the ticket in question, inspired by a series of tickets from @diskotechjam
I feel like it’d be good to add genres for the many non-music things in the scope of MusicBrainz, such as audiobooks, audio/radio dramas, podcasts, and other spoken word releases
Disko suggested several fiction subgenres, but I also think non-fiction genres like News, Self-help, Music (for books about music, better name needed), and Technology would be good additions too. (perhaps we can work with the BookBrainz folks to use the same/similar lists across both? or maybe a sublist?)
@aerozol and @reosarevok have already shared some thoughts on the ticket, but I’d like some input from the wider community~
yeah, I think we got a little off-topic chatting about moods and whatnot (another thing I think we need, but as said, that’s a different discussion)
we do already have comedy, kind of? it’s linked to other databases entries for musical comedy (that is music that is comedic), but it’s also got almost all non-music subgenres like standup and sketch comedy? I dunno what’s going on there, lol
also, sitcom (or situational comedy) was suggested by Diskotech with STYLE-2543
For those who don’t want to read the whole discussion:
I think it makes sense to have these kinds of themes/book genres etc in MB and accessible to taggers and so forth, but not mixed in with the current MusicBrainz music genre whitelist (“music” is implied imo). That’s why the discussion turned to creating new tag whitelists/categories as a possible solution.
To be fair, the discussion is not linked. Just some posts on a ticket that doesn’t really make sense initially. (white lists? Moods?) Especially as I tried to add to it and got told that “comedy” is already there. (All I can see are a few items at the top of that ticket)
Yeah - genre’s would be good. Nick them from a book store. But have a list somewhere people can see them. Make 'em accessible.
Haha - if that is the whole discussion then I got quickly lost. As can be seen by my suggesting something that is already included. I did start at the bottom and click “load older”.
to be fair, we’ve had comedy as a genre for at least a couple years (according to the edit history), but I also forgot about it as a non-music genre, lol
The basis of the discussion re: whether they belong as genres is that I don’t really want to give “science fiction” as a genre for something like Year Zero by NIN but that at the same time it feels perfectly sensible for that to have a theme tag “science fiction”.
More generally, I guess music genres are mostly about form in one way or another, while the kinds of literary genres presented here are mostly about theme. The equivalent literary genres to our musical genres would seem to be things like “short story”, “novel” or “sonnet”, rather than “science fiction”, “romance” or “love poem”, if that makes any sense. Themes do certainly make sense too, and for example a musical equivalent that would seem to fit is the requested pirate metal genre; it’s just that maybe they should belong at a different level than more “traditional” genres? (I’m pretty sure that we have some genres that would be better suited as themes already).
I’m glad to see these tickets getting some discussion.
IMO, the inclusion of audio books and audio dramas inevitably requires these types of narrative genres as well, but I get the reluctance of not wanting people to apply “science fiction” to every track that includes a theremin. I do think a lot of confusion and misuse of genres could be avoided by providing descriptions to editors when adding genre tags.
@reosarevok Are you thinking that themes should apply primarily to lyrical content? It seems like with spoken word content, the only way to distinguish genre is by reference to these type of narrative genres, but being able to distinguish lyrical content in general would be useful.
Not necessarily, I guess - an instrumental piece meant to specifically depict a spaceship floating or something could be “science fiction” as well. But lyrical content is the easiest to show intent for
The main issue is that genre tags are tags - you cannot say “this should be tagged science fiction but do not make it a genre” for some stuff.
It occurs to me another obvious use not mentioned yet would be music videos with science fiction elements.
Ah, I see. I guess ultimately it is the responsibility of the editor to make sure they are applying genre correctly, but that has always been the case as genre’s often have ambiguous titles which could create confusion. In the case of audio dramas and books, I think something like science fiction is fairly well understood as a genre, but based on the tag there does seem to be some misuse:
On the other hand, tags like “sitcom” or “documentary” or “sketch comedy” seem to me to be unambiguous as genres and don’t really make any sense as “themes.”
Another release type not mentioned here is lectures. Obviously, It doesn’t make sense to have genres for every possible subject, but perhaps an overarching “educational” genre?
I was going to make a new ticket re making new tag groupings/whitelists, but there’s already one (that also specifically mentions “theme”): MBS-8277
I added a related ticket a few years ago (it turns out) to add a new whitelist/grouping for “descriptor”, to a address a very similar discussion around what should/shouldn’t go in the genre whitelist: MBS-11610
I can add a new ticket specifically for a new “theme” grouping/whitelist if anyone things it would be useful.
