Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre

[baystateoftheart]

Out of those, only the AllMusic and RYM top-level genre lists seem at all coherent.

I see some merit to workshopping a top-level genre list and creating processes to modify it later if necessary. Then top-level genres could be determined for albums based on votes (with only users of a certain level permitted to vote). I don't think a system based on user-generated tags is workable as the sole means of categorization, because you could have lots of tags that are saying very similar things in different ways.
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[PurpleHazel]

Allowing only members who are on Level 8 or 9 to dictate genres would be way too limiting. 8's hard to get to! The direction albummaster's leaning toward sounds better.

[baystateoftheart]

Also, I would like to register my strong opposition to "world music" as a sole top-level genre used as a catch-all for regional indigenous and folk music.

There should probably be African, Asian, Caribbean, and Latin top-level genres. Possibly also European, Middle Eastern, and Pacific Islander. There is also a solid case to make for Brazilian being standalone from Latin.
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[baystateoftheart]

[albummaster]

[PurpleHazel]

[albummaster]

[PurpleHazel]

[Spyglass]

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.

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.

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.
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[baystateoftheart]

Here is my draft top-level list for consideration:

African
Ambient
Asian
Blues
Caribbean
Classical
Country
Electronic
Folk
Hip-Hop
Jazz
Latin American
Metal
Miscellaneous
New Age
Pop
R&B
Rock

I 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.

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