Genre list discussion

[albummaster]

Apologies for the delay in doing this but finally got the time to post here to open up (& continue) the debate about possible top-level genre categories on BEA. Spyglass suggested in another thread to create a candidate list that gets us a bit closer to implementing something on BEA, so just kicking off discussion again here. We all have our own views in certain areas and I'm not somebody who enjoys conflict, so I really want to try and do it in the best spirit possible, accepting that not everybody will get their own way.

The big thing that struck me from the previous discussion was the number of 'rock' derivative categories that were suggested compared to other styles of music. It's true that BEA has a big proportion of albums in this category and splitting it down further might help to break the numbers down, but equally the site needs to be balanced across the whole music spectrum as it's already accused externally of being a bit biased towards certain styles of music, and a category list weighted too much in one area will just reinforce that view.

To set out my own position, I believe the site needs between 12 and 20 top level 'categories' or 'genres' that each album can 'belong' to (some albums may belong to more than one category). These top level categories will provide a way for users to distinguish between different styles of music and help narrow down those that they'd like to check out further. Of course, music is much more nuanced than that, and the categories would also be supported by a tagging system which will add some further fine tuning (the tagging system will be added further down the line).

Just going with Spyglass suggestion (as seems to be quite sensible) that the original post needs three lists: one for accepted genres, one for debated genres, and one for rejected genres (plus some sample data which we can use for testing what might work the best).

The opening lists will have come from the biggest music databases on the internet, and we can be certain that thousands of engineering hours have already been put into coming up with them, so all bases should be covered by adapting a combination of these for own use on BEA. I'm going to put these lists in the following post to keep this one as short as possible (I may need to revise this post once we get started as not sure where this is going to go right now).

We could have a go at trimming these lists down to a set of categories that will work on BEA and try and find some type of consensus, but I think we should let that discussion evolve in this thread to see what people think. It also might be that the lists only make sense within themselves, and an amalgamation of all of them might be a bit messy, but we'll see how things pan out and nothing's set in stone. (To put it on the table, personally prefer AllMusic's schema if we look at them individually, but would feel a bit funny simply lifting it and it's probably not quite right for BEA).

[albummaster]

AllMusic Genre Categories:
Avant-Garde
Blues
Children's
Classical
Comedy/Spoken
Country
Easy Listening
Electronic
Folk
Holiday
International
Jazz
Latin
New Age
Pop/Rock
R&B
Rap
Reggae
Religious
Stage & Screen
Vocal

Amazon Genre Categories:
Blues
Broadway & Vocalists
Children's Music
Christian & Gospel
Classical
Classic Rock
Country
Dance & Electronic
Folk
Hard Rock & Metal
Holiday
Indie & Alternative
International
Jazz
Latin Music
Miscellaneous
New Age
Opera
Pop
R&B
Rap & Hip-Hop
Rock
Soundtracks

Discogs Genre Categories:
Blues
Brass & Military
Children's
Classical
Country
Dancehall
Electronic
Folk, World, & Country
Funk / Soul
Hip Hop
Jazz
Latino
Non-Music
Pop
Reggae
Rock
Stage & Screen

eBay Genre Categories:
Genre
Blues
Children's
Classical
Comedy & Spoken Word
Country
Dance & Electronica
Folk
Holiday
Jazz
Latin
Metal
Military
New Age & Easy Listening
Pop
R&B & Soul
Rap & Hip-Hop
Reggae, Ska & Dub
Religious & Devotional
Rock
Sound Effects & Nature
Soundtracks & Musicals
World Music

RYM Genre Categories:
Ambient
Blues
Classical Music
Comedy
Country
Dance
Electronic
Experimental
Field Recordings
Folk
Hip Hop
Industrial Music
Jazz
Metal
Musical Theatre and Entertainment
New Age
Pop
Psychedelia
Punk
R&B
Regional Music
Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Ska
Sounds and Effects
Spoken Word


[Other major sites welcome to be added but I think the above is probably enough]


Sample data (overall top 500 top 1,000 one album per artist):

[albummaster]

Consolidated list compiled by babyBlueSedan (before any removals or merges)

Ambient
Avant-Garde
Blues
Brass & Military
Broadway & Vocalists
Children's
Christian & Gospel
Classical
Classic Rock
Comedy
Country
Dance
Dancehall
Easy Listening
Electronic
Experimental
Field Recordings
Folk
Folk, World, & Country
Funk / Soul
Hard Rock & Metal
Hip Hop (and Rap)
Holiday
Indie & Alternative
Industrial
International
Jazz
Latin Music
Metal
Military
Miscellaneous
Musical Theatre and Entertainment
New Age (and Easy Listening)
Non-Music
Opera
Pop (and/or Rock)
Psychedelia
Punk
R&B (and Soul)
Reggae (Ska, Dub)
Regional Music
Religious
Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Ska
Sound Effects & Nature
Soundtracks
Spoken Word
Stage & Screen
Vocal
World Music

[albummaster]

Accepted categories:
[to be added]



Debated categories:
[to be added]



Rejected categories:
[to be added]

[baystateoftheart]

[babyBlueSedan]

So combining all the genre lists AM posted and removing duplicates gives this list:

Consolidated List
Ambient
Avant-Garde
Blues
Brass & Military
Broadway & Vocalists
Children's
Christian & Gospel
Classical
Classic Rock
Comedy
Country
Dance
Dancehall
Easy Listening
Electronic
Experimental
Field Recordings
Folk
Folk, World, & Country
Funk / Soul
Hard Rock & Metal
Hip Hop (and Rap)
Holiday
Indie & Alternative
Industrial
International
Jazz
Latin Music
Metal
Military
Miscellaneous
Musical Theatre and Entertainment
New Age (and Easy Listening)
Non-Music
Opera
Pop (and/or Rock)
Psychedelia
Punk
R&B (and Soul)
Reggae (Ska, Dub)
Regional Music
Religious
Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Ska
Sound Effects & Nature
Soundtracks
Spoken Word
Stage & Screen
Vocal
World Music

From that list, I think we can remove the following without much controversy:

Excluded genres
Brass & Military
Broadway & Vocalists
Children's
Christian & Gospel (could be under rock, pop, R&B, etc)
Classic Rock (under rock)
Dancehall
Easy Listening
Field Recordings
Folk, World, & Country (duplicative)
Funk / Soul (under R&B)
Hard Rock & Metal (under rock or metal)
Holiday
Indie & Alternative (under rock)
Industrial (under rock or electronic)
International
Military
Musical Theatre and Entertainment
Non-Music
Opera
Psychedelia
Punk (under rock)
Regional Music
Religious
Sound Effects & Nature
Soundtracks (a sound track has to be some kind of other music)
Spoken Word
Stage & Screen
Vocal
World Music

Which gives us this list, provided I copied correctly. Ones listed in red are ones I think we can further omit, with explanation below.

Pared down list
Ambient
Avant-Garde
Blues
Classical
Country
Dance
Electronic
Experimental
Folk
Hip Hop
Jazz
Latin Music
Metal
Miscellaneous
New Age
Pop
R&B
Reggae (Ska, Dub)
Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Ska

A few notes here:

- I took some liberty in removing the "regional" / "world" / etc labels in favor of Latin Music and Reggae. I agree with Baystate that it would be nice to combine Reggae, Ska, and Dub into a Caribbean category and that African and Asian should have their own categories as well. Personally, I would find this very useful.

- Maybe it is controversial to remove some of the theater / holiday / broadway genres? Personally I think most of that could be tagged as another genre, though we might need a fallback just in case. Which leads me to...

- Avant-garde and experimental are obviously very close, so we would want to cut one of them. I'm not even sure experimental is a fitting category; I saw the analysis in the other thread about how most "experimental" music on RYM can be tagged as some other genre. I do think that we'll need something to tag weird releases with. Even if we don't use ambient, drone, or field recordings as top level genres there are still albums on the site that fit those categories. I like experimental better than Miscellaneous, but not everything that doesn't fit into a category (comedy, spoken word, opera) is experimental. So Miscellaneous might actually be the better catchall.

- I didn't note Singer/Songwriter as a non-controversial omission, but I think it's safe to say most if not all singer/songwriter stuff could be tagged as rock or pop.

- I'm not opposed to keeping both Dance and Electronic only because there's a big difference between Disco and Autechre. But I think the line between dance and pop would be hard to draw, so labeling it all as electronic is probably the best way to avoid uncertainty.

- I think Ambient could probably roll up under Electronic as well, though obviously it's not all electronic. Otherwise could be experimental/miscellaneous. I'm not really convinced there's enough of it for a top level genre though.

- Metal is really tough. I'm sure searching on only metal albums would be useful for a lot of people. But having a separate category for it but rolling all jazz and hip hop together seems to be giving preference to the more common genres here. And the line between what is rock and what is metal can be blurry sometimes. I think I'd lean towards omitting it but I don't have much of a preference.

So after all that my list would look pretty much like Baystate's, with the only differences being whether we need ambient and how to handle experimental/miscellaneous. I personally wouldn't be opposed to both Experimental (for drone, field recordings, etc) and Miscellaneous (for comedy, broadway, theater, etc) but I wonder if that's getting too detailed.
_________________
And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.

[Spyglass]

Metal and punk should be filed under rock, and rock should not be paired with pop. We can't call Justin Bieber and most electropop artists rock.

Combine avant-garde and experimental.

I'm gine with babybluesedan's method for handling experimemtal music and miscellaneous music, although I'd prefer the devision to keep ambient in the main list.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

[albummaster]

[baystateoftheart]

[baystateoftheart]