Sorting my record collection

I recently sorted my record collection, both vinyl and CDs, back into a simple alphabetical order (then chronological by release within artist). i've been meaning to do it since I moved a while a ago. A long while ago. I've since moved once more.

I am sometimes tempted to sort them into subcategories, but have always resisted or managed to convince myself that too many records would sit uncomfortably in two or more different categories, or most comfortably outside all groups together. Besides, I get a little perverse kick out of seeing my box set of Petula Clark sit between Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and London Calling by the Clash. And for the Cs to carry on through Clogs, Clouddead, Jarvis Cocker, the Congos and Ry Cooder. Other times you have things nestled together quite happily, like Aidan Moffat and Mogwai.

I bristle at that bit in High Fidelity when the idea of an alphabetised collection is scoffed at; it is then revealed that he is sorting them into autobiographical order. Clearly the actions of a man having a breakdown. In my teens i tried doing that and failed. I had just twenty or so CDs at the time.

The CDs fit happily into six wine crates stacked like bricks against the living room wall. I would need more crates, were it that there's a fair few stored under the bed, but let's not talk about those. I'm not sure if my CD collection will grow much more. They are dying, if not already dead. I'm a little sad - in my youth I dreamed of walls lined with shelves rammed full of them. But I can use their demise as an excuse to concentrate on the vinyl. I cannot envisage falling out of love with the physical artefact enough to be content with my hard drive storing zeros and ones of sound, with nothing but short, cold text and a tiny image of the cover to identify it.

Record collections are documents - personal anthologies of love and luck. I could hear almost any piece of music I care to think of right now by taking a few short seconds of my time to find it on the web. But the music I spend time with is stacked in the corner, waiting. And I suspect it will always wait. And will always follow me from building to building, from room to room. Just as I searched from store to store, from market to charity shop.