How do you arrange the order of your records?

This topic comes up here fairly regularly. Over the years of amassing LP’s (and/or CD’s), everyone finds what works for them. As long as you can find what you want, it doesn’t matter, does it? Unless you want your arrangement to make a statement about you. ;-)

When I started out I separated Rock, Blues, Country, Jazz, ---and of course Classical (how could one not?). That didn’t last long. What’s the point of separating by genre? For those moments when you’re in the mood for, say, Blues, but don’t know what to play, needing to "browse"? That’s not how I relate to music.

My racks are genre-free: alpha by artist, then chronological. Various artists comps by title. Classical alpha by composer, then composition title and number (concertos, sonatas, symphonies, etc.), and finally performer (for those compositions of which I have multiple interpretations).

The only exception I make is for the catalogues of certain audiophile labels, ones known more for the sound than the music: Sheffield, Reference Recordings (some titles are exceptions), Chesky (ditto), Wilson, etc. "Audiophile" reissues (MoFi, Analogue Productions, Speakers Corner, Intervention, etc.) are in with the non-audiophile pressings.

If you were here and let’s say you wanted to hear Miles Davis kind of Blue LP, better give me at least an hour, maybe 2, to locate it lol...records all stored randomly with absolutely no rhyme or reason. There are just too many of them and it would be too daunting a task to organize them all. I could basically open my own record shop with all the LP’s I own. Whenever I say to myself to stop collecting or buying, I see something else that I like or have been looking for and buy it. It most likely will not end. It's not as if my collection is strewn about the floor in a chaotic mess, they are in fact neatly stored in a variety of ways. Some on wall hanging shelves, some on floor standing shelves, others in countless record crates on the floor in several rooms etc...

@mikelavigne 8 tons of records! My hat is off to you sir.

My organizer of choice is Roon.

I have only 2 categories….Classical, and Everything Else.
Classical is alphabetical by composer, with solo instrumental followed by chamber, concertos, symphonies, choral/oratorio/opera for each composer. 

EE is by band name or artist last name, and release date.

Only 3K or so, so I keep 'em in random order (with the exception of a few set runs such as Venus Jazz and Music Matters, which I keep together just for the heck of it).  Otherwise I just ignore everything more than a year old unless I really want to find something, which I might be successful at before I die.