Music Organization OCD

Anybody else here get really anal and specific about how they organize their music ?


With phyical cds, I used to like to arrange them first by priority of chronological order, within band, arranged beside similar sounding bands or shared members, within sub-genre, within genre,

Now I've moved to chronological order within band, by alphabetical.


In iTunes, for double albums I remove CD number and reorder the tracks so its all one album of 25 tracks or whatever.

I use the comments to add specific things things like 'club,' 'David Bottrill,' 'East Coast,' 'Bay Area,' 'Featuring such and such a guest artist,' 'Cover of such and such an artist,' and then create dozens of smart-playlists based around the comments sections, and those smart playlists are arranged in folders.

The folders are based around producers, statistics, situational, greatest hits, popularity, decades (eg. 70s, 80s, 90s,), my library over time (eg, when specifically I got each album and what I could listen to back in 2003 or whatever), Covers of specific bands (eg. Judas Priest covers, Iron maiden Covers, Black Sabbath Covers)

Most importantly, I rename every single album with '01, 02, 03,' in front of it, eg. '01. Show No Mercy,' and '11. God Hates Us All,' so that they are always chronological and can never slip into alphabetical.


When I have all of them renamed and commented on, I go and 'create mp3 version,' and delete the old version, so that if my itunes ever crashes again, all of this can be set up again in 1 hour instead of 10 weeks.

Anybody else do anything similar ?

J-Man wrote: I doubt it.  But I do have a particular way of organizing my vast CD collection. I organize them alphabetically by artist, and then within each artist category I organize their discography chronologically. I don't care that much about how my MP3 library looks, but I am VERY particular about my CD collection.

When I was a little kid  I used to organzie my vinyl and cassette tapes by artist/release date. I had a rolodex on my desk with all the titles, song list by album. So my friends could come over and we could go thru that instead of flipping all the vinyl.

Catcher10 wrote: When I was a little kid  I used to organzie my vinyl and cassette tapes by artist/release date. I had a rolodex on my desk with all the titles, song list by album. So my friends could come over and we could go thru that instead of flipping all the vinyl. Then the CD came along and I just filed them by artist......and then the family came and it all went to krapp, no time to spend on the music collection. Now with digital, I use Zune software which I LOVE as I can change the metadata to my own liking. For example I generally change the genre on everything I download to fit my tastes. My vinyl I still file the same way......Artist/release date, in boxes I make to fit perfectly....storage boxes online are too expensive.   So I guess I am coming full circle as I am acting like that kid again.........which is really fun!

I used to be serial-killer OCD about organising my itunes, then I got a life.

Colt wrote: Any Colour You Like wrote: I used to be serial-killer OCD about organising my itunes, then I got a life. In which case I have OCD and proudly lost my life to music decades ago. Unfortunately, I have just lost an argument with my better half to set aside another wall for shelving to house my next line of album purchases. C'est la vie!

I organize my music by band and by the band's chronological releases.  Don't exactly care beyond that.

I generally don�t lend out anything from my collection. I guess I�m a bit touchy about my music collection or maybe I�m just wiser now that I�m older. I used to lend out both vinyls and CDs to mates, but some were never returned and I�m still pissed about it.

Kingcrimsonprog wrote: Warthur wrote: I have an honest to goodness spreadsheet I use to keep track of what I've got - I also use it to keep track of what video games, books, and DVDs/Blu-Rays I own. (There is a point to this beyond simple OCD - setting it up this way means that if I lend something out to people, I can note it down on the spreadsheet, so I always know who's got what.). Ha, I have something similar. Less organized than a spread sheet, but it is a record of my stuff http://kingcrimsonprog.wordpress.com/the-collection/

my old drummer still has my Magma dvd...