MusicBrainz genres 2.x (338 genres for free!)

Thanks, that’s great.
And it also means it’s probably important to get the already present aliases renamed to their ‘preferred’ genre name and spelling?

So that any existing ‘other tags’ entries such as e.g.
‘new flamenco’, flamenco nuevo’, ‘novo flamenco’ etc. all get renamed to ‘nuevo flamenco’?
‘jazz-rock’ to ‘jazz rock’, ‘club-house’ to ‘club’, etc. etc.

Is it feasable that can be done?

I’ve gone through the list now, added a fair amount of new genres (probably way over half). The rest are either stuff I wasn’t sure about whether they fit our genre structure (like some of the classical bits), stuff that is niche enough I’m not confident adding it (like zolo - yes, I know I added hopepunk, but if we want less of those cases rather than more then I want those smaller ones to be researched a bit), stuff that I didn’t know what to name, stuff that seems to be synonymous with genres we already have, or if not then it’s ambiguous (e.g. trancecore - electronicore), and probably stuff I just overlooked because there’s so many genres there :smiley:

We can’t rename people’s tags, because they are meant to be personal. But we could look into this at some point to at least make it easier for a specific user to change their own:

That said, once we have aliases it should theoretically just work ™. But yeah, no promises about when that is.

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Great!

There is an important difference between Hopepunk and Zolo:
I am not able to find a single release that is labeled as Hopepunk on any respected music website.
My opinion remains that it may perhaps be a book (literary) genre, not a music genre.
(it’s probably not a real problem, until an optimistic religious punker/editor notices it and decides to select it :wink: )

Zolo has 27 pages of releases on RYM:
https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/Zolo/1

You are right about Trancecore vs. Electronicore
They can be considered the same genre with a different name.
.

Here the interim score, there are now 146 genres left from my list to add or further evaluate:

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
britfunk
british blues
british folk rock
broken transmission
brutal prog
byzantine chant
byzantine music
calypso jazz
cambodian classical
cantata
caucasian folk music
cello concerto
cello sonata
celtic folk music
celtic metal
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
digital cumbia
disco rap
early music
electric texas blues
epic collage
étude
euro-house
euro-techno
euro-trance
experimental pop
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
madrigal
malagasy music
mande music
mass
merseybeat
mizrahi music
molam
motet
musette
música criolla peruana
música gaúcha
neoclassical darkwave
occitan folk music
operetta
oratorio
ottoman classical
overtone singing
overture
persian classical
philippine classical
piano blues
piano concerto
piano rock
piano sonata
plainsong
pop folk
pop reggae
post-punk revival
progressive breaks
psychedelia
psychedelic funk
psychedelic soul
reggae fusion
rembetika
renaissance music
romantic music
samba soul
sea shanties
sephardic music
sertanejo de raiz
sonata
song cycle
songhai music
southern hip-hop
spiritual
swing revival
swingbeat
symphonic poem
tex-mex
thai classical
traditional pop
tuvan throat singing
us power metal
violin concerto
violin sonata
volksmusik
world fusion
zolo

Quickly reviewing the list, and making the post into a wiki so others can edit it:

acoustic texas blues
adult contemporary
(adult oriented rock) there as aor
afro-cuban
afro-cuban jazz
[algorave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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
(britfunk) there as brit funk
british blues
british folk rock
broken transmission
brutal prog
byzantine chant
byzantine music
calypso jazz
cambodian classical
cantata
caucasian folk music
cello concerto
cello sonata
celtic folk music
celtic metal
chamber folk
chamber jazz
chamber music
chinese classical
choral
choral symphony
concerto
concerto grosso
contemporary country
country gospel - https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/STYLE-1845
countrypolitan
cuban charanga
cuban rumba - https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/STYLE-1843
cumbia argentina
cumbia mexicana
cumbia peruana
digital cumbia
disco rap - https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/STYLE-1847
early music
electric texas blues
epic collage
étude
euro-house
euro-techno
euro-trance
experimental pop
flashcore
freestyle
[gamelan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamelan)
garage rock revival
girl group
(gogo) there as go-go
(greek entechno) there as éntekhno
hardcore
hi-tech psytrance
indian classical
indigenous music
jam band
jangle pop
jazz pop
(juju) there as jùjú
(kaseko) there, plus also kasékò which is apparently different
korean classical music
latin american classical music
latin disco
latin r&b
latin rap
[madrigal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrigal)
malagasy music
mande music - https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/STYLE-1844
mass
(merseybeat) AFAICT this is an alias for beat music?
mizrahi music - certainly legitimate but nobody seems to agree on what to call it
(molam) there as mor lam
motet
musette
música criolla peruana
música gaúcha
(neoclassical darkwave) there as neoclassical dark wave since we have dark wave
occitan folk music
operetta
oratorio
ottoman classical
overtone singing - this is arguably not a genre in itself but just a singing style
overture
persian classical
philippine classical
piano blues
piano concerto
piano rock
piano sonata
plainsong
pop folk
pop reggae
post-punk revival
progressive breaks
psychedelia
psychedelic funk
psychedelic soul
reggae fusion
(rembetika) there as rebetiko
renaissance music
romantic music
samba soul
(sea shanties) there as sea shanty
sephardic music
(sertanejo de raiz) there as sertanejo raiz which seems a lot more common online
sonata
song cycle
songhai music
southern hip-hop - we have a lot more uses as dirty south, unsure if 100% equivalent?
spiritual
swing revival
(swingbeat) seems the same as new jack swing?
symphonic poem
tex-mex - Wikipedia says this is an alias for tejano, RYM says it's tejano + roots rock
thai classical
traditional pop
tuvan throat singing
us power metal
violin concerto
violin sonata
volksmusik
world fusion
zolo - some sources suggest this is only considered a thing in RYM
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There are good comments in there.
What is a good way to proceed?

  • I could post an updated list (and I am also considering taking all classical-related tags out of it to create a new discussion post on that matter specifically)
  • add comments into the above ‘wiki’ post. Which I am afraid has the risk of making it quite messy.

edit:
I see @chaban is still going strong on adding genres in the ticket system. (thnx Chaban!)
I’ll wait at least till he has run out of steam before I update my list…

Following the comments in that post I have updated and pruned the list.
I also removed all classical genres from it and will post those in a separate topic.

Here are my comments on some comments in that post:

Gamelan

“Gamelan is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia”
That seems to qualify it as a genre.

Merseybeat

https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/merseybeat
“Merseybeat is a light, highly melodic style of Beat Music”
So it’s a form of beat music with a distinct sound/composition style. That seems to qualify it as a genre on it’s own.

Mizrahi music

quote: “certainly legitimate but nobody seems to agree on what to call it”
Other names that I found were:
Oriental jewish music
Mizrahi jewish music
Eastern jewish music

Since mizrahi only means ‘eastern’, perhaps ‘Mizrahi jewish’ is better.
I replaced it accordingly.

Tex-mex

As I understand it, Tejano is folk oriented, and Tex-mex is rock oriented.
That makes their sound distinguishable.
If so, it qualifies as a separate genre.

Zolo

It seems valid to have some doubts on this one.
But besides RYM having 1299 releases being tagged as zolo, I see there are also releases in MusicBrainz’ database that are tagged with zolo.
https://musicbrainz.org/tag/zolo

So I’ve left it in the list for now.
.

Here is the updated list:
(only 97 more to go :wink:

Acoustic texas blues
Adult contemporary
Afro-cuban
Afro-cuban jazz
Afrobeat
Afrobeats
Amapiano
American folk
Ashkenazi
Avant-folk
Bakersfield sound
Balkan brass band
Balkan pop
Beatdown hardcore
Bedroom pop
Biguine
Bitpop
Black ambient
Black 'n' roll
Boy band
British blues
British folk rock
British rhythm & blues
Broken transmission
Brutal prog
Calypso jazz
Caucasian folk
Celtic folk
Celtic metal
Chamber folk
Chamber jazz
Chanson
Contemporary country
Countrypolitan
Cuban charanga
Cumbia argentina
Cumbia mexicana
Cumbia peruana
Digital cumbia
Dirty south
Electric texas blues
Electroacoustic
Epic collage
Euro-house
Euro-techno
Euro-trance
Experimental pop
Flashcore
Freestyle
Gamelan
Garage rock revival
Girl group
Habanera
Hi-tech psytrance
Indian classical
Indigenous
Jam band
Jangle pop
Jazz pop
Latin disco
Latin freestyle
Latin r&b
Latin rap
Malagasy
Merseybeat
Mizrahi jewish
Música criolla peruana
Música gaúcha
Neoclassical darkwave
New orleans r&b
Occitan folk
Piano blues
Piano rock
Poetry
Pop folk
Pop reggae
Post-punk revival
Progressive breaks
Psychedelia
Psychedelic funk
Psychedelic soul
Reggae fusion
Samba-jazz
Samba soul
Sephardic
Songhai
Spiritual
Swing revival
Tex-mex
Third stream
Traditional pop
Tuvan throat singing
US power metal
Vaudeville blues
Volksmusik
World fusion
Zolo

I noticed that ‘chanson’ is called ‘chanson française’ on MusicBrainz.
It would probably be good to change it to ‘chanson’.

Both because it’s the most commonly used name for the genre, and because it is used way more often as a tag in MusicBrainz itself:

Well, us French, never use just “chanson” (=“song”) to designate this genre.

2 Likes

That’s interesting.
Yet the international world, and the overwhelming majority of MusicBrainz users use ‘chanson’.
Also, there are chansonniers that are not French, and sing ‘chansons’ in another language then French.

Jacques Brel is one famous example.
He’s Belgian, and also sings chansons in the Dutch language.
The same goes for quite a few singers in the Netherlands who are Dutch, and sing songs in Dutch that are considered to be ‘chansons’.

If I am correct in what I just read on wikipedia, the French (these days?) use ‘chanson française’ also to separate songs sung in French from songs sung in English.
So that makes the ‘française’ part referring mostly to the language that the song is sung in, and not so much the composition or lyrics style. (i.e. musical genre)

It looks like it would be a good idea to have both ‘chanson française’ and ‘chanson’ added.

Yes. When we’ll have relationships we could even link both.

I’ve added some more genres to the list of proposed genres to be added.

I think there is an existing genre that should be written differently:

There now exists ‘Runo song’
The genre is originally named ‘Runolaulu’
You can find it translated to English as ‘Rune song’ here and there.

My suggestion is to use either the original name ‘Runolaulo’, or do a full translation to English and make it ‘Rune song’.

It’s also originally named regilaul in Estonia (same genre, different Finnic language). Since we don’t have aliases yet, I went with what Wikidata has, but it seems it’s also a standard translation for it (sometimes with a hyphen, see Conference on Finnic runo-song tradition | Studia Metrica et Poetica)

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Ah yes, the more websites you consult, the more variations you get.
It just felt wrong to me, but that was probably very subjective.

One thing that might be of interest, especially until we get genre aliases: I did some work and got a seemingly working implementation of this ticket (that was supposed to happen in 2011, whoops):

That should allow people to change their tags from their name for a genre to the “standard” name in the genre whitelist, if they don’t want to wait for aliases. It should, of course, also allow them to change it back later once we have aliases, if they really wanted to have, say, “hip-hop” rather than “hip hop”.

No promises when this will get released, mind! But I thought it’d be of interest to people in this thread.

2 Likes

There have been suggestions and requests in the past for MusicBrainz’ genres to follow the genres that RateYourMusic is using, and align with them.

There hasn’t been much response to that, so it didn’t seem it was going to happen.

But… I thought it worth mentioning that I have been noticing that for at least a year or so MusicBrainz has been adding new genres from RYM, only a few days after they were added there.
Without them being requested or discussed on the ‘Style’ ticket board.

I’m not complaining since it is an improvement for sure.
But I was wondering how this came about, and if it means that also older genres that have existed on RYM for a long time will be introduced to MusicBrainz?

there’s quite a few RYM’ers (is that what you guys call yourselves :laughing: ) on the Discord so maybe just more people putting in tickets?

Far as I know I am not part of some ‘RYM guys’ group.
This is just me.
I am also not aware of MusicBrainz genre (style) tickets having been created just after RYM has added genres to their database. (there should have been dozens in that case)
And yet, they have (silently) been added nonetheless.

Maybe you have some information that I am unaware of?

I’m just adding (most of) the new genres from RYM as they come once a week or so, yes. Since it’s just me and there’s no requests specifically, there’s also no tickets. I already went through the RYM list once and added most stuff that I agreed with, but if you or anyone feel there’s RYM genres that totally should be added and haven’t been, feel free to request them.

5 Likes

There are still hundreds of genres in RYM that are not in MusicBrainz, but…
Many of them are in a way, but just named differently.
And many I have doubts about if I would consider them actual, or useful genres.
So I’m not sure how many that leaves to be proposed for MusicBrainz.
Not many I think. If I ran into some later on I will propose them.

1 Like