BEAMAs 2014

[sp4cetiger]

[Antonio-Pedro]

*grabs booklet*

*grabs glasses*
*looks slightly*

ok...

Bad poetry...check
BEUA...check

.... BEAMAS.... wait what...??? *blinks heavily* yayayayay!

hyped for this year's one


check
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Top 100 Hits you must hear before the u... of beauty

[RockyRaccoon]

I think the negative categories are virtually useless and do little more than foster divisiveness. But if they're kept I l'm not gonna make a big deal of it, I don't feel that strongly about it.

Also, I love that we do a best metal album, but that's so broad, would it be conceivable to break that up a little? I'm not saying into a million sub-genres, but maybe split it up like "best black metal album" or "best death metal album" or whatever. Just a thought.
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2023 Chart

Early Psychedelic Rock

Electronic Chart

[mickilennial]

[undefined]

YAY BEAMAS. I'm actually pretty ok with the current setup. I'd like to see a classical category though

[SquishypuffDave]

In the past there has been a shortage of votes in the metal category, so that's one possible reason to keep it broad.

[mickilennial]

[RepoMan]

how about ....

Best Ambient Album
Best Punk/Garage Rock Album

[Skinny]

Actually, I pretty much like all the categories as they are, although Best Instrumental category seems a bit strange (are we talking instrumental rock music, or just music without vocals?). I like the negative categories because they're harmless fun, and I like the avant-garde category because it manages to cover music that fails to get mentioned elsewhere (even if it might be awkwardly named).

As for splitting up the Metal category, I'm not necessarily against the idea but it would be difficult to argue we should have more specific subgenre categories for Metal and not for, say, Electronic music, which is just as broad an umbrella term, or Rock music. And then where do we stop? Do we have separate categories for Mainstream Country and Outlaw Country? For East Coast Hip-Hop and West Coast Hip-Hop? Modal Jazz and Smooth Jazz and Post-Bop and Jazz Fusion? I just find it impossible to argue that Metal should be split up whilst Electronic music is fine, when the latter covers at least as wide a variety of musical styles. Splitting up the core genres would lead to a multitude of unnecessarily specific categories, many of which would likely garner very few votes. (As Squishy pointed out, Metal has hardly been voted on enthusiastically in the past compared to other categories, and is it really wise to split it up and risk even fewer people voting or getting involved?)

As for newly suggested categories, I'd have no problem with a Classical category, but would be worried that it wouldn't attract very many votes (that said, it's got to be worth a try). As for Ambient, I think that gets covered by Avant-Garde, though I wouldn't be against a name change (if a suitable name could be found - Experimental, perhaps?). Can't really see a need for a Punk/Garage Rock category, as it just seems a little too specific a category, which runs the risk of having less involvement in itself, and also begins the argument that I alluded to in my previous paragraph (i.e. where do we stop with subgenres?).

Also, I personally think the Pazz & Jop influenced idea should be kept separate from the BEAMAs. It's not as though people aren't going to take part in both.
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2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.

[19loveless91]

Yeah the problem with adding more categories is what I mentioned before and what Skinny mentions - most of them won't attract enough voters to reach a clear consensus (metal category as it is had less voters than most other categories in previous years, I can imagine what will happen if we split it to subgenres), and I can't see how many people will want to fill out a ballot with so many categories. Those of you who submitted the ballots last year know how long it already takes. This is why I'm also still in favour of keeping country and folk together. Because I think the nominees will end up being stylistically similar enough, and I'm not sure country alone will have many votes.

So I'm personally in favour of keeping it broad. I also wouldn't mind either ambient or classical categories, but I'm not sure we'll have enough votes here. So for the time being I think instrumental, and I suppose avant-garde category (even if I'm not a fan of it) should cover for those albums.

Instrumental music category is maybe named a bit awkwardly, but means music without vocals. I.e. electronic music fits here too. Maybe it's not necessary (and it's not a genre category either), but in general this is the space for nominating all the drone/ambient, modern classical, film scores, etc.

As far as the points system is concerned, at this point I'm not sure if the Pazz & Jop idea is doable on the site we use for survey making without making it too messy. Otherwise I personally don't really mind either.