Music Genres

Posted on 01.16.05. Tagged with , All

My most exciting resolution for the new year is to sort out all my music by genre. This is proving exceedingly difficult as many bands go in and out of multiple genres, and some have their own unique style altogether.

I would say I have 80% of my music sorted so far, and have come up with the following genres categories (with much help from allmusic.com who seems to know every genre, ever.

Comedy: Standup, Spoof songs (Bill Cosby, Monty Python)
Electronic: Blips, Beeps, Beats. I will eventually break this down into a few more sub cats but I'm not sure what (Air, Chem Bros, Scooter)
Folk & Blues: Soft, Chill, Acousticy (or piano) with a hint if country sometimes. (Ben Harper, Norah Jones)
Hip-Hop & R&B: I will eventually break these apart, but for now anything rappy (Jay Z, Bone, Streets)
Holidays: Xmas and Halloween music mostly
Indie-Emo: unmainstream soft-rock, emotional, not necessarily sad (DCFC, Coldplay, Iron & Wine)
Indie-Pop: unmainstream easy, fun, dancy, happy (mostly) (Shins, Smoosh, Mates of State)
Indie-Rock: unmainstream rock.. Sometimes harder, more eclectic (Modest Mouse, Cure, Franz)
Instrumental Ambient: soft, barely noticable (Brian Eno, Johann Johannsson)
Instrumental Classical: Tchaikovsky and all those dead guys
Instrumental Rock: Indie-rock without words (Six parts Seven, Mogwai, DMST)
Instrumental Trip-Hop: a bit more electronic, funked up. (Amon Tobin, Bonobo)
Mix Tapes: self-made or acquired mixes
New Age: pretty much just Enya
Oldies: Anything made before 1970
Pop: mainsteam, cheezy, fun, easy, danceable (tATu, Prince, U2)
Punk-Pop: Happier punk, mainstreammy, liked by 12yo's (Blink, AK3, SoCo)
Punk-Rock: Truer form of punk, harder, faster, angst. (Brand New, TBS, JEW)
Rock: mainstream rock, heavy chords, head rockin' (Bush, Queen, RHCP)
Soundtracks: Movies and such.

Now I know these aren't all encompassing and that is my problem. There are bands like Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire, Postal Service, that I feel should be in their own genre cat besides Indie-Pop, but I can't quite place them. Same thing goes for Franz, Killers, Bloc Party... post-indie-rock? I duno.

I uploaded my music directory so anybody interested can take a closer look. If anybody has some suggestions for better categories, or comments on how I'm doing things I'm all ears.

7 Comments

doug mansfield
07:43 PM on 01.16.05

dude u're confusing music genre's for music styles....indie is not a genre, pop is not a genre, emo is not a genre, those are all styles, the genre to all those is rock.

Taylor
08:31 PM on 01.16.05

glad to see i'm still loved, thanks doug.

Matt Burris
08:08 AM on 01.17.05

Like you, I like my music sorted by genre, then artist, song, album. Which is why I tend to favor iTunes, it's so intuitive to use. I'd say set it up with what you're most comfortable with. Here's the genres I have set up:

Alternative: 90's rock, mostly, examples being Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, etc.
Blues
Chillout: ambient, easy listening, soft pop, trance
Comedy
Electronic: trance, techno, dance, and all the subgenres
Metal: metal from 80's, 90's, nu-metal, industrial
Modern Rock: indie, emo, indie-pop, etc.
Punk: includes ska
Rock: classic, 80's/new wave, rockabilly, pop, motown, etc.
Reggae
Soundtrack

Lis
11:58 PM on 01.17.05

I've given some thought to sorting my music by genre, but i figure that's what ID3 tags and programs like iTunes and Winamp's media library are for. For now, I've got all my music sorted by artist, then by year & album title, and then by track # & song title. It seems to work for me, i might consider category sorting thanks to you though :-P

K-Bo
04:01 PM on 01.18.05

You should take a look at Radio @ Netscape, or Netscape Radio, whatever it is called. They do a great job of sorting all the genres/categories (such as Rock, Pop, Alternative & Indie, Jazz & Blues, Dance & Electronic, etc.) and then, they break each category down even further. So, Alternative and Indie has: 80s alternative, 90s alternative, 90s indie, alternative country, brit pop, classic punk, gothic, top indie, etc. And, if you are want to know what each category consists of, you can just listen for a little while to each category

Taylor
07:44 PM on 01.18.05

Awesome, thanks guys :)

RedA
08:58 AM on 06.15.06

@doug mansfield: indie is not a style or a genre. But it's a label affiliation.

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