Pretty simple, really...

Van Morrison - file under "V", or file under "M"?

He's under "M" in the Archives. Van counts as a first name.

absolutely under "M"

What about someone like "Busta Rhymes"? Whitburn places him in the Bs, but I'm not sure I see the logic in treating him any differently than other artists with made-up/modified first & last names, like Van Morrison (or Elton John, etc., etc.).

Then again, Whitburn lists "Al B. Sure!" under A, which makes no sense at all.

Ven (filed under V, like Vangelis )

Filing rap artists drives me crazy--LL Cool J under "L" or "C" or "J"? And for convenience, I keep my couple of D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince CDs under "S" with my other Will Smith CDs.

My Al B. Sure! CDs are under "S"--to be sure!

Renny files them all under C.


I'm just the opposite -- I've got my Will Smith CDs in the Ds. Since the length of his solo career has exceeded that of the duo at this point, though, I suppose I ought to switch to your method.

Hmmm... I think I'm with Whitburn on both Al B Sure! and Busta Rhymes, although I only own CDs by the latter.

In my collection, LL Cool J is filed under "L", all DJ names are filed under "D", and Will Smith would be under "S" if I owned anything by him.

ven,

actually you are wrong, there isn't a single one to file!

renny

If it's a nickname like LL Cool J, which stands for "Ladies Love Cool James", I'd probably file under the first letter, but I'd have to check my catalog to see where I've filed my LL Cool J CD; I don't honestly remember.

As for filing in general, I sometimes file according to family trees, which is why my Byrds list fills a whole page.

Van Morrison ?
Just file him under "miserable old bastard".

OK, how about Meat Loaf? I keep 'em under "M" (like Whitburn), but a case could be made that his last name is Loaf.

oh he's a loaf alright!

I've noticed how iTunes is now automatically sorting bands/song titles beginning with numbers AFTER the letter Z. I prefer to put all my numbered songs/artists at the start of my lists, before the A's--the way Microsoft Works Database does it.

I agree with AMW about the numbers thing, at the beginning before the A's or under the first letter of the number, so 10 CC would be filed under "T".

I file everybody under first letter of first word or name (except for "the"), a habit I picked up in Japan where the shops display that way. So George Harrison I'd file under "G", only he's a Beatle, so in his case I'd file him with the Beatles under "B". Simple, right? I have all my Bear Family CD's on one page filed "Bear Family" under "B". And all my surf instrumentals are filed separately as "Surf". Doo Wop CD's should also be filed separately in one group, otherwise it's hard to collect them. It's much faster to check if you've got them all together.

I'm curious, then...where do you file Elton John? If you consider him a "J", then how do you differentiate him from the other two? After all, Elton John is a completely made-up name, just like Busta Rhymes. (FWIW, Al is Mr. Sure!'s real first name.)

I do the latter, spelling out all numbers when it comes to alphabetization. And I ignore punctuation completely -- except when the punctuation mark is the name, like ? And The Mysterians (filed under Q). I guess that means I'd put !!! under E.

Elton John would be under "J", since it is commonly used as a standard first/last name combination.

"Busta Rhymes" is like "Mos Def", usually reduced to the first word when shortened (e.g., "Busta" instead of "Rhymes"), so under "B" it goes.

As for "Al B Sure!", it's the "Sure" that throws things off... it's a project name, not the name of the artist (which would otherwise be under "B", and I certainly wouldn't file it under "S"). Another example would be "ASaP", Adrian Smith's Iron Maiden offshoot, which is filed under "A" rather than "S" (for Smith).

Overall, my filing system has 4 main categories: Primary (pop/rock/R&B/rap/jazz/world music/blues/country/etc., basically everything save classical) by artist, Various Artists compilations, Soundtracks, and Classical. Within each category, 0-9 and symbols are at the top with A-Z following. I don't do family trees or other relational groupings.

Having said that, there are minor exceptions; I would probably file "? and the Mysterians" under "Q" rather than "symbol" and TAFKAP (Prince's infamous alias) is definitely under "P".