Unoffical empeg BBS

Quick Links: Empeg FAQ | RioCar.Org | Hijack | BigDisk Builder | jEmplode | emphatic
Repairs: Repairs

Topic Options
#111121 - 16/08/2002 05:08 What's your method to assign the "right" genre?
Mario
stranger

Registered: 04/03/2002
Posts: 42
Loc: Ireland
Hi guys,

well, I know is the 1 million dollar question and is very personal. I'm just getting confused how to group my "tastes"...

After appling genres I'm starting to have problems to decide if this or that song is: Rock or Pop or Rock Pop or Pop Rock or Smooth Rock or Smooth Pop or New Age Vocal or New Age acustic or Ballads or Symphonic Rock or Pop Dance, Dance or Hip Hop/ Rap or Oldy and so on... could you maybe give some ideas? or tell how do you genre your music?, I know there is no perfect system for this. At the beginning I thought, well all what sounds like Rock is Rock and all what sounds like this is that. But I'm starting to realise that how can you mix Pink Floyd with Queen? How do you group e.g. Enia? or ...and so on, what are the adventages of having more genre groups and be very selective to having less genre groups?

Thanks
Mario
_________________________
Thanks / Gracias Mario The Spanish guy living in Ireland Homepage: www.livemyadventure.com

Top
#111122 - 16/08/2002 05:19 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
The advantage to having more specific genre groups is that you can more easily search by that genre, and better suit your mood at the moment. I can't really think of an advantage to less specific genres at the moment, except for that it saves time and energy

I don't do anything with the genre field, and most genres are made up anyway. My favorite overall has to be the entire "post-grunge" category. I mean, hell, grunge lasted for about three years, and post-grunge is going on ten! I also don't think I'd want to be considered "post-anything" if I were a band.

But anyway, sorry to not help with your question, but I don't like genre classification. But if I had a band, we'd consider ourselves "power slop"
_________________________
Matt

Top
#111123 - 16/08/2002 05:26 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
BryanR
member

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 153
Loc: Berkshire, UK
I know what you mean. I seem to mainly like bands that I can't pidgeon-hole easily - Tom Waits, John Cale and Giant Sand spring to mind as having a variety of styles not only over their albums, but with the albums themselves.

I've ended up using "Rock" for anything vaguely mainstream, and "Alternative" for stuff that isn't. Mind you, I don't use the genre searches anyway, so it's all rather academic. I have a set of genre playlists into which I put entire artists, but this also leads to rather erratic mixes - I mean, Cale's "Eat/Kiss" soundtrack alongside his "Sabotage" live album?

Bryan.
_________________________
Bryan.

Top
#111124 - 16/08/2002 05:52 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
If it's got an acoustic guitar in, it's Folk. If it's got an electric guitar in and it's good, it's Indie. Otherwise if it's got an electric guitar in, it's Rock. If it's got no guitars, and you can't hear the synths for the drum machine, it's Dance. If it's got no guitars, and you can't hear the drum machine for the synths, it's Electronic. If it's got no guitars, and you can't hear the drum machine or the synths for the vocals, it's Rap. If it's got no guitars, drum machine, synths, or rapping, it's probably chamber music .

Peter

Top
#111125 - 16/08/2002 07:02 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
BleachLPB
enthusiast

Registered: 01/11/2001
Posts: 354
Loc: Maryland
This is the fundamental problem with categorizing music - and the basis for my gripe with genres. The ID3 tags only allow you to assign 1 genre to the music - when in many cases music transcends those boundaries and could be included in several genres.

I don't even bother with the genre setting - and its such a shame since the empeg allows you to search by genre. Does anyone use the genre tag at all?

I just group my music in my playlists in very general genres - classic rock, rock, metal, dance, etc. To keep my top level neat, I put less frequently used genres under an "Other" entry, such as humor, country, classical, etc.
_________________________
BleachLPB ------------- NewFace MK2a

Top
#111126 - 16/08/2002 07:30 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: BleachLPB]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
    The ID3 tags only allow you to assign 1 genre to the music
That's not true. From the ID3v2.4 Frame Definitions (which is currently not available for me, so try the Google cache):
 TCON

The 'Content type', which ID3v1 was stored as a one byte numeric
value only, is now a string. You may use one or several of the ID3v1
types as numerical strings, or, since the category list would be
impossible to maintain with accurate and up to date categories,
define your own. Example: "21" $00 "Eurodisco" $00

You may also use any of the following keywords:

RX Remix
CR Cover
Of course, the empeg and emplode won't understand that, as they don't have support for multiple genres, but it's readily available in the ID3v2 spec.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

Top
#111127 - 16/08/2002 08:17 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
Mario, check out www.allmusic.com. I think the genres listed at there are pretty straightforward. The only problem is that there's more than one genre listed for a given artist.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

Top
#111128 - 16/08/2002 08:17 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
Mario, check out www.allmusic.com. I think the genres listed at there are pretty straightforward. The only problem is that there's more than one genre listed for a given artist.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

Top
#111129 - 16/08/2002 09:22 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
tmmatthews
new poster

Registered: 28/12/2001
Posts: 8
Definitely check out All Music as Tony suggested. I still tend to make up many of my own, since I'm the only one the genres have to make sense to

I use the most specific genre in the ID3 tag but my playlist has Genres and Sub-Genres (or styles, to use the All Music convention). My only genres are Metal, Rock, Pop, Electronic, International, Classical, Jazz/Blues, and Hip-Hop. I have among all these probably 25 or 30 styles (which are in the ID3 tag).

For example: I have a Metal genre, under which I have Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Grindcore, Hardcore, Alternative Metal, Thrash, and a couple of others that escape me at the moment.

That way I can listen to the entire genre or just a particular style.
_________________________
TMM

Top
#111130 - 16/08/2002 09:49 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Mario]
TheRhino
member

Registered: 06/03/2001
Posts: 135
Loc: Aurora, CO
I think Faith No More is by far the hardest to assign a genre. I'm also curious, Tony, what you put Rush under: Prog Rock? Rock?
_________________________
Rhino
[color:"blue"]Rio MKII 60GB Blue[/color]
[color:"orange"]empeg MKII 50GB Amber[/color]

Top
#111131 - 16/08/2002 10:49 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: TheRhino]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
What about Mr Bungle? What do you call that?
_________________________
Matt

Top
#111132 - 16/08/2002 10:57 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: TheRhino]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
Since I don't organize my music by genre and I don't do genre-searches, I haven't been strict about assigning the genre tag. Other than to correct an obviously incorrect CDDB tag assignment. <side rant: Why do my files at MP3.com come out as "Blues" when downloaded, even though I clearly tagged them as "Comedy" when I sent them to MP3.com? Grrr>. So sometimes my Rush albums are tagged as "rock", sometimes as "progressive rock".
_________________________
Tony Fabris

Top
#111133 - 16/08/2002 14:43 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: peter]
Laura
pooh-bah

Registered: 16/06/2000
Posts: 1682
Loc: Greenhills, Ohio
Ah, but you left out blues and jazz.

I tag mine but not by songs, by cd's. And if an artist does more than one type, I just use what that artist does the most of. Like Eric Clapton does some blues and some rock but I class them all as blues. I've never done a genre search though but that is how I break down my playlists.
_________________________
Laura

MKI #017/90

whatever

Top
#111134 - 16/08/2002 18:38 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Dignan]
tracerbullet
addict

Registered: 08/01/2002
Posts: 419
Loc: Minnesota
Circus performers on LSD

Know what I do with genre's? Nothing! I leave it blank. Honestly I don't care what genre it is, I don't pick music that way. I've spent enough time ripping 600 + CD's that I have no interest in tags beyond name, album, track name, and track number. Just one opinion though - screw genre.

Top
#111135 - 16/08/2002 19:36 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Dignan]
TheRhino
member

Registered: 06/03/2001
Posts: 135
Loc: Aurora, CO
What about Mr Bungle? What do you call that?

Yeah, pretty much anything involving Mike Patton fails to fit into one genre..... FNM, Bungle, Tomahawk, Fantomas, etc.
_________________________
Rhino
[color:"blue"]Rio MKII 60GB Blue[/color]
[color:"orange"]empeg MKII 50GB Amber[/color]

Top
#111136 - 16/08/2002 20:36 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: peter]
canuckInOR
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
Heh. That's roughly how I have mine categorized. The one part where I went off on a bit of a tangent is if it's got an electric guitar that spends most of its time doing some variation of scales exercises, and the lead singer spends half his time screaming over top the guitar, and my parents wouldn't be able to handle more than about 2 minutes, it's Metal.

Top
#111137 - 16/08/2002 21:07 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: TheRhino]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
I agree. That stuff is whacked out.

And I agree. I made a concerted effort to delete the genre tags from all my stuff. I'm not gonna use it, so I just don't put it in there.

All my stuff is rock anyway
_________________________
Matt

Top
#111138 - 17/08/2002 00:22 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre? [Re: Dignan]
CurlyKicker
member

Registered: 04/01/2002
Posts: 135
Loc: Orange County, CA
Funny. I genre-type each individual track! And it's definately paid off in the long run.
_________________________
http://www.ubernet.org/

Top
#111139 - 17/08/2002 14:57 Re: What's your method to assign the "right" genre [Re: tfabris]
Derek
addict

Registered: 16/08/1999
Posts: 453
Loc: NRW, Germany
Well of course there is more than one genre listed for a lot of artists! Just because they have released one death metal song doesn't been that everything else they produce is going to belong to that genre. The most interesting artists tend to experiment with a number of different styles. The assignment of genres really has to be carried out on a song by song basis, and I agree, it's not easy!
_________________________
(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [sold]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 20GB blue)

Top