How do you organize your music libraries?

So here’s my question.

I have a ton of music, mostly random songs spanning hundreds of genres with no real pattern. I have LOTS of music like this, like 10 gigs of completely varied music on my phone, spanning reggae to rap to rock to metal and everything in between.

I need a system of keeping my music in check, and making sure I can easily rediscover music I might have forgotten about. How do you recommend I go about this? I’ve tried to organize it into playlists by genres, but that feels inefficient and impractical.

Should I put it into playlists sorted by emotion?

I’m really overwhelmed. Any thoughts?

 

I’ve also considered trying to focus on a genre every week and creating a playlist where I add all of my current music, and discover more and add it that week. Does this seem practical?

 

Try the cmus-like approach: just organize by author and hear every author in alphabetical order.

 

Alright. Im with you, ive been dealing w this too for a while and i get stressed about it. First off i use spotify (i use youtube to organize instrumentals and deep tracks and souncloud for underground rap & mixtapes bc they dont have those on Spotify).

So i also listen to vast amount of genres, not a hundred different genres though lol i didnt even know a hundred existed tbh

But i used to group it by genres and this didnt work. For example, i have alot more hiphop songs and classic rock songs then i do jazz songs for example. So I'll end up with a playlist w significant amount of songs (hundreds) and then a jazz playlist with only a hundred or so.

Well i would play the hell outta those songs and it wpuld get old. It was disorganzied and stuff. I deleted my playlists and now am in the process of categorizing.

Right now, i have 73 playlists on Spotify with 100+ songs at least in all of them except a few. And im categorizing by genre and certain styles or sub genres within that genre.

Rap is my favorite, so i have 20 or so playlists of jyst different types of rap (old school rough, old school chill, 80s rap, trap lit, trap wavy, wavy rap [not trap], happy/bubbly rap, rap love, trap love, party mix [for the ladies], rap mixed w soul (lovveee), etc i dont feel like naming them all but there's alot more). Those arent final drafts, im just caregorizing and not really relistening to much and then im gonna go through and put them into real playlists.

I think I'm gonna base these playlists on moods/vibes but alot of playlists are going to have the same genre in it. For example i have 2 playlists (out of 73) that are pretty much finalized. A wake n bake playlist (my most popular, its a mix of different genres, im really proud of it) and an inner demon playlist (rap songs that represent how i be feeling on the low sometimes, dark lyrics and stuff).

And I'm also splitting up for other genres obvipusly lile general/chill classic rock, rough classic rock, alternative rock, indie rock, old school regaee, new school regaee, blues, jazz, classical music (beetoven & mozart type stuff), new aged soul, old aged soul, funk, old school country, new aged coumtry lit, new aged country slow, even a standup comedy mix which im not changing its balling. Theres alot more but you get the point.

It depends on how much music youre sorting and what platform. Spotify is dope if you use your phone bc you can download songs in your playlist (so you dont need internet to play). But a hidden perk is if you come across a song that you think might be in one of your other many playlists, if it is and the playlist is downloaded, there will be a green circle w an arrow so you know its on another playlist. This is helpful to me to help w no overlap so i dont have repeat songs in various playlists.

Last thing, i created a temporary playlist where i store excess songs from older albums and can go through and listen and add and it helps alot. Just dont download that paylist bc you cant see if its added elsewhere when going through it. And i try not to listen to much to the songs already in the playlists rough drafts i made so they don't get old. So i have 3 playlists finished and 70 that are rough drafts and used as sorting so i can categorize them into finalized playlists later

 

This is if you have the paid version on spotify. Now im trying to figure out how to organize instrumentals/deep tracks on youtube as i dont have the paid version. Souncloud i just use mixtaoes by typing in whatever i feel like listening to, same w underground rappers on there

 

Not to me but whatever works works. I just can't listen to a single genre for a whole week. I will say though that ive made the mistake of overplaying certain songs where it gets old. So i play songs i added when im driving or at the gym or doing an activity. And when i get home after work or school and am just listening to music and nothing else, then i like to explore so it doesnt get old. My problem is a jump from genre to genre. I'll be bumping a new jcole song, then some pink Floyd song, then an al green song, then nirvana, then Mozart (this was an extreme example, but it's like that sometimes). So i try to stick to one genre when in a session

 

I dig that. I’m gonna have to give it a try. Thanks!

 

Yeah, I need to start getting into albums more. I’ll need to try it. Thanks!