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Topic: Album Genre (Read 4867 times) previous topic - next topic
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Album Genre

Hi Folks

I have never tagged genre on any of my mp3/flac albums, so i thought i would go about adding it. Trouble is i cant find a consistent way of doing it.

All the music sites like allmusic, discogs, freedb etc all have different genres for the same album. Can anyone give me any tips or a site that is accurate as im going to get?

Ive never been great at identifying it myself

David

Album Genre

Reply #1 –
There is no source of genre classification that is 100% accurate. I see 3 ways of going at this:
1. Don't tag genre at all.
2. Classify and tag yourself without consulting anyone else. It's your library anyway, so you're the expert.
3. The most time consuming is to consult different sources for every CD. They will most likely disagree for most CDs and it will be up to you for the final decision.

Album Genre

Reply #2 –
<RANT>

If people treated their clothes like many do their music most couldn't face getting dressed in the morning:

"I know I want to wear trousers, but do I want Emo Shoegazer Indie Bootfit Levis or do I want 60's British Psyche Invasion Rhythm & Blues Crossover Acoustic Flares?"

So if you're the kind of person who has a different draw / shelf / wardrobe for every type of jean, shirt and sock, then I'd recommend visiting GENRE HELL and going for it. Otherwise I'd keep it simple, and categorise minimally according to what is truly distinct (according to you, and you only).

Personally I use Classical, Jazz & Blues, and Pop for everything else (Kylie, Beefheart, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan etc ...) and even that has its problems (e.g. the awkward soul jazz blues pop artist called Nina Simone).

Most genre allocation initiatives, IMO come from the marketing side of the music business. Afterall it's they who love everyone to fit into distinct niches, that way they can go about "exploiting" those particular "market segments" effectively - which, as far as I can gather, is the primary purpose of Last.fm (owned by CBS which in turn is owned by National Amusements, Inc. ). Unfortunately for them - music lovers (and artists that are worth their salt) are far too unruly to be so easily classifiable. This is why the Genre debate is always raising its head on HA.

</RANT>

C.

ps. I agree with twostar.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Album Genre

Reply #3 –
Personally I don't tag genre myself because of exactly the reasons twostar described - there is no standard general consensus on what makes a specific genre. Also some albums may have some tracks that are a totally different genre on to the other tracks. For example an instrumental track might be on a metal album so how do you tag that, ignore the fact that it is instrumental for the sake of consistency or have a different genre for that track. However doing this would require going through every song on an individual basis, which for some may take months as many people here have libraries of 25,000+ tracks...

In my opinion, it's just not worth the hassle...

And there are some really weird genre names looknig through the id3 genre list. What on earth are: euro-techno, acid, space, dream, jpop and terror just to name but a few...

edit: lol @ the rant carpman

Album Genre

Reply #4 –
Having gone through Genre Hell myself, I can tell you that it can be pretty frustrating, even once you've learned about the archetypes of the different genres.

If you want to make life easy, you can go with the 12 genres that allmusic has, since it tends to be fairly accurate. It's going to be incredibly generalised since all you have to choose from is:

Avant-Garde
Blues
Cajun
Celtic
Comedy
Country
Easy Listening
Electronica
Folk
Gospel
Jazz
Latin
New Age
Pop/Rock
R&B
Rap
Reggae
Soundtrack
Vocal
World

As you can see, your options are going to be incredibly vague (you'd be grouping Slayer in with Britney Spears).

The genres that I tag my files with don't follow that vague of a system. For certain genres (like Jazz) I like to be incredibly specific about what style of jazz the album is associated with (Hard Bop, Cool Jazz, etc.). For others, I'm okay with a generic genre (Rap, instead of all the different styles).

Even if the actual process of deciding on a specific genre to encompass an entire album is frustrating (hair-loss inducing at times), I found the process to be incredibly educational as I dove into it. Learning about obscure sub-genres and the like caused me to open myself up to music that I probably would never have listened to in the past, simply because of (what I call) the Wikipedia-effect (clicking from article to linked article; from sub-genre to sub-genre/key artist). As I researched "Post-Punk," it led me from early-U2 to discover bands like Joy Division and early-British Sea Power. I discovered whole new genres of music that I adore (like "Downbeat", "Ambient Pop", and "Trip-Hop") because of all the different artists associated with those genres and how they influence each other.

So it's really how you approach the actual music (which is what's important in the first place), I find. It was vexing at first in my situation, but the madness paid off in terms of my exposure to new types of music that I've grown to like. And in the end, (in my personal opinion), that's worth any amount of madness.

EDIT: <- That.

Album Genre

Reply #5 –
Thanks for the replies guys. Gonna stick with the no genre approach as i value my sanity

Album Genre

Reply #6 –
For all popular music I just tag according to era, e.g. 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. Other options I considered were tagging by lead instrument and, optionally, subsidiary instruments. Too labor intensive though.

Album Genre

Reply #7 –
Quote from: AliL on
And there are some really weird genre names looknig through the id3 genre list. What on earth are: euro-techno, acid, space, dream, jpop and terror just to name but a few...


I'm still trying to figure out one I saw in pulldown choice: Christian Gangsta Rap.

Album Genre

Reply #8 –
Quote from: DonP on
I'm still trying to figure out one I saw in pulldown choice: Christian Gangsta Rap.

Jesus Walks by Kanye West?  [the only one that springs to mind]

However, that's certainly the direction to genre hell; one genre per song -- genius! 

C.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Album Genre

Reply #9 –
Quote from: ozmosis82 on
Having gone through Genre Hell myself, I can tell you that it can be pretty frustrating, even once you've learned about the archetypes of the different genres.

If you want to make life easy, you can go with the 12 genres that allmusic has, since it tends to be fairly accurate. It's going to be incredibly generalised since all you have to choose from is:


I've stuck with the allmusic method, but instead of using their "genre" category I generally use the first listing under their "style" category for my genre tagging.  It lets me be much more specific, especially for what allmusic would categories as just the "rock" genre, while maintaining my sanity and sticking with one method consistently.