Best Ever Albums

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 23:37:05 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 03/23/2015 03:37

I don't see many discussions about genre nit-picking on RYM, so I don't think voting up and down will be a problem here. The problem would be the number of voters. BEA's tiny compared to RYM.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Patman360 — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 17:04:41 GMT

Author: Patman360

Posted: 02/24/2015 22:04

I'm kind of sitting on the fence in terms of this idea. I do hope to see genres introduced here at some stage (Not so much for my benefit, but for the benefit of the site as a whole). That said, the system should be right and that's where I feel the problem lies, like Gowi said, we don't need something like that tagging system on Last Fm, we need something that'll suit BEA, what that is I'm not sure of yet.

The reason I feel genres will benefit the site in the long run is because I can see it helping the site and in turn, the forums, grow and develop. People join BEA often looking for albums of specific genres, when they realise that there's none here they up and leave to never be seen again. I know this isn't always the case, but I'm sure if done right genres can benefit the site as a whole.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

RockyRaccoon — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:29:47 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 02/24/2015 21:29

I don't see any reason why we would need the genre tags. Not saying anything about genres as an idea, but I don't know why we would need a system.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

meccalecca — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:18:30 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 02/24/2015 21:18

BrandonMiaow wrote:

I hate to ask this, but I'm starting to wonder, with all these ideas...aren't we basically just adding everything RYM already has? What is there to differentiate us? I am fond of genre charts, or just having a tagging system for charts really, which would broaden the scope beyond genres, because it keeps the focus on charts and makes the chart system more sophisticated and searchable. And in addition to that, it'll make it so non-forum users can have their charts found without having to post in the forums just to make people aware and curious about them. It seems a very logical next step for BEA, and I think it keeps the focus where it ought to be.

Yes yes yes.

We need to avoid being too much like RYM for BEA to continue to have its own unique identity.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

nachosbob — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 20:15:15 GMT

Author: nachosbob

Posted: 02/24/2015 01:15

BrandonMiaow wrote:

I agree with all of this

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 19:29:45 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/24/2015 00:29

I hate to ask this, but I'm starting to wonder, with all these ideas...aren't we basically just adding everything RYM already has? What is there to differentiate us? I am fond of genre charts, or just having a tagging system for charts really, which would broaden the scope beyond genres, because it keeps the focus on charts and makes the chart system more sophisticated and searchable. And in addition to that, it'll make it so non-forum users can have their charts found without having to post in the forums just to make people aware and curious about them. It seems a very logical next step for BEA, and I think it keeps the focus where it ought to be.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

babyBlueSedan — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 17:47:10 GMT

Author: babyBlueSedan

Posted: 02/23/2015 22:47

noWaxJim wrote:

- allow users to specify genre-specific charts and make these searchable

To expand on this, maybe it could be possible to customize the overall to only show albums included in a certain genre's chart, and only including the points for that album in those charts. So if someone searches for "best post-hardcore albums," they'd get a chart that only includes points from user's post-hardcore charts (kind of like how current year albums don't count towards the overall, except opposite and not really like that now that I think about it). People could still put Abbey Road on a post-hardcore chart if they wanted to but this kind of search would filter the most common albums to the top. Just a thought.

While I never consciously listen to certain genres, it does give me a good way to find similar albums. There are times when I'm in the mood for certain genres and want to expand on my listening. Not so that I can claim I've heard X number of albums in said genre, but because it helps put the rest of what I've heard in context.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Jimmy Dread — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 16:43:10 GMT

Author: Jimmy Dread

Posted: 02/23/2015 21:43

Gowienczyk wrote:

I don't simply want to shove "my" music into boxes for superfluous or arbitrary reasons. So much of music is interesting, and genres are simply another chapter in that book.

Point taken chap. I suppose another take on my stance is how accurate any said genre tagging would be, because if it was 100% on the money and wasn't intrusive (i.e. helpful to other users, but not overbearing to us old gits who couldn't give a toss) then I can't see a problem as it won't personally affect me...

...BUT what I am saying is that a repeat of mis-labeling one album as something it isn't could ruffle people's feathers, especially in light of the 'reggae' and 'indie-pop' examples cited a few posts back.

I still say a referendum/poll would be a good way to gauge opinion on something which will undoubtedly take a fair bit of time on AM's part to put into motion, with the options being:

- no genres whatsoever, keep the status quo
- allow users to specify genre-specific charts and make these searchable
- allow any new albums added to the database to be labelled with a genre tag, perhaps for future usage
- allow any data mod. who has the time and desire to add genre tags to current albums, again for future usage
- label every sodding thing the database has and allow all to search by genre to their heart's content.

I like the thought of option 2 above, which someone else mentioned earlier in this thread. Then again, that's me innit.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

meccalecca — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 16:34:07 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 02/23/2015 21:34

noWaxJim wrote:

Maybe we should have a BEA referendum. I'll happily champion the anti-genre lobby. ;)

Amen.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

mickilennial — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 16:29:31 GMT

Author: mickilennial

Posted: 02/23/2015 21:29

noWaxJim wrote:

Gowi, you can still be passionate about music history and journalism without having to neatly compartmentalise everything you listen to, but of course having a genuine love and interest of what you're writing about (either from a historical or journalistic/opinion-based standpoint) comes out in how you write and manifests itself in the style you engage with your readership.

Maybe my main point got a bit lost in the rambling. Genres are fine and dandy, but everyone's got a different spin on things to some degree. There's nowt stopping people doing genre-specific custom charts at the moment, and perhaps some way of marking these out for other people to search through would be a forward step, but to go through every album on BEA just to tag it with 'x' or 'y' genre personally seems a waste of effort on the part of AM and many others.

I mostly agree with the bolded, but I'm not going to lie and say it always strives a nerve when people think of genres as pointless pursuits and aren't integral to a core aspect of our (modern) history of music; they have a lot of value despite if you don't care to immerse yourself into the huge movements and sound shifts, progressions, regressions, and so forth. I really am passionate about music in a lot of forms and disregarding one of the things that made me fascinated about music in my formative years feels like you are shoveling salt in my face, so that was why my defense seemed to jump out from nowhere.

I don't simply want to shove "my" music into boxes for superfluous or arbitrary reasons. So much of music is interesting, and genres are simply another chapter in that book.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Jimmy Dread — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 16:24:56 GMT

Author: Jimmy Dread

Posted: 02/23/2015 21:24

Gowienczyk wrote:

Because people cannot be passionate about music history, journalism, or the complexities of genre classification (which does have some objective points to them, by the way). Seems you want to put people into the boxes you so want to ignore despite the importance and validity of genres. I would not want to go into a library or bookstore where everything literary to textbook is classified as "books".

Gowi, you can still be passionate about music history and journalism without having to neatly compartmentalise everything you listen to, but of course having a genuine love and interest of what you're writing about (either from a historical or journalistic/opinion-based standpoint) not only makes for a more engaging read but also allows your personality and taste to permeate your text.

Maybe my main point got a bit lost in the rambling. Genres are fine and dandy, but everyone's got a different spin on things to some degree. There's nowt stopping people doing genre-specific custom charts at the moment, and perhaps some way of marking these out for other people to search through would be a forward step, but to go through every album on BEA just to tag it with 'x' or 'y' genre personally seems a waste of effort on the part of AM and many others.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

mickilennial — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 16:15:41 GMT

Author: mickilennial

Posted: 02/23/2015 21:15

noWaxJim wrote:

I categorically cannot understand the constant clamoring to pigeon-hole every single album into a neat little box called 'this' or 'that'. As Bob said, genres are very much a matter of opinion, and using a stylistic form very close to my heart labelling everything that's ever come out of Jamaica as 'reggae' is as ridiculous as you could possibly get when you've got ska, rocksteady, dancehall, ragga being tagged as a form that essentially describes a specific sound popularlised by Marley et al from the early-mid 70s on.

Part of the reason I love BEA so much (and have never yet ventured onto RYM, and don't intend to) is that most of the peeps I come across on here have a genuine love of music and a passion for talking about it rather than having to push everything into a little box, show off the size of their collection or how much they've listened to (with a couple of exceptions) and stick little stars next to everything they own/know. AM, I guess if enough people want it then fair enough, and I'm all for genre-specific chart labelling, but for you and others to go through the entire database and stick 'rock' or 'hip-hop' on every relevant release is a ball-ache and an unnecessary chore.

Maybe we should have a BEA referendum. I'll happily champion the anti-genre lobby. ;)

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Jimmy Dread — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 16:08:12 GMT

Author: Jimmy Dread

Posted: 02/23/2015 21:08

I categorically cannot understand the constant clamoring to pigeon-hole every single album into a neat little box called 'this' or 'that'. As Bob said, genres are very much a matter of opinion, and using a stylistic form very close to my heart labelling everything that's ever come out of Jamaica as 'reggae' is as ridiculous as you could possibly get when you've got ska, rocksteady, dancehall, ragga being tagged as a form that essentially describes a specific sound popularlised by Marley et al from the early-mid 70s on. I'm also reminded of a recent argument as to what constituted 'indie-pop', as from a list I saw RYM considered Eliott Smith, The Decembrists and Eels qualified. Nonsense I tell thee.

Part of the reason I love BEA so much (and have never yet ventured onto RYM, and don't intend to) is that most of the peeps I come across on here have a genuine love of music and a passion for talking about it rather than having to push everything into a little box, show off the size of their collection or how much they've listened to (with a couple of exceptions) and stick little stars next to everything they own/know. AM, I guess if enough people want it then fair enough, and I'm all for genre-specific chart labelling, but for you and others to go through the entire database and stick 'rock' or 'hip-hop' on every relevant release is a ball-ache and an unnecessary chore.

Maybe we should have a BEA referendum. I'll happily champion the anti-genre lobby. 😉

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:08:19 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/23/2015 19:08

Entea wrote:

I hope this goes through and is implemented on this website 😄 I believe it will help loads of members find out new albums by genres, its the way forward :P

It helps a lot on RYM's charts.

To be honest, I think genre composition is something we should focus on after the redesign, but not because I personally want it. The site's been around since 2005, right? Ten years without a genre database seems a bit long for a music-based site.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Entea — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 11:53:47 GMT

Author: Entea

Posted: 02/23/2015 16:53

albummaster wrote:

Genre categorisation (in whichever form it's eventually implemented) is on the list to be done. Tbh, it has been talked about many times over the past few years and has been put off largely because it is a massive job & gets very complex when working out the nuts and bolts of how it might work (there are many different views on how it should be done, or whether it needs to be done at all).

Personally, it's one of the main items that I'd like to achieve this year from the 2015 roadmap, but currently a site redesign is heading the queue and is happening right now in the background. This is going to take several months to finish due to the amount of work that's needed to do it properly. Hopefully, once this is finished, I can start tackling other items on the list such as dealing with genres.

I hope this goes through and is implemented on this website 😄 I believe it will help loads of members find out new albums by genres, its the way forward 😜

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Entea — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 11:51:51 GMT

Author: Entea

Posted: 02/23/2015 16:51

Patman360 wrote:

Hey man, welcome to BEA, interesting looking chart!

I guess the problem with genres on a site like this is debates over genres, people are naturally going to disagree on what is what, especially when it comes to subgenres, adding them would more than likely create a mess of tags and clutter the site a bit I guess. Hopefully someday there'll be an ideal system to allow genres to be added but for now it would be a bit awkward and messy. If you do feel like adding genres to your own chart try placing them in the comments section for each album, some users do tend to do that, same goes with users making custom charts for specific genres, they're probably the best way of checking out genres on BEA for now, have a search in the search bar for a genre you like and see if there's a custom chart to suit it yet, there are quite a few around from reggae to post-punk to shoegazing and so on. So yeah, hope this helps, and stick around BEA, you seem enthusiastic!

Well there must be official genre websites thats genuine, moderates can go off iTunes genre tags for albums, just a suggestion 😄 Yes I will stick around, liking this website and I'm a massive music addict 😜

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

albummaster — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 11:13:51 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 02/23/2015 16:13

Genre categorisation (in whichever form it's eventually implemented) is on the list to be done. Tbh, it has been talked about many times over the past few years and has been put off largely because it is a massive job & gets very complex when working out the nuts and bolts of how it might work (there are many different views on how it should be done, or whether it needs to be done at all).

Personally, it's one of the main items that I'd like to achieve this year from the 2015 roadmap, but currently a site redesign is heading the queue and is happening right now in the background. This is going to take several months to finish due to the amount of work that's needed to do it properly. Hopefully, once this is finished, I can start tackling other items on the list such as dealing with genres.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

mickilennial — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 10:58:29 GMT

Author: mickilennial

Posted: 02/23/2015 15:58

benpaco wrote:

The whole of genre tagging, IMO, is it might be cool to implement a tag you could put on a custom chart. i.e. I'm working on a Post-Hardcore custom chart, so if there was some way of tagging it where then it could have a link on the chart that said something like "See other charts for this genre" and you could click it and see the list of other post-hardcore charts, that'd be cool. No clue how much work that'd be, but that way, it stays focussed on charts and the genres (hopefully) wouldn't get trolly or weird or anything IDK.

So you want last.fm's tagging system? I'm iffy on that.

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

goeie-oko — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 09:17:52 GMT

Author: goeie-oko

Posted: 02/23/2015 14:17

benpaco wrote:

I think this is a very good idea

Re: Suggestion: genre composition?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 13:55:59 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/22/2015 18:55

Entea wrote:

How about adding genre composition to charts so people can know overall what genres we like, I'm guessing if so that there'll need to be a genre allocated for every album :)

This is a great idea. A lot of people - like me! - search for albums via genre. Kind of crazy that people can't search by genre on this site to find what the "best ever albums" are for each genre based on the sizable amount of data this site has already collected. Like for instance, what is considered the top ten metal albums on this site? There should be an easy way to look that up, but currently there is not.