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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | ABC ... it's easy as 1,2,3 |
| Date | Fri, 04 Jul 2003 01:49:26 -0500 |
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> Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 08:35:20 -0700
> From: JBrenneman@macdermid.com
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: Lennon-McCartney
> Message-ID: <OFA2B572A0.70FA2166-ON85256D58.005535C2@mymacdermid.com>
>
>
> From: "crotherskp" <crotherskp@juno.com>
> >As an full-on A-RO, here's a question for the list:
>
> >Where do you file Los Super Seven? Under L or S?
> >Where does Los Lobos go? Before or after The Lobotomies?
>
Good questions. These are issues that have vexed music retailers,
journalists, and collectors alike for years. Does the J. Geils Band go under
"J" or "G"? Where do I file T.Rex within my "T" section -- under "Tr" or at
the very beginning of the "T"'s, since the band's name has a period after
the T? Does the band called the 45s get filed under "F", or do I put them in
a separate numerical section alongside 9-Thirty, 10 Heads High, and 999?
I tend to follow the alphabetization used by my home copy of the AMG
encyclopedia. Given their mission, I'm sure that AMG has thought through all
of the pertinent filing questions (perhaps Stewart Mason can shed some light
on this). If you have a similar alphabetical reference tome such as *The
Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll* or *The Trouser Press Guide* in
your house, you might want to use it as your alphabetizing guide instead.
But since a large percentage of my CDs, LPs, and cassettes are Audities
fodder (read: obscure indie artists) that don't appear in the AMG volume, I
have to use common sense. Where am I most likely to look for something, and
where is someone who may be visiting my home most likely to look for it as
well?
I speak English, not Spanish, so any act that uses a Spanish
definite article (e.g., Los Lobos, Los Bravos, Los Super Seven) gets filed
under "Los". Bands who are named after an individual are alphabetized
according to that individual in traditional fashion. Hence, my J. Geils Band
albums sit on the shelf betwixt the Gear Daddies and the Georgia Satellites;
Kenny Howes and the Yeah! find their home after Eric Howell and the Implants
and before the Hudson Brothers; and Graham Parker and the Rumour get filed
amongst both Graham Parker and the Shot and the Graham Parker albums in
which GP didn't share billing with his backing band -- and the two Rumour
albums *sans Parker* that I own, *Max* and *Frogs, Sprouts, Clogs & Krauts*,
are ensconced separately from the GP & the R albums. They're at the back of
the "R"'s in between the Rubinoos and Todd Rundgren.
Martin Luther Lennon and Alice Cooper, bands whose frontmen adopted
stage names identical to the names of their respective bands, are filed
under "L" and "C" respectively, since Martin Luther Lennon the band was more
or less a vehicle for Martin Luther Lennon (aka Tony Perkins) the
individual, and the king of shock rock who was born Vincent Furnier and who
gave us "School's Out", "I'm Eighteen", and "Feed My Frankenstein" has been
identified a lot longer now with the name Alice Cooper than his original
band ever was.
I file numerically-named bands alphabetically, so you'll find the
45s under "F" at my house.
Some people file the Dukes of Stratosphear under "X", since the
Dukes were basically the psychedelic alter ego of XTC. I file 'em under "D",
since: a) the presence of XTCer Dave Gregory's brother Ian (aka "E.I.E.I.
Owen") as one of the Dukes makes their lineup ever-so-slightly different
from that of the main band; b) none of the songs recorded by the Dukes have
been compiled with XTC material in any Virgin re-release, which means that
the band's label treated the Dukes as a discrete entity; and c) the Dukes
have their own AMG entry.
Other judgment calls I've made: I own a greatest-hits cassette by
the Motown girl group that gave us "Dancing In the Street" and "Heat Wave"
among others, on which the group is labeled "Martha Reeves and the
Vandellas". Well, they're far better known as just "Martha and the
Vandellas", so I file them under "M" rather than "R" in spite of the name on
the cover. I'm certain that if Ms. Reeves had her druthers, she'd agree with
me that she keeps better company with Chris Mars on one side and the
Marvelettes on the other than she would with Lou Reed and the Regulators.
Both the US and the UK had bands called the Beat back in the late seventies;
over on these shores, the ska act from the mother country was known as the
English Beat, and I concur unapologetically with that bit of ethnocentrism
by filing Dave Wakeling, Ranking Roger & Co. under "E". I could've been
charitable to them by filing the L.A. power pop act under "C", since they
were also known as Paul Collins' Beat, but I chose not to. However, the
Britpop act that was forced to call themselves the London Suede on their
American releases due to a lawsuit by an obscure stateside act known as
Suede gets filed under "S" in my collection rather than "L". I don't own
anything by the American act called Suede, and I couldn't even tell you who
or what he/she/it was or were. And nobody I know refers to the band fronted
by Brett Anderson (and which once featured guitarist Bernard Butler) as the
London Suede. They're simply Suede.
> Do you put your CD's by The Beatles in your 'T's' or your 'B's'? I guess
> it's really not the same thing though, is it? Hmmmm....
>
The definite article of the primary user language ("The" for us
Anglophones, as opposed to Spanish "Los", German "Das", French "Le",
Norwegian "Det", etc.) isn't considered alphabetically relevant in any
cataloging system of which I'm aware. Hence, every music store in which
you've ever set foot files the Beatles in the"'B" bin and the Rolling Stones
in the "R" bin, and I can't imagine anybody going against the grain by
filing either band under "T" in their personal collections. Plus, consider
for a moment just how many bands over the years have had names that began
with the definite article. That includes the vast majority of all
rock'n'roll and R&B acts from the fifties and sixties, a high percentage of
all punk and power pop acts from the seventies and beyond, as well as a lot
of other groups. If you consider the "The" to be alphabetically relevant,
I'm guessing that much, if not most, of your music collection is filed under
"T" -- which sorta reduces the usefulness of alphabetical order.
I'm interested in seeing how other Auditeers with large collections
organize their music, although I suspect that this is a subject that
probably bores a lot of people. I'm as fascinated by the organizational
obsessiveness of other music collectors as much as I am by my own. I
remember taking a date to see *Diner* (one of my favorite movies) back in
college, and howling with laughter at the scene where Shrevie (Daniel Stern)
lectures his wife Beth (Ellen Barkin) about the importance of his record
collection and how it exasperates him when she misfiles his records after
playing them. My bewildered date thought that I must be completely deranged.
If only she knew!
Gregory Sager
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