sort by genre

[joannajewsom]

I would say, for now, Pop and Rock albums should only appear only in a chart for one primary genre, just to avoid those usual suspects from being overrepresented and the two charts mirroring the overall chart. The Beatles could be Pop or Rock depending on which album, but we should choose the most dominant for now. All Alternative like OK Computer, since it is a subgenre of Rock, should just be listed under Alternative and not Rock. Alternative is popular enough on the site to be treated as its own genre, rather than a subgenre of Rock. As far as determining which one to choose, I would say leave it up to a vote. As RFNAPLES, pointed out our views on what is pop differ, so the only fair way to do it is democratically.

With albums outside of Pop and Rock, more than one chart spot should be allowed. I doubt it many works would warrant two primary genre labels. How many albums are truly both predominantly Blues and Electronic, or R&B and Jazz, etc.?

RFNAPLES pointed that a lot of albums cross genres and brought up some good examples. I think we have to be very strict about distinguishing between the manner in which something like Trout Mask crosses genres and Latin Jazz crosses genres. For example, while TMR is heavily influenced by Free Jazz, it is not founded in this genre enough to call it a Free Jazz album. Latin Jazz (great example, by the way) on the other hand, is something that I think we all can agree warrants both World and Jazz as primary genres, and could be included in both charts.


Here's what I see as being the main genres to start with:

-Pop
-Rock
-Alternative/Indie Rock
-Electronic
-Jazz
-Hip-Hop
-R&B
-Blues
-Country
-World (for now, all non-Anglo albums)

They would be very broad, but we need to start somewhere, so we just need to develop our foundation before we can get into subgenres.

[RFNAPLES]

So under your classification system where would The Barbra Striesand Album go? I would put it under Pop and put all of The Beatles albums under Rock.

I believe that Alternative/Indie Rock is a sub-category of Rock and would so included it for the initial stage. This would also hold true with R&B and Rap (hip-hop). And yes that is a broad definition of Rock but at least we separate it from Jazz, Blues, Country, Classical, etc.

[joannajewsom]

Correct. Streisand would go in Pop, Beatles in Rock. Now that I think about it all the Beatles albums are more Rock than Pop.

True, alternative is a subgenre of Rock, but I strongly suggest that it not be included on the Rock chart. Like you said, Rock is very broad. We should make any reasonable effort we can to make it more focused. Alternative/Indie albums are very popular on this site. There are definitely more Alternative/Indie albums than there are hip-hop and jazz combined. I think giving Alternative/Indie, a huge and very broad subgenre, its own chart, even in the initial stage, would be a good idea.

I also think even Rap and R&B under one Hip-Hop chart would be questionable. I think Hip-Hop/Rap definitely should be its own genre and R&B should be its own genre. Allmusic has them separate. I think having Diana Ross and Dr. Dre on the same chart is pretty strange.

[RFNAPLES]

[joannajewsom]

Dr. Dre on the Rock chart? Sorry, but that's ridiculous. Hip-Hop should be separated from Rock. They're two completely separate genres. Allmusic, RYM, any record store, and any website you check will have Rock and Hip-Hop separated. I didn't know that was what you were saying. To clarify, Rock, Hip-Hop/Rap, and R&B are three separate genres and any database treats them as such, just as this site should. If we treat them as such we can avoid Diana Ross, Dr. Dre, and Dream Theater being on the same chart.

[albummaster]

I agree, I think Dr.Dre in a rock chart would not be what most people would expect to see.

I quite like this list here: http://manufacturedenvironments.com/200..._list.html which is seemingly based on Gracenote's classification system. The first section covers off the parent genres pretty well (I think) and the sub-genres help to classify each album correctly.

* Alternative & Punk
* Blues
* Classical
* Country
* Easy Listening
* Electronica/Dance
* Folk
* Gospel & Religious
* Hip Hop/Rap
* Holiday
* Jazz
* Latin
* Metal
* New Age
* Pop
* Reggae
* R&B
* Rock
* Soundtrack
* Unclassifiable
* World

I'm a big fan of doing things right first time. It could save a lot of extra work further down the line if we get this right from the outset. At the same time, there's no point re-inventing the wheel if there is a particular 'standard' list we should be using.

I'm not a big fan of labelling something 'Easy Listening' or 'Alternative' (it has always seemed lazy to me to classify something as nothing in particular!) but personal issues aside, perhaps people can suggest improvements to the above.

'Soul' seems to be glaringly missing to me (e.g. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder) (but that's maybe my own bias). Any other thoughts?

EDIT: Soul is seemingly a sub-genre of R&B (in the Gracenote system)

[RFNAPLES]

I like the categories but why does Reggae get a separate listing? Isn't it Rock or World? How about North Carolina Rock?

If we truly want to keep things broad, I agree that Alternative and Punk belong with Rock. There are many disagreements over the definition of Alternative. Is it actually a genre or a label source? Still Alternative is Rock!! Same is true with hip-hop, rap, metal, r&b, dance and most electronica; they are all Rock.

Check out this List of popular music from Wikipedia based on Allmusic genre categories. It of course doesn't include classical music.

Will we be able to filter for multiple categories and decades at the same time?
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[RFNAPLES]

Here is the genre list used by Direct Brand's yourmusic.com (the new BMG music service):
Rock & Pop
R&B & Hip-Hop
Country
Blues
Jazz
Classical
Latin
Christian
Soundtracks
Collections
Easy/Vocalist
Folk
Gospel
New Age
World
Reggae
Comedy
Children's
Holiday

Check out their complete genre/styles list, it isn't too detailed. Launched in the mid-1950s, BMG was part of RCA until it was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1987. BMG's Music Club was one of the biggest direct-to-customer distributors of music and had a large number of members across its various genre-based music clubs. Direct Brands, Inc., together with its sister company Bookspan, is the largest direct-to-consumer distributor of media products in the United States and Canada.

http://www.yourmusic.com/browse/index.html
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[maxxy]

[joannajewsom]