Alas, I am bored...

So I keep all my music on an external hard drive like a lot of people who 1.) have way to much music to ever listen to and 2.) hate to drag all their CDs, tapes, and records around everywhere they go.

Seems great, but I keep running into the giant roadblock of organization. I suppose I could just use the built-in "Find" feature every operating system uses, but that would defeat the purpose... That and I like to have things in little folders and sub-folders. ...But today, I really realized how ridiculous my little obsession for organization can be!

So here's the set-up: if you open the hard drive up (I creatively named it "Music," by the way) you see this:

***Labels***
***Styles***
Incomplete

Labels covers record labels (kranky, Table of Elements, Matador, Chain Reaction, etc. that I have complete or bulk catalogues). Incomplete tells me to get of my ass and get the rest of the albums. While styles is the largest group and is further broken down:

***20th Century Composition, Avant Garde, Classical***
***Blues, Jazz, Country, Folk, Improv***
***Electronic, Techno, Ambient***
***Funk, Soul, R&B, Rap***
***Glam, Punk, Post-Punk, New Wave***
***Indie-New-Alterna-Post-Industrial Rock***
***Krautrock***
***Rock***
***Soundtracks, Singles, Novelty, Spoken Word***

I suppose at this point most sympathetic people would think I am batshit insane. LOL, most folks would probably think that I am odd to have a hard drive full of music. But anyway, here's the problem: where the heck should I put things?!

Problem 1 of the night: Talk Talk

Talk Talk's first few records are pure New Wave, sounding like Duran Duran. But then, their last two records get more post-rock/jazzy. Mark Hollis' solo record fits naturally with last ones, but I toss his folder into the New Wave one, going along with their earlier stuff.

Problem 2 of the night: Japan

Just like Talk Talk, they are all over the place. They start out Glam then turn New Wave (thankfully, its all the same folder, haha), but then they go more experimental/jazz/worldbeat after they break up and reform as Rain Tree Crow. Toss into the mix that David Sylvian's solo stuff ranges from Ambient, Rock, Experimental, to Electronic. Yet there it is, all stuck awkwardly in the same folder...

Problem 3: Past handling of Brian Eno

I lumped Eno's early stuff in Glam and his later collaborations in New Wave, but the stuff with Robert Fripp should probably be in rock. Then I threw his ambient stuff in Ambient. So the way I handled Eno is completely opposite from Talk Talk and Japan... Bleh!

Lesson Learned: Beer + bad night at work + music = Too much thought!

Not to geek out all High Fidelity, but the reason why I like physical objects like CDs is that you can just pick it up and move it... There's something cathartic about going through all your old albums, re-organizing them, and listening to a bunch of stuff you haven't heard in a while.