How do you classify your music?
This has always been one of those topics that has come to mind just long enough not to remember to ask others what they think. This time I remembered and ask anyone who happens to read this post… How do you classify your music and why?
What I mean is do the genres of your music files follow patterns? I typically classify everything as Alternative, Pop, Christian, Country, etc., but I’ve found myself thinking Aerosmith is not really Alternative, but many out there would kill me if I called them Pop. Along those lines, who can determine if new music is Alternative or Rock? Do we still have Rock or is everything since Nirvana considered Alternative? Alternative to what, Pop or Rock? What about Soundtracks who could have a good mix of different genres? I’m thinking to just classify them as Soundtrack and have them be the exception. After all, the whole point of the soundtrack is to have some remembrance of the movie not each individual song.
What is your source of classifcation? I know some people rely on sources such as FreeDB.org or CDDB or even AllMusic.com, but I think these sources have fallen to the new generation of ‘everything gets its own genre.’ You’ll find such things as General Pop, Hard Rock, and the likes. Do we need to be this granular? When I’m in iTunes and have Genre set as my default sort, the last thing I want to do is figure out if Pantera is considered Hard Rock or Heavy Metal, not that going from H to H is that hard, but you see my point.
I’m thinking of reworking my classification system and getting down to the basics. I’d like to hear what others think before I continue, but this is what I’m thinking:
- Pop - for the type of music that doesn’t seem to fit a real category (i.e. Britney, Justin, Boy Bands, etc.)
- Rock - for anything that uses a real band and guitars to create the music (i.e. Aerosmith, Blue October, Pantera, Genesis, 3 Doors Down, etc.)
- RnB - for anything that has an underlying sound similar to that of 60s Motown, but is not Rap. (i.e. Destiny’s Child, Jamie Foxx, Rihanna, Gnarls Barkley)
- Rap - for anything that has a bumbing beat and chatter instead of singing
- Country - for anything with country roots including the very Pop Leann Rimes
- Electronic - for anything that uses little to no lyrics, lots of synthesizer, and may to most be considered Trance, House, Techno, Dance, Rave, Ambient, and many more (i.e. Alice Deejay, ATB, Chemical Brothers, etc.)
- Jazz - for those using a variety of feeling, horns, piano, bass, drums and vocals and may include Blues (i.e. Joss Stone, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Michael Konik, etc.)
- Soundtrack - for anything that is distributed on a soundtrack for a movie and/or play
- Classical - for anything called a Concerto, or played by an orchestra that typically speaks volumes without words (i.e. Beethoven, Mozart, Boston Pops, etc.)
- Opera - self explanatory, but not to be confused with Classical (i.e. Three Tenors, David Daniels, etc.)
- Kids - these are typically songs from nursery rhymes, children’s CDs and possible kids remakes of current Pop music. (i.e. Kidz Bop, Blue’s Clues, Dora The Explorer, etc.)
I may have missed some, but I’m sure I’ll need to adjust my list after a few passes and suggestions. Please leave comments and let me know what you think and what your answers are to the questions above.
7 Responses to “How do you classify your music?”
Posted by: Lynx - 06/18/2006
Oh boy here’s a tough one… Lets see what I can come up with
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.
Posted by: Lumkichi The Humble - 06/18/2006
I, too, am perplexed by the variety of genres available. However, I am thankful for the ID3V2 which I can specify my own genres (as I see fit).
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
Posted by: Hullah - 06/19/2006
I mostly agree with Lum. I never listen to music by genre but instead arrange my music by artist/album. Then when I listen to music, it’s usually the whole album at a time. Because of this I don’t even populate the genre field most of the time. Since I’m not picky about populating the genre field I do most of my informational syncing with MusicBrainz.
Posted by: fFinsgib - 06/19/2006
You may not like my answer, but…
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.
Posted by: cranst - 06/19/2006
I guess what I’m hearing here is that I shouldn’t care to group my artists into genres, and all of my music files should be lumped into one big directory called Music with every artist and every album in one place. I could do this, but my wife may have a hard time knowing whether Loving Spoonful was a rap group or not.
Posted by: podious - 06/20/2006
Look at the genre list on http://www.allmusic.com. I agree with you, though: it is hard to classify some of these artists. I did the same thing about a year ago, cause my music folder was getting so full. I think I had Alternative, Rock, and Classic Rock. Organizing by artist would end your confusion, for sure. The question is: Why were you organizing by genre to begin with?
Posted by: cranst - 06/23/2006
Like I said before, my wife will go through my music every now and then and she doesn’t know all of the artist’s names, but she does know what genres they are in or what genres she doesn’t care for. For me it seemed logical to approach as “what kind of music do you like? …well, okay, in this directory, you’ll find all of that.” From what I see at allmusic.com, they seem to have a good top level list of genres, which then drill down into the 100+ subgenres. I may go with their approach.
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