Being a music lover long before iTunes, I have an impressive CD collection.
While I am definitely not the type of person to have CDs strewn all over the floor or piled in corners, I have to admit I am fairly relaxed about my storage system.
My CD collection must be neat & tidy & stored. Much like the image above.* But how it is arranged, well… it really doesn’t bother me too much. Unlike my husband! He has (what we call) Low Level OCD. For example, his pegs must match when he hangs out the washing. (This is an improvement in behavior – the pegs used to also have to match the item being hung). So not surprising, to him, the one and only way to store your CD collection is alphabetically, by artist, chronologically.
It got me thinking about how I organize my CDs. I’m all for the alphabetically arranged collection, but I’m also open to a few other methods. Let’s consider:
- By Color. Arranging the CDs by spine color might produce a little artistic flair to the room! And when you know the colour of the CD you want then you’ll find the cluster easily. (Multi-colored spines might throw a spanner in the works.)
- Random. Throw caution to the wind and be delighted every time you select a CD.
- Purchase date. It makes sense that your latest purchase sits in poll position, easily accessible for high rotation play. Then as you scan through older CDs you’ll feel the sense of the time period of when you purchased. Imagine – MC Hammer’s You Can’t Touch This sitting next to Madonna’s Vogue and the B-52s Love Shack. Aaaah, 1990. Good times!
What’s your best tip for organizing CDs?
* Does anyone else have a problem with that random CD sitting on top and out of place?
By genre. And alphabetically within the genre.
Definitely by genre. Then it’s easy to suit the mood. Within that I like to break up the groups of black and white with other colours. This makes reading the spines easier. Really.
My boyfriend has over 2500 CDs… his are arranged first by whether the performer is a male, female, or group. Then they are alphabetized within those groups. If an artist has more than 1 CD (obviously Aerosmith has been around long enough to have MANY), they are put in the order of release. At the moment they are stored in well-marked boxes along the wall of his room (floor to ceiling). Oh, and let’s not forget that he has an Excel spreadsheet that not only lists the Artist, CD title, and year released but also has all the song titles in a pop-out comment box.
That’s actually a cassette on top, so while we could ask why they’re saving it, I would say it is in the best place 🙂
I’ve been storing my dvd’s in a sleeved box. My music cd’s tend to be in genre-; world, jazz, blues, R&B, movie sound track. The colour theme is worth a try;-).
I don’t have that many cds, but I like to have them in a binder, while the cases are piled inside an armoire. I arrange them generally by genre, my favorites being on the front. Also easy to carry if I go on a long car trip!