The Order Of A Record Collection

In High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, the main character orders his record collection by the date the record came out. When a girlfriend moves in, she complains that she can't find anything and re-arranges them alphabetically. When she leaves him, he considers (but I don't think he actually does) arranging them autobiographically - that is, in the order he bought them.

Talk about seeing a bit of myself in a fictional character! But my record collection order wasn't as simple as chronological. From the age of 18 to 31 (before a girlfriend moved in and changed the order to alphabetical) I arranged my record collection by the bands relationship to the music of The Velvet Underground. Beginning with the box set From The Seven Days by Stockhausen (mentioned in this blog a little while ago), it went from the experimental classical through Berio and Slovak chamber music. Then into electronic/Kraut Rock like Faust, Can and Amon Duul until you arrived at the first Velvets album. Next were all of the solo projects by Lou Reed, John Cale, and Nico. Following that were Iggy and The Stooges, New York Dolls, and the MC5. Then came the biggest section: the Post Punk alterative music starting with Joy Division, The Fall, Cabaret Voltaire. Although David Bowie had connections with Lou Reed, I placed him at the beginning of the Pop section. Finally on the far right I had one dance record.

Incidentially, now I've returned to the feral male state, my record and CD collection is in no order whatsoever. I'm open to suggestions as to how to order things, my current favourite is by the amount of Sonic Distortion, but I can't decide whether that should take into account the recording quality or not.