sort by genre

[albummaster]

the list that I posted was the 'top-level' genres, all sub-genres will be a 'child' of any of those at the top-level so something like soul will be a sub-genre of R&B. The list of genres is basically that used by Gracenote (previously CDDB). So, something like Marvin Gaye - What's Going On will appear in the R&B chart (top-level genre) and also any sub-genres that it has been assigned into.

I don't think we will classify albums in such as detail as RYM, we simply don't need to do that as the volume of albums on this site is a lot less, so cataloging(?) to such a fine degree will result in some charts with very few albums (and hence a useless chart).

I think keeping the list in a sort of parallel with that used by MP3 players will be useful to people once this functionality is live (Gracenote/CDDB is used by most MP3 players to download metadata) e.g. which album in a particular genre don't I possess that are in the top 10 list for a particular genre.

This is a hard technical problem to solve and I wanted to make sure that we get it right and that the resulting functionality is what people want.

albummaster

[Norman Bates]

[albummaster]

I'm not keen on calling something 'world' either, particularly as some of my favourite music might be termed that but, on the other hand, having a catch-all for distinctive regional genres might be required.

For example, I currently live in Spain and 'flamenco' doesn't fit very easily into any contemporary category (indeed, 'true' flamenco could be divided into dozens of its own sub-genres - sevillianas, bulerias, malaguena etc etc).

I'm sure there are equivalents across the globe where this a local style of music which is different to anything else out there and we don't really want a situation where we create a top-level genre for each local style and then all of its variations (it would be too difficult to manage and the resulting charts/stats wouldn't be useful if there were only one or two albums in each of these 'world music' categories).

We have to keep in mind the purpose of the site; we are not a taxonomy of music albums where we are cataloguing/tagging everything into little pigeon holes - there are plenty of other sites that do that very well. This site is about listing the greatest albums in history and making it easy for site visitors to find them. The purpose of this functionality will be to facilitate this aim.

[Norman Bates]

I got your point. I don't know if anybody will look for "world" albums, but still, it is the most practical way of putting it, you're right.

[albummaster]

I am going to list some albums with tentative genres (from Gracenote) to see what the potential issues might be if we implemented things in this way. This is by no means a 'final' list, it's just a way of generating some debate to try and flesh out the mechanics since there is no definitive source for this data:

OK Computer - Radiohead
Genre: Alternative & Punk
Sub-genre(s): General Alternative, Art Rock

Revolver - The Beatles
Genre: Rock, Pop
Sub-genre(s): Classic Rock, General Pop

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
Genre: Rock, Alternative & Punk
Sub-genre(s): Progressive Rock, Art Rock

London Calling - The Clash
Genre: Alternative & Punk
Sub-genre(s): General Punk

Pet Sounds - Beach Boys
Genre: Pop
Sub-genre(s): General Pop

VU & Nico - Velvet Underground
Genre: Alternative & Punk
Sub-genre(s): Art Rock

Kid A - Radiohead
Genre: Alternative & Punk
Sub-genre(s): Art Rock

Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
Genre: Folk
Sub-genre(s): General Folk

Funeral - Arcade Fire
Genre: Alternative & Punk
Sub-genre(s): Indie

Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
Genre: Jazz
Sub-genre(s): General Jazz

What's the Story (Morning Glory) - Oasis
Genre: Alternative & Punk
Sub-genre(s): Brit-Pop

What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
Genre: R&B
Sub-genre(s): Soul

Back in Black - AC/DC
Genre: Rock
Sub-genre(s): Hard Rock

Thriller - Michael Jackson
Genre: Pop
Sub-genre(s): General Pop

What strikes me from the above list of albums (leaving aside the accuracy of those classifications) is that the Gracenote sub-genre classifications do not add much detail to the main genre. A 'general' sub-genre as a child of the top-level genre tells me something is wrong with the structure of the genre tree. Also, charts such as 'Brit-Pop' do not really match up with what people are searching for on Google. I am not happy either with the AllMusic way of doing things (which was the other proposal), so we may have to roll our own list after all.

[RFNAPLES]

Remember what Lincoln said.
_________________
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[Norman Bates]

Did the term "alternative" not appear right after punk, to define first the various post-punk indie scenes, then more or less anything not plainly middle-of-the-road? Seems anachronical to me to see The Velvet Underground filed under "Alternative", but I may very well be wrong.

What did Lincoln say ?

[mikeyskywalker]

I just want to bump this thread up to the top to keep the idea going.

I think adding genre's would be an excellent improvement, and better yet to just create the broad genre idea of rock, jazz, electronic, etc. Because I've been trying to find some good jazz albums, and this site just sadly doesn't cut it. I had to google search things such as "top 10 jazz albums." I got some great results, but wish it were all in this site. I understand that some transcend into other genres, but I think each album could be generalized if broad enough categories were made.

This site is incredible though, I've found many of my current favorite albums from here.

[RFNAPLES]

I support your idea of broad genre categories. We could have all types of semantic and definitional debates and still never get it right. Yet most of us can recognize the differences among Rock, Jazz, Classical, Country, and everything else.
_________________
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[albummaster]

I'm in favour of broad genres at the top level and I proposed basing it on Gracenote's taxonomy as this seems to be widely used (we can always tweak things to our liking once the new system is live).

Adding this functionality is quite a big change to the structure of the site and is a big development task (we are also building a system to crowd-source data corrections at the same time). All going well, I think by Easter 2010, we should have something live on the site. There will be smaller site updates in the meantime whilst the bigger development work is taking place.