, perhaps it was a present).
I categorise mine in the same way as dancinfairy, mostly. But perhaps you should go for the High Fidelity route, Paul - autobiographical!
Dick: "That sounds...."
Rob: "Comforting? It is."
:)
Dick: "That sounds...."
Rob: "Comforting? It is."
:)
I go alphabetical (boring I know). But then I make things interesting by not putting CDs back, putting them in covers they don't belong in, keeping them in weird piles etc. etc.
The result this week has been a frustrating search for my Pet Sounds CD (I saw Brian Wilson live on the weekend and have had such an intense hankering for that album all week). I've found the cover, but sadly, the CD is still missing - why do I torture myself like this?
The result this week has been a frustrating search for my Pet Sounds CD (I saw Brian Wilson live on the weekend and have had such an intense hankering for that album all week). I've found the cover, but sadly, the CD is still missing - why do I torture myself like this?
# posted by 
: 9:31 PM
: 9:31 PM
Alphabetical, except I have Jazz and classical seperate. Although CDs usually end up in a big pile, until thewife decides I need to move them.
Alphabetical causes problems with classical records. Most of them you can do by composer (which is odd in itself - would you put your Beatles records under "L"?). But then some have several composers. So you have Jacqueline du Pre playing Elgar under 'E', but JduP playing bits by several composers under 'd'. Poor Jackie had so much crap in her life, it seems a shame to dismember her even in death.
Abbreviations are also a bugger. Is Public Image Limited under "Pu..." or "Pi..." (since they were always known as "PiL"?)
You could just feed all your music into iTunes and let Steve Jobs sort it out.
Abbreviations are also a bugger. Is Public Image Limited under "Pu..." or "Pi..." (since they were always known as "PiL"?)
You could just feed all your music into iTunes and let Steve Jobs sort it out.
Thankyou one & all for your record arranging solutions. Nice to know that I keep the company of cats as geeky as I.
Tim Footman: I worked in HMV for a few years, and when somebody came in asking for a record I was unfamiliar with or unsure about it's availability, we used a computer database (I forget what it was called - The HMV-O-Matic or something) to look it up, using keywords - Artist, Title, Record Label etc. Looking for a piece of classical muisc was im-poss-i-ble. A given piece of classical music has potentially hundreds of recorded performances, by hundreds of different orchestras (all un-helpfully referred to by acronym - LSO etc), a given orchestra may themselves have recorded a number of different performances, with different conductors, different featured soloists...oh, man. It's like: which version of The Rites Of Spring do you want? Not a fascinating anecdote, but your comment reminded me of how difficult it is to 'sort' classical in any sort of definitive manner.
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Tim Footman: I worked in HMV for a few years, and when somebody came in asking for a record I was unfamiliar with or unsure about it's availability, we used a computer database (I forget what it was called - The HMV-O-Matic or something) to look it up, using keywords - Artist, Title, Record Label etc. Looking for a piece of classical muisc was im-poss-i-ble. A given piece of classical music has potentially hundreds of recorded performances, by hundreds of different orchestras (all un-helpfully referred to by acronym - LSO etc), a given orchestra may themselves have recorded a number of different performances, with different conductors, different featured soloists...oh, man. It's like: which version of The Rites Of Spring do you want? Not a fascinating anecdote, but your comment reminded me of how difficult it is to 'sort' classical in any sort of definitive manner.
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