Sort Overall by Genre/Sub-Genre - Suggestions

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

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.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

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?
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

PurpleHazel

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.

PurpleHazel

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.

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

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.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

PurpleHazel

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.)

Last edited by PurpleHazel on 05/03/2020 22:11; edited 2 times in total

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

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.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

PurpleHazel

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."

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

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.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

PurpleHazel

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.