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Sensible genre subdivisions for a large LP collection?

foxwelljsly

foxwelljsly

Me too, I ate one sour too.
As part of an ongoing project to improve the dad cave, I have finally decided to action a long standing decision to impose some sort of order on my ever expanding LP collection and split it into broad genre subdivisions.

I am thinking:

- Jazz
- Folk
- Country & Bluegrass
- Blues
- Reggae
- Soul & Funk
- Classical
- Rock and Pop (broadly speaking, everything else)

I will also reintegrate 'Various Artists' into their respective genres, where, hopefully, they will get a bit more play.

However......

Do 'Heavy Rock & Metal' and 'Punk and New Wave' deserve their own sections? What would be left in 'Pop and Rock'?

Is James Blood Ulmer blues or Jazz?

Do David Lindley and Ry Cooder go in 'Country and Bluegrass' or 'Rock and pop'?

Are Bob Dylan and John Fahey 'Folk'?

Where does Afrobeat go?

This is going to be tricky.

At the risk of getting a bit too High Fidelity, how do others sort their record collections?
 
I have three

Classical
Jazz
The rest

It seems to work well enough and I can generally find what I am looking for.

I fear if I broke it down further that, over time, I'd forget what I'd categorized certain borderline cases as.
 
I'd start with the fewest possible, from your list, rock, jazz, classical and world (the rest) say. Then subdivide further as the collection requires.

Less than 3 subdivisions seems pointless, more than about 12 seems unmanageable. I'd call Country and Bluegrass (and US Blues) "US Folk" and put Fahey and Dylan there.
 
I have a section for classical, mostly alphabetical by composer, another section for compilations, and everything else is in one big A-Z by artist, with most arranged chronologically within artist. Rock and all its variations, folk, jazz, fusion, singer-songwriters, etc. all together.

I'm never looking for a genre to listen to, I'm always looking for an artist.
 
I have jazz/world and classical/avant/modern as separate categories, everything else (rock, pop, electronica, Krautrock, punk, indie, funk, soul, disco etc etc) as the final category. I also have formats separated, e.g. the 7” singles, 10” and 12” singles of all genres are separated from the rest. The 12” singles as much as anything due to so few having spine printing, so they are just in tubs on the floor. I’d not be able to find them if shelved properly.

I’m currently running out of space, so the categories may change as I shuffle stuff around! As an example ‘world’ (Fela, Bhundu Boys etc) was in the rock, pop etc shelving, but I’ve shifted it over to jazz now as there is just more room there after I shifted the classical into floor tubs! I need more space…
 
I have two sections, one ordered by composer (so classical), the other ordered by artist (the rest). The rest is noise.
 
like kjb. Mine's not large though (although I still get grief at home), around 500 and 1000 Cds...
 
Alphabetical here regardless of genre. 1200 LPs and 800 CDs in the living room. Makes for fun listening. Just today I went from Man (Rhinos winos) to Manzanera (Diamond Head) to Mantronix (in Full Effect) in a Ooh I haven't heard that for years kinda way.
 
kjb said:
I have three

Classical
Jazz
The rest

It seems to work well enough and I can generally find what I am looking for.

I fear if I broke it down further that, over time, I'd forget what I'd categorized certain borderline cases as.
Click to expand...
I have this with one extra division, I also have “electronic”.

I generally lop soul and funk in with the jazz.

Classical is easy and has its own section and everything else is, well, everything else.

I would like to split soul / funk eventually, but it’s not worth it for the 10-15 albums i have.

Seems to me the answer is to organise them however you’ll best find them. Until you get to thousands, I never understood the sorting by label method. I’d end up with miles Davis in about three different places.
 
I have 2 sections these days, jazz and…everything else. In alphabetical order and then hopefully chronological per artist.
 
Genre dividing is fraught with frustration if you have a bit of OCD like me. My whole collection is just filed alphabetically as one (and it's very large) simply because I found trying to decide what belonged in which genre was almost stressful... more chilled personalities might be OK though. :D
 
shrink said:
I never understood the sorting by label method. I’d end up with miles Davis in about three different places.
Click to expand...
I tend to do it a bit for electronic music. All my records on Skam, AI and Toytronic all live together. It just makes sense when a label has strong aesthetic and is a bit of a project or concept in itself.

Likewise all my Tzadik CDs sit next to my John Zorn CDs.
 
I've too many records that crossover/sit between genres for it to work for me; but 12"s are separate from LPs obv.
Plu, as Aethelist says, it's fun to come across something by chance.
 
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