Monday, 25 November 2013

Thats Mucked Up The Alphabetical-ness

You've got to have a system.
Marlon Brando, Suzanne Dando - thats how I remember it.
(c) Harry Hill

As has been mentioned in these venerable pages (?) before, the music collection is organised strictly by alphabet, with a sub-filing order of chronology.
And it works wonderfully.  If my eyes alight on the garish pink spine of the Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks", I know I'm only a few steps away from a Siouxsie and The Banshees album.  Similarly, if I am drawn to the chunky spine of Jeff Buckley's Grace (2 CDs and a DVD, yet its thicker than a double CD case), I know I'm in the correct area to find the Buzzcocks.
Anyway, you get the idea ... everything is in its place, easy to find, and all is well in the world.

But what does one do when an artist or band changes their name mid-career?
When Generation X became abbreviated to Gen X, with a slight bending of the rules, chronology and alphabetic principles can be applied.
When Madness became The Madness, this too was no issue as the rules are that 'The' is dropped to maintain order (except in the case of The The), otherwise the 'T' section would be massive.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex to T.Rex conundrum?  Simple.  The two bands are in effect the same band, so the chronology rule applies.
Joy Division and New Order? Although very similar in both (initial) sound and personnel are two different bands, so are filed under 'J' and 'N' respectively.

And then you got those who just go all out to confuse.  "Original Soundtracks" by Passengers, is effectively a U2 album appearing between "Zooropa" and "Pop".  But, it isn't 'really' a U2 album.  There is a whole different concept going on here, so that one is filed away from the others in the discography
And you can't have this discussion without mentioning the most notorious name changer in pop.  Prince/Squiggle/TAFKAP - fortunately I don't own any CDs bearing any of those names, so that particular headache is non-existent.

For the last year or so, I have been gradually building up the collection of John Wesley Harding releases, and discovered that he would be releasing/has released a new album in September 2013.
And now it's arrived, and he has returned to his given name of Wesley Stace.  So, my question now is do I file the CD under 'S' (as would be correct), or under 'H' with his other releases (or would seem chronologically logical)?
To quote the esteemed philosopher D P Gumby: "My Brain Hurts".
(I might file it under 'W' just to be awkward, but then the equilibrium in the universe may be disturbed, a time hole opened up and the last 25 years of history eradicated.  This means no-one may ever read this diatribe of kack flowing from my fingertips.)

The album itself is somewhat different  to his previous releases.  It is more personal and more mellow than previous releases, sparser in sound and giving a more intimate, close up feel.  And maybe it is "the shock of the new", but I think it's one of his best collections.

From the new album: "When I Knew"



Still don't know where to file it though.
"Is it important?", I hear you ask.
I think you can probably guess what my answer to that question may be.

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