I stumbled upon ‘hopepunk’ now being an official MusicBrainz genre.
Personally I believe that is/was a wrong decision.
I just added a comment to that on the original ticket for it, but the ticket has been closed for a while.
Since I have no idea if any comments after a ticket was closed will be read or considered or not, I thought to create this post on the forum.
I found the recent comments on the wikipedia article amusing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Grimdark#Hopepunk
I think I agree with the sentiments expressed/implied in the ticket: “Yeah, who cares, whatever”. I can’t see the point of wasting brain-cycles on some silly micro(nano)-genre. (or arguing about whether it should be here)
The main objections I can think of are:
“It’s not notable enough” and “It’s stupid/silly/pointless”
neither of which really carry any weight on Musicbrainz.
I am a bit confused. All the sources given discuss this as s genre in literature. So at best that is something for BookBrainz. Independent how relevant one considers this as a genre I don’t see how this has a place in MusicBrainz.
I added it because I saw it used for music too (especially for Janelle Monáe’s stuff). It’s certainly a niche thing though, but I don’t think it hurts.
I am pretty sure you didn’t see that at Discogs, AllMusic, RateYourMusic, Apple Music, Spotify, et al.?
None of them acknowledge hopepunk as a music genre.
Maybe some bookworm mentioned it on a website?
Surely it’s not a big problem, I just found it a bit surprising since MusicBrainz participants and contributors are usually quite strict about getting things ‘right’.
And I do believe this is wrong.
I wasn’t entirely sure what “Genre” is used for in musicbrainz, so I looked it up: https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Genre
If that page is correct/up-to-date, all that happens when “Hopepunk” is promoted to a genre is that stuff (releases/artists/events/etc) that is tagged with Hopepunk now has “Hopepunk” appear under “Genre” instead of “Other tags”.
I think we’re strict about “right” when “right” is a question of verifiable objective facts.
It’s not clear that Genre is.
Although if someone presented evidence that some artist somewhere had labelled a release (or themself) as “Hopepunk”, that would be verifiable objective facts in favor of having it as a genre.
And if someone could present evidence that no artist anywhere had ever labeled a release/themself as “Hopepunk”, I suppose that would be evidence against having it as a genre.
I assume a lot of them call “soundtrack” a genre though, which I personally strongly disagree with 
“What is a genre” seems to be a hugely subjective thing.
This is one of the aspects that makes this topic so difficult and impossible to ‘get right’ for everybody.
Soundtrack is (also) a complicated one.
It is often misused (wrongly applied), but there are songs that have been specifically composed and recorded for a movie.
Think of e.g. James Bond signature songs. Or some opening tunes for TV-series.
For those it could well be defended they fall under the ‘soundtrack’ genre.
(Other genre tags should probably additionally be applied though. Most songs can’t be catched under one single genre)
I stumbled upon another entry that is validated by MusicBrainz as a genre but I have serious doubts about:
leftfield
What is leftfield music?
I haven’t been able to find a respectable music website or source that acknowledges this as a music genre?
IIRC it was added as part of Discogs’ style list.
I see. The way they describe it it is some style/attitude. Like ‘avant-garde’ or ‘experimental’.
‘Leftside’ by itself isn’t a music genre.