Best Ever Albums

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Fri, 15 May 2020 12:04:20 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/15/2020 16:04

A reserved post should handle that latter part.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

albummaster — Fri, 15 May 2020 04:36:37 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 05/15/2020 08:36

Spyglass wrote:

I dunno. Most of what you said are things I'd back up, but grabbing every single little genre we've already listed and putting it together in a whopper alphabetical list seems like a lot to cull when most of it is pretty obvious.

We'd get rid of the obvious duplicates straight away... (anything with the same name)

Spyglass wrote:

And I need to point something out (I just thought of this). It was my idea to put psychedelia under miscellaneous, but once the genres overlap do we wanna see The Doors, Jimi and The Beatles classified as a "miscellaneous" band? I'd get behind industrial, experimental and darkwave going under miscellanuous. If we call experimental rock albums miscellaneous, it might be proper, considering that it might be awkward but understandable to classify TVU&N and Trout Mask Replica as miscellaneous.

Not sure where the miscellaneous 'genre' comes from, but personally not in favour of it. If we're saying anything by Chopin or Vivaldi are 'classical', then surely it's not too much of a stretch to say that some of the above can't belong to the top level category of 'Rock' (e.g. VU, CB etc). Miscellaneous is not something I'd be in favour of at all as people wont think to look for anything in there.

Spyglass wrote:

An OP for the potential discussion should carry several reserved posts for future updates, and the original post needs three lists: one for accepted genres, one for debated genres, and one for rejected genres.

I'd also say we should leave some room for assigning sample data to the proposed categories, so we can see if the schema 'works' or not.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:12:29 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/14/2020 23:12

I dunno. Most of what you said are things I'd back up, but grabbing every single little genre we've already listed and putting it together in a whopper alphabetical list seems like a lot to cull when most of it is pretty obvious.

And I need to point something out (I just thought of this). It was my idea to put psychedelia under miscellaneous, but once the genres overlap do we wanna see The Doors, Jimi and The Beatles classified as a "miscellaneous" band? I'd get behind industrial, experimental and darkwave going under miscellanuous. If we call experimental rock albums miscellaneous, it might be proper, considering that it might be awkward but understandable to classify TVU&N and Trout Mask Replica as miscellaneous.

An OP for the potential discussion should carry several reserved posts for future updates, and the original post needs three lists: one for accepted genres, one for debated genres, and one for rejected genres.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

albummaster — Thu, 14 May 2020 11:34:47 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 05/14/2020 15:34

Yes, no time like the present, and could do with a poke now and again. 😉

Going back to your post, you proposed creating some kind of prototype list and then soliciting feedback.

Just thinking of a mechanism that would allow us to arrive at a final list in a way that results in something that's coherent AND that people can buy into (not everybody will agree with the final list, possibly including myself, as there is no 'correct' list). The 'correct' list is the one that will fit and work the best on BEA, given that it's a specialist album site and only focuses on a subset of the 'best' albums (so the database is smaller than some other sites).

To prove that whatever top-level category list 'works', we also need a reasonable sample of albums to decide if that list is fit for purpose. I propose for simplicity that the sample of albums be the top 500 albums on BEA (overall chart). This is a large enough sample that all top-level genres should be represented, but not too large that it's overwhelming (and easy for most people to use since the overall chart can be downloaded into a spreadsheet via CSV download).

We already have various category lists on this thread put forward by different people, so these could be harvested and combined into a full list (with duplicates) and then we could work out how these duplicates could be culled to end up with one list of no more than 12-20 entries. I began doing this earlier in the thread from external sources, but perhaps we should have a second stab also including the member lists that have already been posted here and have a gigantic list that we can publicly cull down (that's not going to please everyone and assumes all the categories we need are already posted here).

Once the top level list is determined, then the next phase would be to work out how the secondary tagging will work, but just parking that to one side at the moment and focusing on the list of top-level categories, we need a way of voting/deciding these which is something i'm just pondering now 🤔

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Wed, 13 May 2020 21:30:27 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/14/2020 01:30

I think your diagnosis was properly handled. My concern is what the first "phase" would be now, because that's what we need: a real start.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

albummaster — Wed, 13 May 2020 08:14:53 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 05/13/2020 12:14

Apologies for being very slow to respond. Day job is super-busy (which I guess is good but also quite frustrating with regards to making progress here).

I'm exceedingly grateful for everbody's feedback as it really helps to clarify (or muddy!) what might work on BEA. I'd also like to sorry right here if some of my posts have been a bit abrupt recently, it's just very difficult juggling everything right now within the free time that I have.

Spyglass wrote:

Wouldn't there be some people who would like to discover Non-English albums for that sake alone? Having a "traditional" or "international" tag could be useful. As for reggae, explaining that it's regional may not stop complaints, but it's a perfectly reasonable justification which needs not warrant a change in the placement, which would spark another reasonable argument for the original point, and vise-versa.

There's no simple answer to that. Internationally, English-speaking culture is dominated by certain genres of music, and each of these countries will also have their own country and regional specific genres/styles that might be entirely different to any of the top-level genres but are not as popular internationally. It's certainly a bit of a cludge to try and sandbox everything else into one box, but less than 5% of albums on BEA probably fall into this (mis)category but it would simplify browsing the site for the vast majority of people if there weren't too many top level categories.

Spyglass wrote:

I don't care for the "&" categories listed above. We could have a music map discussion thread to sort out a map of the styles separated by specific category, and we'd obviously have some overlapping styles like "jazz-funk." But big genres like rock and metal DO NOT NEED MORE THAN ONE PRIMARY CATEGORY. Keeping everything at one per style is perfectly fair and fine. Pop. Rock. Move on. If you want to separate metal from rock, it's understandable, although it's also debatable.

Agree, in favour of keeping as few top level categories as possible.

Spyglass wrote:

Tagging genres based on a chart alone should be restricted to people with the ability to make either year charts or custom charts. Level 6 isn't too far off of a score. If we have a music map, we could use a "select style" function when a genre-central chart is being created. By marking it with a specific genre from a music map list, the chart could count as "official." For new users to come in and potentially abuse the system creates a risk, especially if they are serious about the points system. I achieved level 4 in a few days through release moderation and chart sizes, and it won't take much longer for a new user to acquire the score needed.

I'd certainly trust all users here to edit any genre/category/tagging info, with some kind of supporting system to help achieve consensus as this is more subjective than other areas of data admin. Votes could possibly lead to points to encourage participation.

baystateoftheart wrote:

think there are so many smaller genres that we'll need a miscellaneous category for cases in which no top-level genre fits. We can create additional top-level genres if a need becomes evident. Some of the genres from the reference list albummaster created that I left out of this draft didn't have any sonic cohesiveness and are therefore more descriptions than genres. One example is religious music, which can be sonically rooted in classical, a variety of folk styles, rock, and more. Other examples include holiday, stage & screen, vocal, and soundtracks. Tougher calls to exclude as top-level genres included dance, experimental, and punk. Happy to discuss my thinking further.

Appreciate you putting something out there. Not sure about having specific geographical categories and I'd personally combine further a few more of them e.g. ambient and electronic (although 'ambient' can be quite a loose term depending on how you interpret it). I'd probably also combine pop, rock and metal like AllMusic and a few others have done (as the aim is just to broadly categorise at the top level). Also, the issue of some albums fitting into multiple categories hasn't been addressed yet e.g. compilations by various artists may require the need for multiple categories to be assigned. I'm rambling away, but really just thinking to myself as i write this what utility genres will provide. I personally just see it as more a top-level navigational mechanism, and second level tagging would evolve more organically and not be so constrained.

The "disco" debate is interesting as well (no answer really). Where would people expect to find disco (R&B sounds the best suggestion so far). It's too narrow as a top level genre. The whole thing is very difficult, and it's probably why every site has their own way of doing it.

Spyglass wrote:

I think that list is getting nearer, possibly merge pop and rock and add soundtracks & theatre either as a top level attribute in the same way that BEA has compilations (and now live) albums because a movie soundtrack will probably also belong to a particular genre (e.g The Harder They Come might fall under Reggae etc). Theatrical or game soundtracks might be different (but they probably also have their own style). If an album is some type of soundtrack, this is a statement of fact and not open to much interpretation, whereas "is it heavy metal?" might be (if the genre isn't clear and you're a purist etc).

Personally, gong back to the geographical naming, I'd rather name the categories after their styles and not their place of origin as it just seems inconsistent to do otherwise and some albums derivative of reggae (ska etc) might be produced outside the Caribbean etc so it doesn't feel right.

Spyglass wrote:

My proposal is that one of us, preferably a moderator or Albummaster himself, create an "official prototype list" of the most primary and practical genres, and further submit this list to greater discussion concerning the proper order. We have a lot to talk about: putting metal into rock or separating the two, which cultures get their own, the possibility of including a miscellaneous list and what should qualify as miscellaneous, the level that users can achieve the ability to perform tagging, etc. (On that subject, we should incorporate lesser genres that are more known for overlapping than stand-alone performance, such as experimental, industrial, dance, psychedelia, etc.) By the end of, say two weeks tops, we finally have an official list and go from there.

If Albummaster has the time to program the feature, we need to discuss how to include it after that. We've discussed several options, including freelance Last.fm tagging, voting, moderating the albums' genres, tagging the custom charts directly, and I may be missing a few. We create a thread devoted to voting for the best format, and whichever wins becomes the new format.

I'm happy with that, but can see it getting quite messy in the forums unless the first post in the thread contains the evolved list with any edits marked underneath with reasons for removal/change (then there's going to be a lot of disagreements over what's been included (or not). After that, there's quite a lot of work to do to actually build it! As well, it's likely to happen in phases, with not everything done at once (bearing in mind there's a hell of a lot of work happening behind the scenes just to keep the site running, plus i'm already working on a forum upgrade which is taking a huge amount of time, plus I've got a day job which gets in my way (but pays my bills...).

Sorry this post isn't more organised, but definitely helped evolve how this might work, and I'll post back when i get another break...

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Tue, 5 May 2020 00:11:22 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/05/2020 04:11

We can still offer suggestions and discuss it. And I could be wrong but Albummaster's dedication to copying and studying external genre catalogues might be a good omen.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

PurpleHazel — Mon, 4 May 2020 22:42:12 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 05/05/2020 02:42

Anything about music's on-topic for the Music forum. It'd be your/my/ the users' thread/poll -- wouldn't be binding or anything. Isn't the system up to the mods?

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Mon, 4 May 2020 21:28:43 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/05/2020 01:28

Will that fly?

Actually, we should start with deciding on a proper system.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

PurpleHazel — Mon, 4 May 2020 20:46:29 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 05/05/2020 00:46

Spyglass wrote:

We still need to do it at some point. If the copyright at the bottom of the screen is correct, this website is 15 years old. The lack of tagging could easily have say in the lack of forum activity. There aren't very many charts for different styles, even the big ones. The ability to tag could help a lot. We need some sort of call on Albummaster's part if that's the only way. There are dozens of good reasons to continue with this plan. In the end, the only sacrifice would be a little extra time spent on a valuable feature.

I agree with your overall point. Don't think the inability to sort by genre has lessened forum activity much, if at all; it could've actually increased posting (there have been genre tournaments etc.). But it could discourage new users from joining and staying very slightly. Agree it's a valuable feature. But there have been big technical obstacles (wouldn't just be a little extra time at all, if I'm understanding you right) -- that's why it wasn't implemented a long time ago. It's up to the mods. You might want to consider starting a thread in the Music forum about which top-level genres to include, possibly with a poll.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Mon, 4 May 2020 14:17:58 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/04/2020 18:17

We still need to do it at some point. If the copyright at the bottom of the screen is correct, this website is 15 years old. The lack of tagging could easily have say in the lack of forum activity. There aren't very many charts for different styles, even the big ones. The ability to tag could help a lot. We need some sort of call on Albummaster's part if that's the only way. There are dozens of good reasons to continue with this plan. In the end, the only sacrifice would be a little extra time spent on a valuable feature.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

PurpleHazel — Sun, 3 May 2020 18:23:07 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 05/03/2020 22:23

As far as selecting top-level genres, I think we're approaching the line between easing the load and being annoying. Me, you and baystateoftheart aren't most of the community. At this point a poll might be more useful, if albummaster thinks it'd help.

I don't know much about instituting a system (don't mean debating genres) other than some the non-technical stuff others have already discussed. Ultimately it's mostly technical.

There's never going to be something that's "perfectly" acceptable to everyone. I'd take just acceptable within reason. Know you didn't necessarily really mean "perfectly."

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Sun, 3 May 2020 17:43:27 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/03/2020 21:43

But we can still ease the load by putting in the effort of helping the moderators have a system to put on site. It's true that Albummaster has the final decision, but from what he's said before I think he wants something to be perfectly acceptable to most of the community, which is where we and these discussion perfectly fit in.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

PurpleHazel — Sun, 3 May 2020 17:33:29 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 05/03/2020 21:33

Just wanted to make sure you didn't feel like I was picking on you personally.

Spyglass wrote:

I could be wrong, but I think the reason for the lack of progress: BEA is afraid of heated debates, and discussing proper musical styles can turn into that.

As far as this thread goes, the problem is that me and you and the others are just yakking, while albummaster has to do practically all the work. So we need to be respectful that when we say BEA should do stuff, we're basically telling a small group of mods to do that stuff. This holds true for the Suggestions subforum overall.

If you want to have a vigorous debate about genres in the Music forum, as long as it's separate from making suggestions to the mods, have at it.

Though it was mostly before my time, there were plenty of heated debates, and arguments, personal attacks and people getting banned (mainly in other subforums). A lot of the members were young and full of, um, spunk and message boards were more popular in general. I'm glad the flaming and trolling is mostly gone.

There's nothing wrong with vigorous on-topic debates in threads, as long as it doesn't get personal. But the Suggestions subforum's different than the others because.... it's a subforum for making suggestions to the mods (duh!).

Quote:

This discussion about making real progress should be done.

Yes and no. Only the mods can make real concrete progress because unless you're a senior member with website-building skills, they're the only ones able to do most of the work. Albummaster opened this up to public discussion, but we should be mindful that, in the end, he's the one who has to make the final decisions based on what he can practically implement and what he thinks is best for the site.

If you want to have any robust on-topic debates in any other subforum/thread, go for it! (Perhaps better to be a little more diplomatic in the Religion and Politics thread.)

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Sun, 3 May 2020 16:35:37 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/03/2020 20:35

PurpleHazel wrote:

Hope it doesn't feel like I'm giving you a hard time or anything

I could be wrong, but I think the reason for the lack of progress is tight under our noses: BEA is afraid of heated debates, and discussing proper musical styles can turn into that. But I think we need to face that fear. I'm pretty certain these kinds of dicussions are everywhere and these other areas of the internet are just fine. This discussion has been very tame and there's not a lot of room for "hassle" or "offense" here. It's a proper manner of behavior to hold onto, but I think this community has proven that it's a much calmer place than other websites. I would've thought there would be more trolls here like on Facebook, but apparently there's more maturity here.

We shouldn't be afraid of simple discussions. This discussion about making real progress should be done. If everybody's stuck on their couches streaming Bob's Burgers instead of making burgers, then this is the best time to go forward with any community-driven plans for site development.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

PurpleHazel — Sun, 3 May 2020 15:41:58 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 05/03/2020 19:41

baystateoftheart wrote:

I hear you on metal and partly agree, but it seems to me that a lot of metal has moved so far afield from rock that it no longer really covers it.

Honestly, this can be said about many subgenres. Beethoven couldn't have conceived of musique concrete, pre-war Louis Armstrong couldn't have conceived of the European free improv of the late 60s and 70s, hip-hop jazz or electronic-jazz fusions like Spring Heel Jack and the Chicago Underground Duo. Most metal is still a singer, one or two guitars, bass and drums. I get that Sunn O))) and other artists have stretched the metal genre to extreme degrees, but I can find the same extreme examples in several other top-level genres.

baystateoftheart wrote:

Artists can create music in many different styles during their careers, so I don't think whether they worked in other genres is relevant. It's the experimental releases that are relevant - can they fit into other top-level genres in a satisfactory way? Maybe enough of them can so that this isn't value added as a top-level genre. I'll look over the top 100 in the experimental chart and post my thoughts.

Recognizing you're researching further, what I was trying to say is many of these artists worked mainly in one genre and then just pushed that genre to their experimental extremes. It's a classic pattern of the late-modern stage of practically all of the arts and literature.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

PurpleHazel — Sun, 3 May 2020 15:09:18 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 05/03/2020 19:09

Spyglass wrote:

Neo-psychedelia is a genre on its own, and music outside of the other psychedelia genres can be made. Either way, psychedelia is its own entity.

Hope it doesn't feel like I'm giving you a hard time or anything -- I appreciate the enthusiasm you've brought to the boards. The earliest psychedelic music was practically all rock, pop and folk. If a genre of music has neo- in front of it, that's a tell that it's not a top-level genre. Can you give me meaningful examples of psychedelia from the 60s or 70s that don't fall under more established top-level genres?

There's been plenty of enthusiasm for genre sorts over the years (there have been several threads) -- it's just that the mods were discouraging about this happening any time soon. It's great that albummaster has opened things up for user input, but ultimately he has to do virtually all the technical work, he's just done a huge amount of technical work upgrading the site, and we're going to have to be patient about any of this this being implemented.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Sun, 3 May 2020 14:33:24 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/03/2020 18:33

Even though I'm no expert on different styles of music, I'm happy that BEA finally has a good discussion going on that actually affects this website as a whole. I probably wouldn't be so serious about this possible music styles system if I wasn't stuck at home trying to avoid the news about coronavirus as much as the virus itself, however, since there's obvious interest in this (and it looks like there was almost no interest before), I think we're ready to take the leap and get the good ol' fuck to it.

My proposal is that one of us, preferably a moderator or Albummaster himself, create an "official prototype list" of the most primary and practical genres, and further submit this list to greater discussion concerning the proper order. We have a lot to talk about: putting metal into rock or separating the two, which cultures get their own, the possibility of including a miscellaneous list and what should qualify as miscellaneous, the level that users can achieve the ability to perform tagging, etc. (On that subject, we should incorporate lesser genres that are more known for overlapping than stand-alone performance, such as experimental, industrial, dance, psychedelia, etc.) By the end of, say two weeks tops, we finally have an official list and go from there.

If Albummaster has the time to program the feature, we need to discuss how to include it after that. We've discussed several options, including freelance Last.fm tagging, voting, moderating the albums' genres, tagging the custom charts directly, and I may be missing a few. We create a thread devoted to voting for the best format, and whichever wins becomes the new format.

How does that sound?

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

Spyglass — Sun, 3 May 2020 14:15:34 GMT

Author: Spyglass

Posted: 05/03/2020 18:15

Neo-psychedelia is a genre on its own, and music outside of the other psychedelia genres can be made. Either way, psychedelia is its own entity.

Re: Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

baystateoftheart — Sun, 3 May 2020 14:09:46 GMT

Author: baystateoftheart

Posted: 05/03/2020 18:09

Spyglass wrote:

Here's a prototype for mainline styles and their biggest subgenres. Some of these entries will be empty to keep in line with the current discussion.

Ambient: Space Ambient, Dark Ambient
Blues
Country
Electronic: House, Techno, Trance, Downtempo
Folk: Traditional Folk
Hip Hop: I'll let the hip hop specialists play with this style.
Jazz: Bebop, Smooth Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz
New Age: Neoclassical New Age, New Age Pop
Pop:
Rock: Metal, Punk, Alternative
R&B: Soul, Funk, Disco

Miscellaneous: Psychedelia, Soundtracks, Experimental, Theater and Entertainment

It seems like the mainline is still missing some things, besides would categories. Psychedelia could potentially become its own primary. Neo-Psychedelia doesn't fall under any one category despite its common overlapping. And drone, free improv, noise, plunderphonics and turntablism all fall under direct subgenres of experimental music with no overlapping. Due to industrial rock and metal not being experimental genres, industrial would have to be filed elsewhere if we're to include it (I know I badly want an industrial tag).

Carribean music should be a primary. If I have this right, rocksteady, reggae, dancehall, ska and calypso all fall under this category?

Looks like our top-level lists have a lot in common. I'm flexible about whether metal needs a top-level genre or not. And I assume you intended to include classical.

What's an example of neo-psychedelia that wouldn't be an acceptable fit in pop, rock, or electronic?

I definitely think we need African, Asian, Caribbean, and Latin American as top-level genres. And yes, Caribbean would include all of those, although at a certain point in time mainstream ska becomes more closer to rock than Caribbean (definitely by the third wave I'd say).