PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the classification of commercial popular music when large digital collections are organised for use in films.Design/methodology/approachA range of systems are investigated and their organization is discussed, focusing on an analysis of the metadata used by the systems and choices given to the end‐user to construct a query. The indexing of the music is compared with a check‐list of music facets which has been derived from recent musicological literature on semiotic analysis of popular music. These facets include aspects of communication, cultural and musical expression, codes and competences.FindingsIn addition to bibliographic detail, descriptive metadata are used to organise music in these systems. Genre, subject and mood are used widely; some musical facets also appear. The extent to which attempts are being made to reflect these facets in the organization of these systems is discussed. A number of recommendations are made which may help to improve this process.Originality/valueThe paper discusses an area of creative music search which has not previously been investigated in any depth and makes recommendations based on findings and the literature which may be used in the development of commercial systems as well as making a contribution to the literature.