By studying examples of their applications by the two major English language bibliographic agencies, this article compares the strengths and weaknesses of PRECIS and LCSH as regards books about music. Quantitative analysis reveals that the number of PRECIS subject statements exceeds LC subject headings except with more generic works. Qualitative analysis reveals serious problems with the terminology in both systems. LCSH frequently fails to combine unrelated subjects into a single heading, while subject statements in PRECIS are sometimes so long that significant aspects of the work cannot be adequately integrated. If the strengths of the selected subject entries of each system were combined, the result could be an improvement over each system alone, especially in an online catalog with the capability of single and random word order searches.