Your own personal METAL habitat

Ult and Sax... do you guys care about alphabetizing or do you just throw them in the shelf anywhere?

troublezone wrote:

Ult and Sax... do you guys care about alphabetizing or do you just throw them in the shelf anywhere?

Mine are somewhat alphabetized. It's hard to do with that many CDs. I have run out of shelf space and have just begun piling them up.

I will have to see if I can upload pictures of my collection up this afternoon, I have mine in alphabetized and in order they were released, but like Ult I am running out of room.

Quote :

Ult and Sax... do you guys care about alphabetizing or do you just throw them in the shelf anywhere?

the long wall is all alphabetized perfectly metal.
one bookshelf is all perfectly alphabetized punk
one bookshelf is stuff that are in the "keep" catagory. Other than the bottom shelf, which is all comps and soundtracks, it is all styles and all a mess.
the cds inside my closet are the ones I have not llistened to yet. they are alphabetized, but only by letter.
the cds in the other cabinet in the closet that you could not see inside are all my reggae, ska, and comedy [and Ruthies personal special cds - comps me and Britt have made for her and such]- all perfectly alphabetized.

Sax....Have you counted how many C.D's you have? I would be interested to know. It looks like you have an amazing collection.

Same question goes out to you Ult....how many C.D's in your collection?

metalinmyveins wrote:

Sax....Have you counted how many C.D's you have? I would be interested to know. It looks like you have an amazing collection.

Same question goes out to you Ult....how many C.D's in your collection?

Don't know. A couple years ago I did. At that point I had around 4,000 CDs on the shelves. No idea how many I have now.

SAXON1500 wrote:

Quote :

Ult and Sax... do you guys care about alphabetizing or do you just throw them in the shelf anywhere?

the long wall is all alphabetized perfectly metal.
one bookshelf is all perfectly alphabetized punk
one bookshelf is stuff that are in the "keep" catagory. Other than the bottom shelf, which is all comps and soundtracks, it is all styles and all a mess.
the cds inside my closet are the ones I have not llistened to yet. they are alphabetized, but only by letter.
the cds in the other cabinet in the closet that you could not see inside are all my reggae, ska, and comedy [and Ruthies personal special cds - comps me and Britt have made for her and such]- all perfectly alphabetized.

I was going to ask you how you organized them. I figured you to be a man who would separate by genre, whereas I think Ult might group all together.

Those are some awesome collections you guys have!!

Toho, that was a very cool skydiving photo and the Godzilla poster was awesome too!

I'll see what I can do to try and get a photo on here.

I have a room, where I sleep, it's kind of like a "metal habitat", the only thing out of place is the giant plasma tv in the middle of the room sitting on a chair, I nearly knock it over everytime I walk by it. I have a balcony too. I yell my war cries off of it. I call it 'North Tower' as it's the highest room to the North in my house.

I quit countig when cd-tracker went out of biz last year. It was close to 10000 then and alot were not listed. So, I think if you count everything - cassetes, vinyl, cds - 12000-13000. I know, it is a serious mental condition. But I rarely pay more than 2 or 3 bucks and I have a worldwide network of traders. Every one needs a hobby, and mine just happens to be VERY fun!

I am addicted to music, I would probably have more cds but having 5 children (had twins 16 months ago) takes away alot of the extra cash I used to have, now I make a list and stick to it for the most part. It is safe hobby and better than blowing money on other crap, music isn't just fun,for me music is life.

Fortunately, before CD Tracker went bellyup, I exported all my CDs into an Excel spreadsheet and I've been keeping that up to date. Right now I have 3166 CDs and that's counting titles, not discs and does not include any CDRs.

I don't know how you people could divide your collection by genre unless it's "Rock" and "everything else". So many bands are unclassifiable. I just go alphabetically.

Here's another couple of questions for you collectors. When you're arranging your CDs in alphabetical order, where does something like .38 Special or 69 Eyes go? Also, do you group solo albums by artists in bands under the individual's name or with his band? For instance, I put Ian Anderson's solo stuff after Jethro Tull.

tohostudios wrote:

Fortunately, before CD Tracker went bellyup, I exported all my CDs into an Excel spreadsheet and I've been keeping that up to date. Right now I have 3166 CDs and that's counting titles, not discs and does not include any CDRs.

I don't know how you people could divide your collection by genre unless it's "Rock" and "everything else". So many bands are unclassifiable. I just go alphabetically.

Here's another couple of questions for you collectors. When you're arranging your CDs in alphabetical order, where does something like .38 Special or 69 Eyes go? Also, do you group solo albums by artists in bands under the individual's name or with his band? For instance, I put Ian Anderson's solo stuff after Jethro Tull.

For exemple 38 SPECIAL is with the S in my collection and 220 VOLT for exemple with the V.

Personally I place bands like 69 EYES under sixty nine, like the name is spelled out. As far as solo albums by major artist like Ian Anderson and Mick Jagger, I place them in their own catagory expect for The Stooges I file that under Iggy Pop, also T.Rex when they were called Tyrannsaurous Rex and Yesterday and Today, I file those under T.Rex and Y & T .

I donot divide my collection by genre, I just place everything in alphabetical order and also the order they were released. Some artist side projects like David Bowie's Tin Machine I keep separated from his solo career, but for some reason with The Stooges and Wings I place them under the solo careers of their frontmen, with those two artist I have always done that, why I am not sure but it is now a habit

tohostudios wrote:

When you're arranging your CDs in alphabetical
order, where does something like .38 Special or 69 Eyes go?

Alphabetical by spelling not numerical, so my .38 Special is in the "T" section.

Quote :

Also, do you group solo albums by artists in bands under the
individual's name or with his band? For instance, I put Ian Anderson's
solo stuff after Jethro Tull.

Depends.... I have Dale Thompson and the Kentucky Cadillacs under "D"
but other times I will put a solo artist with the band. I just go by
where I think I will be able to find it most easily.

Interesting.

Because I've worked on IBM computers most of my life, I use the EBCDIC method of "alphabetizing" meaning that numbers follow letters (as opposed to the ASCII system used on PCs where numbers come before letters. Or maybe I have that backwards).

Anyway, I put my number bands at the end of the letter their number begins with, meaning .38 Special follows Tiamat in my rack.

And I tend to file the solo CDs after the band the artist is associated with. Where that falls apart is with someone like D.C. Cooper or John West who have performed with several bands. In those cases, I file them based on their last name.

tohostudios wrote:

I don't know how you people could divide your collection by genre unless it's "Rock" and "everything else". So many bands are unclassifiable. I just go alphabetically.

Like many of you here I'm not real hung up on genre, but I sort have to file them that way because they are spread out in four different rooms (with another for storage) each room has a listening venue for the contents of that particular room. But I think of it more as what sort of music I'm in the mood to listen to rather than getting too serious about genre. This way I don't have to run around the house picking out what I want o hear on a given day, I just go to the appropriate room.

ps- One unintended benifit of doing it like this is that visitors don't immediately grasp how big a geek I am. They see the CD's in only one or two rooms and figure that's the extent of my insanity. If they toured the whole house they might start to wonder.

SAHB Healer wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

I don't know how you people could divide your collection by genre unless it's "Rock" and "everything else". So many bands are unclassifiable. I just go alphabetically.

Like many of you here I'm not real hung up on genre, but I sort have to file them that way because they are spread out in four different rooms (with another for storage) each room has a listening venue for the contents of that particular room. But I think of it more as what sort of music I'm in the mood to listen to rather than getting too serious about genre. This way I don't have to run around the house picking out what I want o hear on a given day, I just go to the appropriate room.

ps- One unintended benifit of doing it like this is that visitors don't immediately grasp how big a geek I am. They see the CD's in only one or two rooms and figure that's the extent of my insanity. If they toured the whole house they might start to wonder.

Itd be a smurfette if you ever anded up with Alzheimers.

Wow SAHB!

Your house sounds like the old brick and mortar record stores I used to visit. Listening posts by genre.

@ Saxon

Well, I guess I know what ten thousand CD's looks like now! Sheesh. And I'm scratching my head on how you get them for 2 or 3 bucks a piece. That's insane. I do pretty well at six or seven for used. Maybe I need to start surfing EBay more.

@ Manny

I'll mirror your comments on being addicted to music and it being a safe hobby. I've had people criticize me for spending so much on music. Yet they go blow forty bucks at the theater every weekend. Compared to what I could be spending on booze or something, music seems pretty safe. And I get to keep it!

@ SAHB Healer

Different rooms? With different collections and different audio bits. Wow. Just Wow. So jealous! That's awesome.



I've got mine all alphabetized like most of you. Numbers end up where the numbers get spelt out. Metal in one set of shelves, Hardcore / Punk / Ska on another, Classic Rock / Everything Else / Vinyl on another. Works pretty well!

- Robbie

tohostudios wrote:

Wow SAHB!

Your house sounds like the old brick and mortar record stores I used to visit. Listening posts by genre.

It's nothing like what Ult or Sax has though. I try to work it into the decor so people can't tell that I'm crazy just at a glance. Ult & Sax are happily married, so they don't have to worry about things like freightening off dates with their CD collections or anything.

tohostudios wrote:

Fortunately, before CD Tracker went bellyup, I exported all my CDs into an Excel spreadsheet and I've been keeping that up to date. Right now I have 3166 CDs and that's counting titles, not discs and does not include any CDRs.

I don't know how you people could divide your collection by genre unless it's "Rock" and "everything else". So many bands are unclassifiable. I just go alphabetically.

Here's another couple of questions for you collectors. When you're arranging your CDs in alphabetical order, where does something like .38 Special or 69 Eyes go? Also, do you group solo albums by artists in bands under the individual's name or with his band? For instance, I put Ian Anderson's solo stuff after Jethro Tull.

Mine goes alphabetical. I dont do numbers first. Id put 69 eyes under S and for solo albums Id put it under their first name. A while back I did it a little differently and some solos were first name some were last name but when I recently said to myself this is stupid I changed everything and now im happy haha.

tohostudios wrote:

Fortunately, before CD Tracker went bellyup, I exported all my CDs into an Excel spreadsheet and I've been keeping that up to date. Right now I have 3166 CDs and that's counting titles, not discs and does not include any CDRs.

I don't know how you people could divide your collection by genre unless it's "Rock" and "everything else". So many bands are unclassifiable. I just go alphabetically.

Here's another couple of questions for you collectors. When you're arranging your CDs in alphabetical order, where does something like .38 Special or 69 Eyes go? Also, do you group solo albums by artists in bands under the individual's name or with his band? For instance, I put Ian Anderson's solo stuff after Jethro Tull.

I did the same thing when CD-tracker closed, I'm currently on 3112 and closing in on you Toho...

As far as organizing them goes, well i have a system that I find hard to explain and makes no sense to anyone else, lets just say it's sorted by genre and time period or release date.

Quote :

As far as organizing them goes, well i have a system that I find hard to explain and makes no sense to anyone else, lets just say it's sorted by genre and time period or release date.

I'd never find anything with that system...

I just alphabetize, doing it by letter and by genre would take too long, and Id run into alot of problems.