It’ s a list of genres that I believe are currently notably missing from MusicBrainz’ genre database, and it’s an effort to light a fire on what I feel is a somewhat dormant attitude towards genres on MusicBrainz.
It contains (a selection of) genres that I have accumulated over a couple of years by now, and are not present in MusicBrainz ‘authorised’ listing of genres.
I already noticed a while ago that (in my opinion) many genres were missing from MB’s database, and I then created ‘a ticket’ that contained some 50+ genres I thought would qualify and improve on the database.
But it was rejected immediately with the comment that I should create a ticket for each and every genre individually.
Honest sentiment: I couldn’t be bothered with that.
Also I wasn’t interested much to possibly have to discuss and defend each and every item on the list.
Some time has passed by now, and I have kept improving and extending my own genre list.
What hasn’t changed is that I am still not motivated to create a ticket for every genre separately, and possibly having lengthy discussions on each and everyone of them.
But motivated by some activity and responses on the forum regarding genres I thought it would be a good time to share a selection of my genre list as it has developed into it’s current state.
Please trust me when I say that I have put in the work, mileage and effort into it, and have done the research.
My personal list is even longer, but I have pruned it for this post for the purpose of taking into consideration the purpose and functionality of MusicBrainz, and it containing genres that are the least prone to discussion:
2 tone
Acid trance
Acoustic texas blues
Adult contemporary
Adult oriented rock
African blues
Afro-cuban
Afro-cuban jazz
Aggrotech
Algorave
Ambient pop
Ambient trance
American folk music
Anatolian rock
Andalusian classical
Anti-folk
Appalachian music
Aria
Ars antiqua
Ars nova
Ars subtilior
Ashkenazi music
Avant-folk
Axé
Baião
Bakersfield sound
Balearic beat
Balkan brass band
Balkan pop
Ballet
Baltimore club
Baroque pop
Batucada
Beatdown hardcore
Bedroom pop
Benga
Berlin school
Black ambient
Black 'n' roll
Bluegrass gospel
Boy band
Brazilian classical music
Brega
Brega-funk
Brill building
Britcore
Britfunk
British blues
British folk rock
Broken transmission
Brutal prog
Bubblegum bass
Byzantine chant
Byzantine music
Calypso jazz
Cambodian classical
Canción melódica
Cantata
Canzone napoletana
Cape jazz
Carimbó
Caucasian folk music
Cello concerto
Cello sonata
Celtic folk music
Chacarera
Chalga
Chamamé
Chamber folk
Chamber jazz
Chamber music
Chanson à texte
Chicano rap
Chillstep
Chillwave
Chimurenga
Chinese classical
Choral
Choral symphony
Choro
Coco
Coldwave
Concerto
Concerto grosso
Contemporary country
Copla
Corrido
Country boogie
Country gospel
Country rap
Country soul
Countrypolitan
Crossover jazz
Crossover thrash
Crunk
Cuban charanga
Cuban rumba
Cumbia argentina
Cumbia mexicana
Cumbia peruana
Cyber metal
Cybergrind
Dance-rock
Dangdut
Danzón
Dark cabaret
Dark psytrance
Darkwave
Death industrial
Death 'n' roll
Deconstructed club
Deep funk
Denpa
Desert blues
Digital cumbia
Disco polo
Disco rap
Dixieland
Doomcore
Dreampunk
Dub poetry
Early music
Easycore
Electric texas blues
Electrotango
Éntekhno
Epic collage
Ethereal wave
Étude
Euro-disco
Euro-house
Euro-techno
Euro-trance
Experimental pop
Finnish tango
Flamenco jazz
Flamenco nuevo
Flashcore
Forró
Forró eletrônico
Forró universitário
Free folk
Freestyle
Frevo
Fuji
Funaná
Funeral doom metal
Future funk
Gamelan
Garage rock revival
Ghazal
Girl group
Glam punk
Gogo
Greek entechno
Gregorian chant
Gypsy jazz
Hardcore
Hardvapour
Heartland rock
Highlife
Hiplife
Hi-tech psytrance
Hyperpop
Hyphy
Indian classical
Indigenous music
Industrial hardcore
Italo dance
Jam band
Jangle pop
Jazz pop
J-core
Juju
Jump blues
Kaseko
Kawaii future bass
Keroncong
Kleinkunst
Korean classical music
Kuduro
Kwaito
Latin american classical music
Latin ballad
Latin disco
Latin r&b
Latin rap
Latin soul
Levenslied
Louisiana blues
Madrigal
Makossa
Malagasy music
Mande music
Mangue beat
Manila sound
Marchinha
Mariachi
Marrabenta
Mass
Mbalax
Mbaqanga
Mbube
Melodic hardcore
Merseybeat
Mizrahi music
Mod
Modal jazz
Molam
Morna
Motet
Musette
Música criolla peruana
Música gaúcha
Nashville sound
Nederpop
Neoclassical darkwave
Neoclassical metal
Neoclassicism
New beat
Nova cançó
Nueva trova
Occitan folk music
Operatic pop
Operetta
Oratorio
Orchestral jazz
Ottoman classical
Overtone singing
Overture
Pagodão
Pagode romântico
Paisley underground
Palm-wine
Parang
Partido alto
Pasodoble
Persian classical
Philippine classical
Philly soul
Phleng phuea chiwit
Piano blues
Piano concerto
Piano rock
Piano sonata
Piedmont blues
Plainsong
Plena
Pop folk
Pop reggae
Porro
Post-punk revival
Progressive bluegrass
Progressive breaks
Progressive country
Progressive pop
Psybient
Psychedelia
Psychedelic funk
Psychedelic soul
Pub rock
Punk blues
Quiet storm
Rautalanka
Red dirt
Reggae fusion
Rembetika
Renaissance music
Rock opera
Romantic music
Roots rock
Runolaulu
Samba soul
Samba-canção
Samba-choro
Samba-exaltação
Samba-reggae
Samba-rock
Sasscore
Sea shanties
Séga
Sephardic music
Sertanejo
Sertanejo de raiz
Sertanejo romântico
Sertanejo universitário
Sierreño
Skate punk
Skiffle
Skweee
Sonata
Song cycle
Songhai music
Songo
Sophisti-pop
Soukous
Soul blues
Southern gospel
Southern hip-hop
Southern metal
Space ambient
Space disco
Spiritual
Stride
Swing revival
Swingbeat
Symphonic poem
Synth funk
Taarab
Tango nuevo
Techno bass
Techno kayō
Tecnobrega
Tejano
Texas blues
Tex-mex
Thai classical
Traditional pop
Trancecore
Tropical house
Tropicália
Trot
Trova
Tuvan throat singing
Twee pop
UK hardcore
Urban cowboy
US power metal
Vaportrap
Vaudeville blues
Violin concerto
Violin sonata
Volksmusik
World fusion
Xote
Zamba
Zarzuela
Zolo
While I do applaud your first-responder reply, and your initiative and effort to create tickets, do you think it should take 335 more tickets to get MusicBrainz’ genre list to get introduced to the 21st century?
(to be factually correct, into the 19th century also)
Great list!! I’ve reopened the Hardcore genre ticket, as that one has always bugged me.
In other threads + tickets you have been advocating for stricter application of genres, e.g. the rym model, in which case surely each one should be able to be addressed and tracked separately? A ticket with all of them would turn into a sh*tshow imo
I have found my genre tickets to be addressed very quickly and in a friendly manner by @reosarevok
Any posts of mine concerning genres were not intended to advocate more strictness.
I have learned to let go of the thought that something like ‘genres’ could ever be ‘correct’.
All we can do is make use of the concept as best as we can so that it serves us best when navigating and searching for music.
The deeper motivation I am having on the matter is that I feel that MusicBrainz is at some sort of stuffy stand-still where it concerns genres, and that other ‘forces’ such as RateYourMusic are much more agile and responsive, and have a much better and realistic sense on the matter.
Sure, but I don’t think quick and friendly are very relevant.
We now have ‘hopepunk’ and ‘red song’ that were added quick and friendly.
And at least some 300 genres missing.
(I apologize for the tone that might rub the wrong way, it’s not intended to be directed at any person at all. It’s getting late here. Nighty-night!)
Oh interesting, I feel like tags and genres was a relatively new addition, and just waiting for the coding time to take the next steps steps! But I guess that was 2 years ago
I wonder if some other more specific tickets might help move things forwards. The Genre Alias ticket would be priority imo and is already there, but there might be some others that are missing. I couldn’t find one for a hierarchy (assuming the one about working with RYM’s system isn’t going ahead). Making tickets is 1% of the work, and then someone has to actually code it…
edit: added tickets for Cybergrind and Funeral Doom (oops, Chaban had already done that one! What a machine)
There is one, and it is wanted But we have three devs, not all of them full time, and a ton of things to do, so This will eventually be done by allowing relationships for genres - which will also allow linking them to Wikidata and RateYourMusic.
I do try to look at genre tickets in batches, I’ll look at some of the new ones today We are missing a ton of genres, yes, especially non-Western ones but also a fair amount of Western ones. It’ll get better.
Edit: I added a lot of the recent requested ones, and I’m now looking through the list in this post and adding tickets for some more I care about (mostly non-Western or old music, but not only) and then adding them to MB.
Does this ticket already exist? This thread motivated me to get off my butt and finally add it:
No need, we’ve all been there - what are we without passion for this shared project.
I woke up this morning and was wondering if I had to enter any more genre tickets, and went to the dashboard homepage, and started scrolling through changes on 04-22. I gave up after a few minutes of hitting ‘view more’… I wonder if most of your list is in now??
I was expecting someone from staff could just copy/past the bulk into MusicBrainz’ database at once, but I see that each and every genre is being entered by means of creating a separate ticket for it.
It looks like already 120 of the 338 genres from my list have been entered in a day’s time.
That’s impressive work.
Seeing that reosarevok has by now processed the genres A–L that he was interested in the most, here is a list of all A–L genres that have not yet been entered:
Acoustic texas blues
Adult contemporary
Adult oriented rock
Afro-cuban
Afro-cuban jazz
Algorave
American folk music
Appalachian music
Aria
Ashkenazi music
Avant-folk
Bakersfield sound
Balkan brass band
Balkan pop
Ballet
Beatdown hardcore
Bedroom pop
Black ambient
Black 'n' roll
Boy band
Brazilian classical music
Brega-funk
Britfunk
British blues
British folk rock
Broken transmission
Brutal prog
Bubblegum bass
Byzantine chant
Byzantine music
Calypso jazz
Cambodian classical
Cantata
Caucasian folk music
Cello concerto
Cello sonata
Celtic folk music
Chamber folk
Chamber jazz
Chamber music
Chillstep
Chinese classical
Choral
Choral symphony
Concerto
Concerto grosso
Contemporary country
Country gospel
Country rap
Country soul
Countrypolitan
Cuban charanga
Cuban rumba
Cumbia argentina
Cumbia mexicana
Cumbia peruana
Cyber metal
Darkwave
Digital cumbia
Disco rap
Early music
Electric texas blues
Epic collage
Étude
Euro-house
Euro-techno
Euro-trance
Experimental pop
Flamenco nuevo
Flashcore
Freestyle
Funaná
Gamelan
Garage rock revival
Girl group
Gogo
Greek entechno
Hardcore
Hi-tech psytrance
Indian classical
Indigenous music
Jam band
Jangle pop
Jazz pop
Juju
Kaseko
Korean classical music
Latin american classical music
Latin disco
Latin r&b
Latin rap
A few of those I did add but with a slight change (brega funk rather than brega-funk and nuevo flamenco rather than flamenco nuevo, for example). Others I’m just conflicted on because they seem to clash with classical work types (stuff like Aria or Cantata) and they seem to require discussion. Others I probably wasn’t too sure about but I might still just add if they get some research and a ticket
Edit: btw, a big reason of why I’m doing them with tickets is that at the same time I also add the genre ID to Wikidata, when a Wikidata page exists, so we have a mapping ready to use once we can add the Wikidata rels on our side and show info about the genre
For the spelling of genres I looked at the most common spelling that I found.
I found RYM to use and prefer ‘Brega-funk’, and I didn’t find ‘Brega funk’ on other websites.
Also RYM calls it ‘Flamenco nuevo’. And it felt right to me to have the name starting with the most essential part of that name.
I thought to use these spellings to avoid introducing more variations spreading and making things possibly even more complicated.
(edit, ‘nuevo flamenco’ might even be grammatically incorrect? Perhaps somebody fluent in Spanish can say?)
I’m Spanish, and “nuevo flamenco” is how I usually hear it Although both are valid aliases, I expect. The Portuguese wiki uses brega funk with a space, so I went with that since I expect it shows the language usage better. But in any case, we clearly need those aliases!
Haha, ok.
I had a sense that ‘nuevo flamenco’ might be a bad and direct transformation from the English ‘new flamenco’.
Just curious, how do you say ‘new shoes’ in Spanish?
In my personal sheet I do have info on some variants of genres that I have actually encountered in the wild.
After this genre project is completed, and when there is some feature in MusicBrainz/Picard to handle genre aliases I’ll see if I can share a comprehensive list of those too.
That’s interesting.
I now see that wikidata also has a listing of aliases. (Also known as)
That could be a useful source if MusicBrainz is going to manage aliases also?
I think it’s actually based on the “Nuevos Medios” label that kinda coined the term But it kinda depends. “New Wave” is “nueva ola”, but if you saw “a new wave” in the ocean or something it would probably be “una ola nueva” (your example would generally be “zapatos nuevos”). I think there’s some degree of semantic difference between the two orders but it’s probably not set in stone
Question:
Suppose a user added ‘Aggrotech’ as a tag to a release a year ago.
It would then fall under ‘other tags’, and Picard would only retrieve if ‘folksonomy’ has been enabled.
Since Aggrotech has now been added to the genre database, will the earlier added tag now automatically be found under ‘genre’, and not under ‘other/folksonomy’ anymore?
But we have three devs, not all of them full time, and a ton of things to do, so 