Okay, I sort the music in my media libraries (winamp & iTunes) by the artists’ name alphabetically. Doesn’t matter if it’s a group or solo artist. If it’s a solo artist, I sort by their last name. So far, so good…
But then I come across:
Jethro Tull. Okay, that’s easy, it’s the name of the group, so it goes in the "J"s
Alice Cooper. Is it the name of the group or the lead singer? I know, it’s the stage name of Vince Furnier and for that matter, by now, the rest of the group are probably just “hired guns”, so to speak, but anyway, I put it in “A”
What about “Tommy James & the Shondells” or “Gerry & the Pacemakers”?
The David Bromberg Band and The Brian Setzer Orchestra go by the first initial of the last name of Bromber or Setzer, respectively.
Then there’s duets. I list the live “Badge” recorded live by Clapton & Harrison under “Clapton” and the live “Something” recorded live by Clapton & Harrison under “Harrison”.
You’ve got it easy. Try sorting classical (solo, chamber, orchestral, opera, etc.), musicals (Broadway or films), LGBT choruses, pop, rock, humor, spoken word, etc., etc., etc.
I sort classical chronologically . . . but that doesn’t always work either.
I don’t quite understand the question. I originally sorted all my music by album=folder name, but when I got my first iPhone I just imported my music library into iTunes, but without actually moving any of the mp3 files or folders. iTunes merely creates a database of everything that it can sort on the fly depending on which field you want to sort by (artist, album, song etc.)
So what difference does it make? iTunes doesn’t actually move or change anything. Unless most of your mp3 tags are incomplete (no album info for example) in which case you’ve got a bit of a mess on your hands…
I sort my music alphabetically by group name, or in the case of single artists, by that artist’s first name. It’s more intuitive, at least for me, to look for Aerosmith under “A”, Bruce Springsteen under “B”, Joe Walsh under “J”, or Paul Simon under “P”, for example.
My music is sorted alphabetically by artist name. In the case of a solo artist, by the last name. I drop The’s and A’s. So, Billy Joel is filed under J, Dave Matthews Band is under D. The Beatles are under B.
The file system for my mp3s is “Artist - Album Name - Track Number - Track Name.” Soundtracks and film scores have “Soundtrack” before the artist name.
I file all my Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers albums under “P,” intermingled with the Tom Petty albums that are without the Heartbreakers. I’ve also reordered the alphabet slightly: my Kesha albums come first in my alphabet, followed by ABBA, Aerosmith, etc.
If I actually had a Tommy James solo album, I would put it under J. If I actually had a Gerry Whoever-He-Is-Without-the-Pacemakers, I would put it under his last name. But I don’t, so I put them under T and G.
That’s how I do it, too. If you try to make a set of rules to follow you’ll always have weird exceptions which don’t fit well. Then you have to remember how you resolved the weird exceptions. I can’t tell you whether Bettie Serveert is a person or a band. I forgot that long ago. But it doesn’t matter because I’ll find it under ‘B’ in either case.
I don’t even drop ‘The’, ‘A’, and ‘An’. Those words are part of the bands’ names. You wouldn’t say “I like Smiths”. They’re The Smiths. Their name begins with the letter ‘T’.
I DON’T sort the music on my iPod. I keep it on shuffle, then use what’s left of my memory to figure out which musician/group/genre, etc. it is! My way of defeating impending Alzheimer’s.
OTOH, I don’t sort my CDs, either. Not by alpha, genre, subgenre, solo or Various Artists. Not even by label. Since I am a volunteer DJ, sometimes my shows are rather … spontaneous.
iTunes sorts it for you, though maybe you don’t use its sort. For instance, if you sort by band name “The Beatles” will show under B, because iTunes skips the “the” in sorting.