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RFNAPLES
Level 8

Gender: Male
Age: 75
Location: Durham, NC, USA

Interesting comments about Allmusic vs rateyourmusic classification of Trout Mask Replica. They look pretty similar to me.

Allmusic
Genre: Pop/Rock
Styles: Experimental Rock, Prog-Rock/Art Rock, Experimental, Proto-Punk, Psychedelic, Blues-Rock

RYM
Genres: Experimental Rock, Art Rock, Blues, Experimental, Free Jazz, Blues Rock, Electric Blues

The main difference seems to be over the definitions of genre and styles.
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joannajewsom

Location: Philadelphia

albummaster wrote:

Yes, I think that's probably the way forward for this idea. We just need to think of a good set of classifications that aren't too broad to be meaningless but not too focused either that too few albums are matched when generating a chart for a particular genre. We need to find a balance in-between.

I think two charts that we could start with are Jazz and Hip-Hop. There are a good amount of those albums on this site, and they are easy to define.

Now that I think about it, both Pop and Rock would be too broad. There would also be some debate on what belongs under Pop and what belongs under Rock (such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys, etc.), and pop and rock already clearly dominate the overall chart.

I think Jazz and Hip-Hop would make for some pretty substantial charts. I think that's a good starting point. We could branch out from there, and maybe start a thread where everyone can come together and brain storm, propose/vote on genres, make suggestions, etc. I know that Electronic and Alternative Rock are pretty popular on this site, but they (especially the latter) may be too broad, so we would really need to find a balance for those. I would love to see this work out!

RFNAPLES, my issue with allmusic is that it has pop/rock as a genre, rather than pop and rock being their own genres. It's more effective to separate the two, since a lot of rock acts are not pop by any stretch of the imagination. Anyhow, this is a topic that is not very relevant.

RFNAPLES
Level 8

Gender: Male
Age: 75
Location: Durham, NC, USA

joannajewsom wrote:

Now that I think about it, both Pop and Rock would be too broad. There would also be some debate on what belongs under Pop and what belongs under Rock (such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys, etc.), and pop and rock already clearly dominate the overall chart.

joannajewsom wrote:

RFNAPLES, my issue with allmusic is that it has pop/rock as a genre, rather than pop and rock being their own genres. It's more effective to separate the two, since a lot of rock acts are not pop by any stretch of the imagination. Anyhow, this is a topic that is not very relevant.

Yes I agree that Pop/Rock is broad. Perhaps that is why Allmusic calls it a genre and uses styles to differentiate. Some people might call styles sub-genres. But you can see that Allmusic and RYM are quite similar when you compare the Allmusic styles with the RYM genres.

There are many different styles in the Jazz genre. I think we would have a difficult time classifying them also. Often an album has tracks with different styles making it difficult to assign one style to an album.
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Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

Perhaps we could assign genres to the tracks which make up the overall album and then an album's genre could be determined by the mix of genres that make up the tracks. Just an alternate line of thought but doesn't change the fact that it is just as difficult to assign a genre/style to a track than it is to assign a genre to an album.

In terms of this site, a chart showing 'electro punk' albums is not going to be that useful so the classifications need to be broad (an album should instead be both punk AND electro and appear in two different genre charts). Again, electro or punk might be too tight a definition and punk should belong to the 'rock' classification and electro should belong to 'electronic music'). You can see why this has not been implemented on the site just yet.... my head hurts already Brick wall

RFNAPLES
Level 8

Gender: Male
Age: 75
Location: Durham, NC, USA

Yes it is difficult to agree upon classification definitions and their application to tracks, albums, and artists. There are many sites that already attempt to do this with various degrees of success that I am not sure we need to add another source. I am afraid there would never be total agreement.

It might be helpful however to use broad genres to act as a filter. For instance, I might want to look at only the Jazz or the Blues albums. Here is how Allmusic breaks that down:

Popular Genre

Classical Genre

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joannajewsom

Location: Philadelphia

This allmusic banter is a good preview of the debates that may pop up, so I'll keep it going. Pop and Rock should be separate, because they are two separate genres. There is a sub-genre called Pop/Rock, but this is something different. Pop and Rock are broad enough on their own, so lumping them together is not helpful. Putting Beefheart and Britney Spears under the same genre is a joke. I understand the styles/sub-genre point you're making, but my point is that they also define the sub-genres too broadly. For example, My Bloody Valentine, Royal Trux, White Zombie, and Sarah McLachlan are all under Alternative Pop/Rock style. The Twin Infinitive fans on this site will assure that album is about as far away from pop music as anything you'll ever hear. Royal Trux (even their more accessible albums) and Sarah McLachlan couldn't be further away from each other, musically. White Zombie and Tori Amos are not the same "style." This is why pop and rock should be separate. Lumping them together causes their sub-genres to be sloppily lumped together. There are more examples like this I can bring up if needed.

There are probably 20 times as many Rock albums as there are Jazz albums on this site, and 20 times more Rock sub-genres than Jazz in general (check rym and allmusic). A Jazz chart would not be nearly as difficult or pointlessly bloated as a Rock chart. There would be very little debate on which albums are Jazz. I can see a few fusion records, like Hot Rats, causing a slight stir but this would not be a big problem. Genres are not set in stone, so that's expected; but what is and what is not a Jazz album- as opposed to the Pop Group, with Jazz undertones- is a task that I think will come with considerable ease for the users on this site.

joannajewsom

Location: Philadelphia

I don't think we should get into secondary genres and undertones, for now at least. There are very few albums that don't have influences from many genres. We should categorize albums by their primary genre. The White Album is all over the place, but we can all agree that it is essentially Rock.

RFNAPLES
Level 8

Gender: Male
Age: 75
Location: Durham, NC, USA

Agree, keep them broad. The problem will still be what are the categories we will use. Personally my collection is broken down on paper/computer slightly different than how they are stored.

On paper/computer I use:

For physical storage, I use:

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albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

I just use a cut-down list of ID3 taqs for my iTunes collection (looks similar to RFNAPLES paper/computer list), so I took a look at the ID3 genre list (public domain), but it's no good for here as there's no categorisation http://www.multimediasoft.com/amp3dj/he...htm#ss13.3

There's also the Gracenote list (previously CDDB) which looks a bit heavy-duty for what we need on this site http://www.mikewellsmastering.com/CDDB.php. Perhaps we need to roll our own after all.

I think, as a starter, we need to define the top-level list and then perhaps we could add sub-genres at a later date (once the top-level genres have bedded in).

Should there be a rule that an album can only belong to a single top-level genre? or should an album be able to belong to more than one top-level genre? (e.g. Revolver pop & rock, OK Computer alternative & rock etc). I like the idea of joannajewsom's allowing members to vote on each genre, so we'll definitely use that idea when it comes to implementing this on the site.

One thing that concerns me is that a chart for Rock and Pop will list the usual suspects at the top of each so without sub-genres the charts may not be that different to the current overall chart.

RFNAPLES
Level 8

Gender: Male
Age: 75
Location: Durham, NC, USA

I would allow an album to be in multiple categories. Some jazz and blues albums, some country and rock albums, and some rock and jazz albums cross categories. Before we attempt to categorize I think we need to define what me mean by the terms, especially rock vs. pop.

For instance, I include R&B, Rap, and Reggae within Rock. While when I say Pop I am referring to vocal and instrumental music from the likes of Streisand, Sinatra, Martin, Mancini, etc, not soft rock like Abba which I include in Rock. Sometimes Pop is called Popular music (as opposed to Rock or Popular Genre), Easy Listening, Elevator Music, etc.

Also what is World music? Does it include all non-Anglo sounding albums? Are Cajun, Celtic, and Latin included in World music? Where should Latin Jazz be—under Latin, World or Jazz? Is Electronica sometimes Avant-garde, Classical, Jazz or Rock? Do Soundtracks include Musical Scores? Et cetera.
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