This is an interesting question about a problem which I have actually still not solved to my satisfaction. Currently, these are the main criterias for my shelves:
1) The most important is the *country of origin* of the composer.
I have "French", "Italian", "U.K.", "U.S." and "Various" (Japanese/Greek/German...) sections.

2) Within each country the CD's are ordered by composers. Generally the composers order is given by the year of their first score (so for example the U.S. section goes Max Steiner - Dimitri Tiomkin - Hugo Friedhofer - Alfred Newman - ... - Elmer Bernstein - Jerry Goldsmith - ... - Bruce Broughton).

3) Each composer's section is ordered chronologically beginning with the oldest scores (if there are more on the CD then the oldest one counts). Because there are often more scores from the same year I either look at imdb for the exact release date or simply sort them so the spines look well beside each other.

I'm also usually not going to listen with the idea of who the composer must be though. It's just that I find the composer order to be the best to see what all I have on the shelves. Usually I think of particular score to listen to already before browsing through the CDs, either to choose exactly that one or to find something in a similar vein.

42zaphod, October 8, 2005; 3:14 AM

Wow, that's very interesting, 42zaphod. I'd never thought of arranging the albums by country of origin, but I can see how this would be a useful method as each country's music usually embodies a unique and individual sound.

In your system, which factor(s) determines the country of origin: the country where the film was produced or the country in which the film score's composer was born? That could be tricky if for example you have a British/American co-produced film scored by a Japanese composer, or what if the composer was born in France but grew up in Germany, then moved to America to begin a career scoring Japanese anime films? I'm getting a headache just thinking about the potential complications of this method, but therein lies the challenge that you eluded to, I suppose.

The most difficult part about my own method of organizing by film genre is deciding which genre a particular soundtrack belongs to (as many films straddle several genres at once, for instance BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA...is it a comedy? action? sci-fi? adventure? fantasy? All of the above!). Several of my CDs have migrated back and forth between different genres over the years because I can never make a definite decision as to which genre they belong to!

Thanks for sharing, amigo...

American.Nightmare, October 8, 2005; 3:47 AM

I would find it very difficult to organise my CDs by genre. As was said already, how would a score be catagorised when it crossed genres?

My collection isn't very well organised at the moment: I just haven't got the space to put them into an orderly form. I have the bulk of my CDs arranged alphabetically (by movie title) up to about "W". Then "X" to "Z" are in a box, along with "A" to "Z" from my last 1-2 months purchases...all jumbled up.

I'm just getting depressed thinking how much of an overhaul (again) my collection requires...together with needing to move to a bigger house.

alan, October 8, 2005; 3:55 AM

By genre ??? Man, that's odd... and difficult.

I have friends who organize by Label, so the spine remains constant. That's also odd.

I preffer by Composer, and then by year, so you can see the evolution. But the composers themselves are not organized. I just put on top the ones I prefer (and have the most of it), and so on down below till the "Various" section.

falcsanz, October 8, 2005; 4:30 AM

Difficult? Sometimes. Odd? Maybe, but that's how films are organized in video rental stores. I just break it down further with the inclusion of subgenres (such as Biker, Superhero, Avant-Garde, etc.). There are certain distinctions that I've come to recognize which dictate which genre a film belongs to, but those rules are intuitive and would take forever to explain. Still there are some films which I am forced to settle on without conviction because the genre is truly undefineable (like the aforementioned Carpenter masterpiece).

American.Nightmare, October 8, 2005; 5:00 AM

hello to every body and especially to American nightmare and Dorian......
i have always loved to order my scores by label.....
anyway you have a lot of interesting methods!!!
mine is a little more traditional and maybe classical, but i like it....
see you soon
Ric

riccardo.rocchi4, October 8, 2005; 5:07 AM

Hi Ric! Nice to hear from you again...

Ciao!

American.Nightmare, October 8, 2005; 5:46 AM

Hello,

I use to organize my soundtracks by composer, Now I just organize them alphabetically by movie title, That works best for me. Some of you have some interesting ways in which you organize your collection, Maybe I'll change my mind someday and try some of your ideas.

Best Regards,
David Phoenix, AZ.

deg63iami, October 8, 2005; 6:44 AM

I organise mine by Composer and then alphabetically. I would find it too disorganised any other way.

dln1700, October 8, 2005; 12:57 PM

Hello everybody!

Very interesting topic. I think my organisation reflects my indecisiveness...

I organised my scores in two different ways. First, there's the alphabetic order by film title for scores by composers i have less than 10 cds of. Then, there follows the "composers' section", but organised not alphabetically, but *somewhat* by how important the composers are to me, starting with the "less important" ones (as if they could be with more than 10 cds each...). Utterly strange for anyone going through my collection but for myself. But even I question that system. The funny thing is that I don't have the same order of composers in my cd and vinyl collections, as the vinyl reflects more ancient points of interest :-)

I love the many many systems you guys have. The more diverse it is, the better imho.

Best,
Burnie


blinddoc, October 8, 2005; 3:51 PM

It's interesting to read some of the answers... and inspirative!

American Nightmare: until now I thought I always used the country of composer's birth but now when I think about it there are composers who were originally birth in various different countries. So it's not exactly a country of birth but mostly the "defining" country of composer, like:
Ennio Morricone / ITALY
John Barry / U.K.
Maurice Jarre / FRANCE
Georges Garvarentz (born in Greece) / FRANCE
Lalo Schifrin (born in Argentina) / U.S.
Luis Bacalov (born in Argentina) / ITALY

The important thing to do in this system is to select this one country for the composer. The movie's country of origin would be indeed tricky, take our beloved Soleil Rouge as a difficult example, and it's just next to Dead Poets Society on my shelf.

By the way I don't see a "war" genre in your list..?

42zaphod, October 8, 2005; 4:43 PM

Ciao Ric, hope you're well mate!

42zaphod, October 8, 2005; 4:43 PM

I recently spent quite a bit time and I organize them by label such as Varese, FSM, Marco Polo, etc. The key of course to my system is that I have to know what label it was recorded on but so far so good. The problem are the trades! They are in the thinner jewel cases so one has to go thru them to locate which one I might be looking for. So far there aren't too many but over time that will change a bit I am sure.


tlkiefner, October 8, 2005; 5:39 PM

Intersting discussions!
I'd like to tell my own way to organize soundtracks.
'Chronological order' is the first condition. Mainly based on the year of the movie.
The next is 'country' in which the movie was made: For instance, Hollywood, US independent, European movies, Asian films, etc.
And finally, though it is minor, according to my subjective 'genre': main stream commercial films, arthouse movies, animations, and TV soundtracks, etc.

mnkhrmtg, October 8, 2005; 6:37 PM

42zaphod,

You are correct. There's no "War" genre in my collection...anymore. I used to have a few "War" film soundtracks but I sold them awhile back because I never listened to them. I generally do not care for militaristic fanfare (with the snare drum rolls and trumpets blasting). It's just not my cup of tea, I guess. Perhaps the closest thing to a "War" score in my collection now is Bernstein's SPIES LIKE US, and I shall never part with it. (^_^)



American.Nightmare, October 8, 2005; 8:14 PM

One after another. The first I bought goes first and the last goes an the end. Yeah, it's a pathetic method, but a lot of fun when you search for a soundtrack

borgtex, October 12, 2005; 11:15 PM

Nice topic. I used to organise by favourites and genre until a few years back but then when more titles started coming in I had to find the most practical method (for me at least, and that is exactly like Dln1700 mentioned earlier, namely by composer surname (in my case also alphabetical) and the alphabetical order of their releases. Wrks best for me, but I keep all new arrivals on a separate shelf for some time until I get to now them more. It's a small world, so many friends already reponded this post. Hi Ric, Dorian and Nightmare (and everyone else too of course)

baalgehenna, October 13, 2005; 3:23 AM

I have my list in Excel format and it is ordered by composer (last name, first name). But also have columns for special topics. For example, the James Bond movies.
In another column I have other comments, for example, the Universal french CDs that are numbered, they are part of a collection, so I have a description for these ones.
I don't have a genre column but that is a good idea!
In Excel you can set the worksheet as Autofilter so if you need to order them by any of the columns, you just click on them.

But I have a different problem. What about those soundtracks that have more than one composer? I have added two more columns for the additional composers but that doesn't solve the issue. And so I list first the one that has more tracks on the recording and if many have similar number of tracks, the one that I like the most. So unless I have a title listed as many times as composers it has, I don't know what to do in this situation. Any ideas?

ferh, October 13, 2005; 12:20 PM

I'm ordering it classically by alphabet, then composer and then year of composing.

philkws, January 18, 2010; 7:55 AM

Always by Composer and then favorites of that composer 1st and so on

dspin24358, January 4, 2006; 11:02 AM

Wow I feel such a slob compared to you lot!

I have my cds separated into:
Favourite film OSR's a-z by title,
TV osr's a-z by title,
musical shows by title,
film osr's I don't like so much a-z (at the back),
compilation (separated roughly into two piles osr and non and dodgy re-recordings),
cartoon/kids/disney/animation are in a pile together. Sort of a genre?

Vinyl:
Generally film osr's a-z by title
Bond soundtracks, into osr in film release order (i.e. dr no, FRWL, Goldfinger, etc)
Bond compitation and Geoff Love albums etc
TV a-z by title
musicals - a-z by title
compilations and non osr's (pretty much random order)
film related singles (favourites on top)

Cassettes:
I hate cassettes so they are pretty much in a box until I replace with CD or vinyl, some are kind of around where I had room to squeeze some in.

I also like to have current favourites out and handy in a pile. When I have visitors I put my most impressive on top (LOL).

I have also been plugging my iMac G5 into my stereo and transferring my favourite soundtracks on to my iTunes. That is great as I can search for song titles, genre or artist and make up smart playlists.

I typed up a list in about 1996, which was my last effort to be organised, so this site is fantastic. I only had about 250ish then. Not sure until I complete all my updates on soundtrack collector how many I actually have now.

I like the idea of sorting by composer, but I tend to remember titles better and I like to find my soudtracks quickly (despite my chaotic ordering). I have never sold or given away a soundtrack that have come into my possession (even if it's terrrible) and I even have two of some things.
:)

mail, January 18, 2006; 9:53 PM