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Topic: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists? (Read 1700 times) previous topic - next topic
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What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Hello, I ripped an audio CD to FLAC which contains 80s music but it is a combination of Pop, Rock, Hip  Hop, etc... songs with various artists.

https://www.discogs.com/release/1021345-Various-Summer-87

I have more CDs like that I would like to transfer to my computer.

These are the metadata fields I use:

Code: [Select]
These fields change for each track:
TITLE=Name of Track 
ARTIST=Name of Artist

These fields stay the same for all tracks:
ALBUMARTIST=Various Artists
GENRE=?

Do you use something like Various for the GENRE when you deal with compilation albums? I'm aware of the fact that FLAC supports multiple GENRE tags but I would like to limit it to just one for the sake of simplicity.

Re: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Reply #1 –
I don't pay much attention to the genre, and fill in the field with entries that apply to most tracks. I might use general "Pop" on a compilation of chart-toppers, or maybe "Pop; Pop Rock" if half or more of them are powerful music. A lot of rock is a type of pop music. Classic party hip-hop is kinda popular too, unlike gangster hip hop. Sometimes the genre varies within an album, and I don't know enough about the categories to assign them to every track, and it would take too much time.

Re: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Reply #2 –
I would use '80s' tag in the genre.
EZ CD Audio Converter / FLAC or WavPack

Re: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Reply #3 –
Each track has its own metadata so the genre can be different but I don't know think the online databases support that so you might have to edit manually after ripping,    It's the same with the release year...  I like to update each track with the original year.

Re: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Reply #4 –
My pragmatic solution, as it should scale to hundreds of compilations, best-of albums with featuring artists, etc.. is this: one genre per album, where
  • in the case there is dominant one, I pick that.
  • for truly genre-spanning discs, I have
    • "Charts" (mostly "That's What I Call Music" and similar long-running series) as a specific catch-all and
    • "Mix" for varied, but not necessarily charts-oriented compilations.
[/2ct]

Re: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Reply #5 –
I'd say GENRE is down to each individual track, not down to the album.
Sometimes the same artist might put tracks of different genres on the same album, too. I don't think it's wise to peg genres to the medium.

My view on this is: Even though tracks come on an album, to me it makes more sense to see the album as a feature of the track:
The track name, release date, GTIN, EAN, etc. are all things I consider items bound to the track, rather to the album as an entity.

This seems to work well with a more modern approach to music, i.e. where individual tracks can be bought without the album, and also distributed unbound to the album.

Re: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Reply #6 –
I'd use 'Pop'. Also, isn't 'Various Artists' a little redundant in the ALBUMARTIST field? Just use 'Various'.
 

Re: What genre you assign to compilation CDs with various artists?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: NateHigs on
Also, isn't 'Various Artists' a little redundant in the ALBUMARTIST field?
Yes, but:
* There are tag sources that will populate it with "Various Artists"
* There are taggers that will write "Various Artists" by default it if a COMPILATION or ITUNESCOMPILATION tag is 1. Some will even enforce it.

Quote from: NateHigs on
Just use 'Various'.
Rather: populate it with information and get it to the end of the alphabet :-)

ALBUMARTIST = µStuart & Sons for the samplers downloadable from the grand piano maker's web site: https://www.stuartandsons.com/sound.html
Actually refreshing to see direct from microphones ("UNPROCESSED" in capital letters) audio samplers not in 96/24 or whatever. These are MP3. CBR320 isn't the smartest thing in the world, but hey they play and they sound good (and seek and ye shall find the two first as .wav, that's what they were offered as when I picked them up years ago).