Your quest is futile; this is an ever-changing and evolving issue. I believe it is the goal of a new musician to create a sound that has never been heard before, thus a new genre, or sub-genre is born. Sometimes this is not possible, so a mixing of genres appear, POD: Reggae-Metal-Rap, Dave Matthews: Jazz-Rock; there are many more. But then, these combinations become genres themselves as other artists duplicate the sound. (Not Dave though – no band has been able to copy the sound Dave and his crew creates)

Organization then is purely subjective, personally I have stopped adding genres to my music; I organize/search by artist. If you are looking for a new method that will appease the masses, good luck; if not, I like Lumkichi The Humble’s approach – sorting by mood.

The genres are probably horribly inaccurate for the music/group, but it represents the “mood” I am in when I listen to them. That being said, I NEVER listen to music sorted by genres.

I listen to music by the album, and the music is arranged on my hard drive as such. When I listen to music, I listen to the entire album (left over from the days of owning records).

For what it’s worth, the following represents a list of genres available on my DMP1 hard drive, after reclassifying with mp3tag (www.mp3tag.de).

Rock (Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Kansas)
Pop (John Denver, Jack Johnson, Jackson Browne)
Alternative (Stone Temple Pilots, Cold Play)
JPop (Tokio, Utada Hikaru, Puffy)
Classical (Vivaldi, Mozart, Chopin)
Comedy (Bob & Tom, John Boy & Billy, Steven Wright)
Jazz (Weather Report, Mahattan Transfer, Spyrogyra)

I don’t listen much to R&B- if I did, it would get lumped with Jazz. I’m not much into Rap and HipHop, either.

For me, Alternative represents “new” rock — somewhere 1990 and newer, I suppose. Red Hot Chili Peppers would be Alternative to me. Rock, in general, is now called Classic Rock - Deep Purple and even Heavy Metal fall in that category.

I’m probably missing other genres, but quite frankly, I don’t listen to much else. Whatever else might fit into an “other” category (like the Mission Impossible theme) will be cookie-cutter fitted into one of the categories I’ve listed above.

Trying to keep it simple. However, it’s lost on me. I do try to fill out the genres tags for completeness, I listen for the flavor of the album - not just the genre of the one song.

Which brings me to an important point:

You can’t determine the genre of the Artists’ entire work as a single type, nor can you determine the genre of the Album’s entire layout. For example, John Denver’s a Country/Pop - some songs are more pop, others are more Country. Rolling Stones - some songs are very Rock, others are Country (Honky Tonk) and still others are Pop. So how do you classify genres? By the song?

That notion tears people up — then they try to invent “intermediary” genres to encompass the entire range of their work. Or to blend genres, or assign multiple genres. All valid approaches, but complicated.

My motto: I stick to what I like.

~Lum

Pop - Popular… Music of the moment. Your correct, it doesn’t fit any other category

Rock - This is where it gets kinda wierd for me. What I considered metal back during the ’80’s, I pretty much consider rock now. Twisted Sister, Ratt, Quiet Riot, Alice Cooper, etc. Basically any band with a toned down metal sound more wussified lyrics God I’m horrible

RnB - I could never figure out what the Hell RnB was. Hell I can’t even spell rythem… rhythm…rithym… hell with it.

Rap - No comment… I’ll end up ranting.

Country - Any sad song about getting drunk and riding around in your pick up with you good ole’ dag named Red bitching about your ex wife. Thats not really fair, but pretty accurate. My son listens to Country a lot and my wife does on occasion.

Electronic - Basically music created by one person with only a Midi Keyboard or Computer. Can range from light hearted and flowy, new agey, to brooding and dark, gothy

Jazz - Jazz was another genre I could never figure out if I was actually listening to. What I thought was jazz back when I was a preteen turned out to be Big Band… go figure.

Soundtrack - Self Explanitory

Classical - Your explaination is perfect

Opera - see above

Kids - Any music that was specifically produced to be listened to by small kids or is sung by small kids, and in either case would soon have me in a corner stuffing my ears full of fire crackers.

Now for the ones you missed…

METAL - You can’t miss this one, of course many people would use the same classiciation I used on rap to describe metal. They are entitled to their opinion. The only problem with that it that they are morons and I am correct. There are many sub classes of metal; Speed, Thrash, Industerial, Gothic (not to be confused with Goth), Black, Death, Heavy, Symphonic, Power, etc. Each deserves a classification of there own, but I don’t have that much space.

Reggae - Unique to Jamaica. Could be songs about Dope or bannanas, but with out that Jamaican accent it ain’t Reggae

Gospel - Choir singing christian inspirational music with an up beat. Usually with a southern lilt to it.

Many Many More…

I don’t know what to tell you, classifying music really is a personal thing. For me its basically three categories: Metal, Billy Joel, and Everything Else.