# How can I effectively (and easily) get rid of unwanted subgenre tags?
**URL:** https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503
**Category:** MusicBrainz Picard
**Created:** [August 20, 2026, 6:19am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503 "2026-08-20T06:19:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Sophist](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Sophist)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2026, 9:30am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/21 "2026-08-28T09:30:43Z")
> [@outsidecontext](#):
>
> > [@Sophist](#):
> >
> > > [@IvanDobsky](#):
> > >
> > > There are weird tags that duplicate MB fields (like “English”) or tags that should be series (like “top 4 tracks”) Or just plain opinionated garbage (like marking Punk Music as “Non-Music”).
> >
> > Exactly my point about mixing tags and genres.
>
> But the above are all no genre tags. That’s really derailing the discussion about genres. Nobody claims that “top 4 tracks” is a genre, and it is not listed as one on MB.
I disagree with using tag voting for genres on principle as too easy, non-visible, too ephemeral, however my point here is that the non-genre tags are essentially noise which make curation of genres by tag votes much much much more difficult.
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### Author:  [@reosarevok](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/reosarevok)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2026, 12:23pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/22 "2026-08-28T12:23:08Z")
> [@MiaYosh](#):
>
> Silly question… If you’re the only one to tag an album as “soundtrack” and I vote against it, the tag disappears. Is it really gone, or is it just hidden?
It’s hidden, which also means that you shouldn’t feel guilty voting down something you think is wrong, because the user who added the tag can still access it anyway (so if they really think it’s black metal but everyone else says it’s powerpop, they can choose to use their own tags only and still have it as black metal when tagging for themselves).
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### Author:  [@anon\_mbrainz](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/anon_mbrainz)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2026, 2:46pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/23 "2026-09-07T14:46:54Z")
My solution using a Genre Mapper plugin script:
> [@Genre Mapper plug-in scripts](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/genre-mapper-plug-in-scripts/814751/2):
>
> After plenty of trial-and-error I’ll go first. If the musicbrainz genre lookup is limited to a single genre then Genre Mapper can be used to break up the main genre into multiple genres without duplicating list items (it would be more flexible if Genre Mapper did a final list dedupe, but it may or may not actually lead to better results). To speed up matching and to make everything tidy I tried to limit each mapping to a single line using regex grouping, thus ordering matters (granular rules are…
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### Author:  [@MiaYosh](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/MiaYosh)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2026, 4:42am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/24 "2026-09-18T04:42:11Z")
Actually, I’d already come across your post before. It’s just that I couldn’t really make much of your template, because you’re more into “rock” and I’m more into “pop” and “electronic.”
I was frustrated because, even though you went to the trouble of creating a good template, using it as a starting point for me would have required at least as much effort as starting from scratch. However, it did show me just how powerful the Genre Mapper can be.
The entire table also revolves primarily around the Genre Mapper. It lists the genres in groups and provides expressions for the Genre Mapper.
I’ve also added a “What For” and a “How To” section on the first page. Based on your
> = FINAL CATCH-ALL
> .\*=Other
it also includes a small script that flags unknown or unclassified genres instead of lumping them all together.
Maybe you should take a look.
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### Author:  [@hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/hiccup)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 8:33pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/25 "2026-09-29T20:33:46Z")
> [@Sophist](#):
>
> Genres in Musicbrainz (and hence Picard) are not brilliant, for the following reasons:
>
> 1. They are not curated - by which I mean they are not subject to the normal quality assurance voting process that almost all other changes to metadata are subject to. So anyone can tag a release or a work with a genre even if it is not the case i.e. Beethoven’s 5th could be tagged Prog Rock.
Very true, and it is probably the reason why MusicBrainz’ genre tags are so bad to a degree that it is pretty much useless as something to rely upon.
I have a rather eclectic library and care a lot about using genres to filter and navigate through it.
But if I would rely on MusicBrainz’ genres:
If there is a violin in a song, it probably has been tagged as ‘Classical’ in the database by somebody.
If there is a saxophone in a song, it probably has been tagged as ‘Jazz’ in the database by somebody.
If a synthesizer is used in a song, it probably has been tagged as ‘Electronic’ in the database by somebody.
In the past I have made some effort to correct a lot of this nonsense genre tagging for many releases, but I gave up on it when I realized I was fighting something nobody else seemed to be care about or was much interested in. And my single votes hardly had any actual impact in fixing the root of this problem.
So I completely agree with Sophist that this genre tagging stuff is not being curated in any proper manner at all, and as a result it is in a very bad state.
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### Author:  [@IvanDobsky](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/IvanDobsky)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2026, 8:29am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/26 "2026-10-01T08:29:27Z")
@hiccup where do you source your genres now? Or what settings you use in Picard.
My current frustrations are based around “Dance Pop” and “Dance-Pop” side by side. Or “Jazz Funk” “Jazz+Funk” “Jazz-Funk”. I think it is a mess I have appearing due to tagging as per Recordings. Maybe I need to look at @rdswift’s Genre Mapper plugin. But this mess it getting much worse.
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### Author:  [@hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/hiccup)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2026, 4:35pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/27 "2026-10-02T16:35:36Z")
I am using a system of a whitelist and a fine-tuned script to get the best possible results using Picard.
After that I have MusicBee processing genres so they appear as optimal as possible, depending on where and in what situation I want genres to display. For one, I am using some code that prefers more refined ‘sub-genre’ names (since they are usually more reliable because those have been added by ‘knowledgeable’ users) over more general genre names such as Pop, Jazz, Electronic, Opera, Classical, etc., sometimes not have those displaying at all. (since those are very often wrong and unreliable in MusicBrainz’ database due to a lack of proper curating)
I have been hoping for RYM/Sonemic to finally release their API that has been promised many many years ago so that I can use that instead. But development of it seems to be slower than a drunk snail with a limp. So I fear I may not live long enough to experience that.
If you are interested in my system you should be able to find more details on the MusicBee forum.
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### Author:  [@IvanDobsky](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/IvanDobsky)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2026, 5:48pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/how-can-i-effectively-and-easily-get-rid-of-unwanted-subgenre-tags/815503/28 "2026-10-02T17:48:24Z")
In the last six months I have made a horrific mess of my genre tags via Picard just at a time I thought I had them sorted out. Had been tagging with Picard without checking track by track. Those uncurated messes are painful to see.
I may also have to go the whitelist route, but it is a pity as I liked some of the unusual tags that would appear, some of the latest additions are so far off it is painful. I have some albums now with almost random tags. I can see some of the mess coming in from strange ways people have tagged tracks in a compilation that then hit all recordings.
I will mess around with @rdswift’s tool and a whitelist. Try and get some order to the chaos. Is there a way to only get tags that have more than one vote? I see so much mess of tags with a single vote that I don’t want to see them now.
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