Uncommon Music - Sorting Music

Written By: Nichole Wagner

My dad had all his albums arranged more or less alphabetically. A tattered red spiral notebook had a semi-complete listing for easy reference. Simple, yet remarkably effective for his 2,000 piece collection.

However, we live at opposite ends of the obsessive-compulsive spectrum. I need categories, sub-categories and sorting devices. With the digitization of music and the advent of iTunes, my music collection consists of over 600 artists, 3,000 records and some 260,000 songs. There's also nearly 2,500 physical CDs, several hundred vinyls and a hodge-podge of 8 tracks, 45s and cassettes. All this music requires a better organization method.

You'd think that taking a hint from record shops would be a good start. Start with genres and go from there. It would be great, except for making the decision of where a particular piece of music fits. What, besides drums, exactly separates bluegrass from country? What makes folk rock different from alt-country? And isn't there a fatal flaw in making categories so large that it encompasses Patsy Cline and Taylor Swift? Under the umbrella of "country" one could have country rock, country blues, country gospel, Nashville-style country, traditional country, pop county, folk country, Canadian country… you get the picture.

And what about the artists that fall bend their genres. For example, Bonnie Raitt started with the blues, swung through rock and landed somewhere in the sea of pop. Jenny Lewis' solo work would probably fit more neatly in the land of country but Rilo Kiley is something loosely referred to as "alternative" or perhaps "indie rock." There are too many categories, even for my tastes. So much for that idea.

Then I tried sorting by general geographical regions. Texas, East Coast, California, Southern California, Northwest & Canada, UK, Tennessee and Mountains.

It made for some strange bedfellows. Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Springsteen dominated the East Coast. Tennessee needed to be divided into Memphis, Nashville and a Nashville-outskirts to catch the country outlaws. Texas can be divided into two subgroups - natives like Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Joe Ely and transplants such as Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and Asleep at the Wheel. California becomes a dumping ground for any other artist that doesn't easily fall into another category and couldn't realistically fit in a category with the SoCal sounds of Jackson Browne, the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt. Groups like the Pretenders ended up in the UK file though Chrissie Hynde is technically from Ohio. Another failed approach.

Moving along to loose associations. Starting with the artists I had the most CDs of: Emmylou Harris, Fleetwood Mac, and the Beatles. Emmylou is closely related to Gillian Welch, Dolly Parton and Patty Griffin. Drawing out the spiderwebs futher brings Nanci Griffith, Loretta Lynn and Bonnie Raitt into the fold. Fleetwood Mac can easily be grouped with the Eagles, Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, and Tom Petty. But having first heard Nanci Griffith when she opened for Jackson Browne and I heard about Jackson Browne long before I was listening to Fleetwood Mac there was already a problem. It got bigger when I took into account the artists like Tegan and Sara, Brandi Carlile and Grace Potter & the Nocturnals - all of which I discovered in happy accidents.

I’ve known people to sort their albums by label, decade, year, producer and just about every other device under the sun. They’re all ineffective. It’s looking more and more like Dad had it right.