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Collecting

How to organise a vinyl or CD collection that outgrew the alphabet

At fifty records, a shelf runs on memory. Somewhere past three hundred, it starts asking questions. Did Bowie go under B or D? Where is the Trainspotting soundtrack? Which records feel like Sunday morning? A shelf can hold one order. Your phone can hold all of them, so keep the shelf simple and let Plastic carry the rest.

4 min read Plastic for iPhone and Android

Diagram. The top row shows eight records in one A-Z shelf order: AIR's Moon Safari, The Beatles' Revolver, David Bowie's Hunky Dory, Burial's Untrue, Miles Davis's Kind Of Blue, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Underworld's Second Toughest In The Infants and the Trainspotting soundtrack. Below, the same records are grouped by genre, Electronic 4, Rock 4 and Jazz 1, and in an example Collection called Sunday morning with Moon Safari, Kind Of Blue and Hunky Dory.

Every order is good at one thing

Alphabetical is the order anyone can read. Steve Sexton, head buyer at Sister Ray Records, told Livingetc that A to Z by surname is "the way to go" for a big collection. It still asks for rulings. Two collectors on a hi-fi forum, about a thousand records each, couldn't agree on Bowie. Mark Burgess of Flashback Records says to settle The Jam, J or T, and stick to it.

Genre is how a shop browses, until a record wants two sections. Is Radiohead rock or electronic? Chronological shows how one sound grew out of another, and baffles everyone else. The autobiographical shelf from High Fidelity, records in the order they came into your life, keeps the memories attached. Nobody else can read it. Colour makes the best wall in the room and the slowest search. None of them is wrong. Each one answers a single question.

Plastic's Library on iPhone, filled with a demo collection of real records: a Collections row with All records 53, Sunday morning 14 and Coloured vinyl 9, an Artists row with Gorillaz, Daft Punk and David Bowie, a Genres row with Electronic 22 and Rock 21, and Recently added.
A Collection called Sunday morning in Plastic on iPhone, with the note Slow coffee, the window open, nothing to rush, a Public collection label, and sleeves including AIR's Moon Safari, Miles Davis's Kind Of Blue, David Bowie's Hunky Dory and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
The Electronic genre in Plastic on iPhone: sleeves including Daft Punk's Random Access Memories and Discovery, AIR's Moon Safari, Gorillaz's Plastic Beach, Tame Impala's Currents, Portishead's Dummy, Jamie xx's In Colour and Radiohead's OK Computer.
Gorillaz's artist page in Plastic on iPhone: a band photo, a short bio, tabs reading 4 collected and 2 wishlisted over Plastic Beach, Demon Days, Gorillaz and Humanz, then a row headed 10 albums.

The soundtrack problem

You bought Trainspotting for Underworld's "Born Slippy (NUXX)". Iggy Pop, Blur and Pulp are on it too, and Discogs credits it to Various. So it can't stand next to Second Toughest In The Infants under U. Some collectors give compilations the V slot, others a block after Z. The practice we love is filing by film title, which puts this one under T. Choose once and keep to it.

One shelf, every order

A shelf gives each record one slot. Plastic files a record under every genre it carries and in every Collection you add it to. Trainspotting is tagged Electronic, Rock and Stage & Screen on Discogs, so it can sit in all three. No sleeve moves.

CDs and cassettes live in the same Library, so one Collection can hold the LP at home and the CD you play in the car.

Close-up of Plastic on iPhone with the sort menu open over a grid of sleeves: sort by Date added, First name, Surname, Album title or Album release, and view as Compact, Standard, Large covers or List.

Sort by first name or surname, by title, by year or by the day a record came home. However you settled Bowie, the Library agrees.

So leave the shelf in the order your hand already knows. Every other order lives in Plastic. Scan a sleeve or a barcode, and the record files itself under its artist and genres at once.

The shelves in your head

Every collector already sorts in small groups: Sunday morning, Lent out, To re-listen, the records that got you through a winter. In Plastic each one becomes a Collection, a shelf only you could make. Group your coloured vinyl, your signed copies, even the records you'd trade. A record can sit in as many as you like, so Kind Of Blue can live in Sunday morning and Late nights at once.

Write a line about each one and set the running order yourself. Then show it on your public page, or keep it to yourself.

An example Plastic public page in a desktop browser: a profile photo and a short bio, the tabs Wall, Collections, Albums and Wishlist, and a records wall of sleeves.

Every artist, the whole story

An artist's page shows the whole discography, with your records marked: the ones you own, the ones you want. Gorillaz, above: four collected and two wishlisted, out of ten albums. The gaps show at a glance.

The easiest start

Connect your Discogs account, and Plastic does the rest. Your records arrive with their genres, along with your folders and your wishlist.

Plastic's onboarding on iPhone asking Do you have a Discogs account?, with the note It makes setup quicker and a Yes, connect button.
All records in Plastic on iPhone: a grid of real sleeves, starting with Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, AIR's Moon Safari, Miles Davis's Kind Of Blue, Gorillaz's Plastic Beach, Tame Impala's Currents and David Bowie's Hunky Dory.

Start your first Collection

Close-up of Plastic's New Collection sheet on iPhone: the name Late nights typed in, a switch to make the collection private, the note Only you can see private collections. Public ones show on your public page, and a Create Collection button.
  1. Open the Collection tab, the first icon in the tab bar, and tap Collections.
  2. Tap the + button and give it a name.
  3. Choose whether it shows on your public page or stays private.
  4. Tap Create Collection, add your records and tap Save.