Filing Systems: The Record Collector’s Dilemma

There’s a moment in the film High Fidelity—yes, that moment—when Rob, our hopelessly neurotic, music-obsessed protagonist, reveals that he’s reorganising his record collection. Not alphabetically. Not chronologically. But… autobiographically. If you don’t know the film, then you really should get it watched. 

It’s both brilliant and somewhat disturbing, mostly because I see a bit of myself in the scene I’m talking about.

Let’s face it, how you arrange your records could say a lot about you…or not. It’s not just a practical choice—it’s a personal philosophy. A glimpse into the soul. Or at least a good excuse to spend the weekend knee-deep in vinyl with a cup of tea, bottle of wine, and a label maker.

Some go the classic route: alphabetical by artist. Clean. Efficient. Logical. Bowie sits next to Black Flag…or nearby. You can find what you need when you need it. No fuss. No soul-searching. No existential crisis when you realise you’ve been sorting “The The” under “T” when maybe it should have been… under “T”? The Insert Band Name bands have always been a bit of a problem in my mind.

Then there’s chronological. A more nuanced approach. You track the arc of a band’s evolution, album by album. You can see when the wheels fell off, or when things got weird. It’s perfect for completists, historians, or anyone who wants to relive 1977 one record at a time. This sounds a lot more appealing than the reality of sitting and sorting this, though my Hawkwind collection is kind of put in chronological order.

But it doesn’t stop there. Oh no.

Some collectors get creative. Genre-based sorting? Excellent idea—until you’re trying to decide whether Radiohead’s Kid A goes under “Rock”, “Electronic”, or “Existential Crisis Soundtrack”.

Country of origin? Delightfully nerdy, but a bit niche.

Mood-based filing? Lovely in theory, but what happens when you’re sad and angry and in the mood for French speedcore?

And of course, there’s the “pile system”—those records that are too new, too good, or too weird to be filed yet. Often next to the turntable – guilty as charged. Often threatening to take over the entire house – again, guilty as charged. These are the ones in heavy rotation, or more truthfully, the ones you haven’t figured out where to put. Look, just lock me up and throw away the key, MLud. 

Back to High Fidelity and that autobiographical approach. As Rob explains, he can tell you exactly when he bought a particular record, what was happening in his life at the time, and what it all meant. It’s deeply personal. Slightly unhinged. And totally relatable. Because sometimes music is more than just music. It’s a timeline. It all sounds like a good idea, but I’m not sure I want to be reminded of some of the mistakes I’ve made to get to this point in my life.

Me? I’ve dabbled in several systems. Alphabetical, mostly—until the box sets threw everything off. Then genre—until folk punk messed it all up. I briefly considered mood-based but abandoned it after I found myself filing everything under “A Bit Nuts But Still Hopeful”. The truth is that the mostly alphabetical order of my collection has gone awry. Yes, mostly it’s alphabetical but then I’ve got a punk section, a dub section, a Jazz section, a blues section, and a fairly substantial classical selection. And it’s all very confusing. 

I also dabbled with a spreadsheet bit of software for a while – like a virtual library where you scanned a record’s barcode, which would (in theory) let you know where to find it immediately. I didn’t persevere for too long with this one, as I remembered I had a life. 

I play a lot of house and techno whilst mixing on the decks, and you’d think that this would be pretty easy to sort out, but the truth is it gets messy pretty quickly. New tunes arrive and they get played a lot and so sit in one of the three “live boxes” (yes, these records are kept separate from everything else), then they kind of move to the back for a bit until getting rediscovered when searching for the perfect tune to mix. The DJing tunes are all over the place with the only real system-based approach being separating out the really hard techno from the rest…oh, and micro-house gets its own section, and so do acapellas, and so does disco-tinged tunes, and… truth is, I bat through records at a bit of a rate when mixing and so what starts the night as a fairly ordered box soon ends up a mess…and don’t get me started on having to sort the tunes in the wrong sleeves the morning after the night before. Back in the 90s I used to get sent a LOT of records by labels and would sit with a clicker counter and a stopwatch to work out the BPMs of tunes, make a sticker for each record and keep them ordered by BPM – not that easy when most stuff was between 120 and 128 BPM. Oh, and more recently, I toyed with coloured stickers (red, yellow, and blue) but that didn’t give me enough scope and I abandoned it pretty smartish, though I do sometimes put little stickers on record labels to help me know which mix I prefer. Remember that but about me having a life…it was a lie.

I sat and thought about this whole topic, and it turns out that I’ve got several systems on the go for my tunes. 

So, how do you sort your collection? Are you ruthlessly logical or gleefully chaotic? Do you have a secret spreadsheet? A coded sticker system? Do you have your tunes filed on Discogs? Or are you still living dangerously with the “pile by the turntable” method?

Let us know in the comments—we promise not to judge (unless you’re filing Abebix under “Easy Listening”).

Stuart Smith

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