My long-term work project involves reading music and video files to extract metadata–text information that is embedded in the file. A .MP3 music file, for example, often has a lot of information in it: the song title, artist’s name, publisher, musician credits, and even lyrics. One of the metadata tagging standards includes a field for “genre”, which can take one of 126 different values:
| 0.Blues 1.Classic Rock 2.Country 3.Dance 4.Disco 5.Funk 6.Grunge 7.Hip-Hop 8.Jazz 9.Metal 10.New Age 11.Oldies 12.Other 13.Pop 14.R&B 15.Rap 16.Reggae 17.Rock 18.Techno 19.Industrial 20.Alternative 21.Ska 22.Death Metal 23.Pranks 24.Soundtrack 25.Euro-Techno 26.Ambient 27.Trip-Hop 28.Vocal 29.Jazz+Funk 30.Fusion | 31.Trance 32.Classical 33.Instrumental 34.Acid 35.House 36.Game 37.Sound Clip 38.Gospel 39.Noise 40.AlternRock 41.Bass 42.Soul 43.Punk 44.Space 45.Meditative 46.Instrumental Pop 47.Instrumental Rock 48.Ethnic 49.Gothic 50.Darkwave 51.Techno-Industrial 52.Electronic 53.Pop-Folk 54.Eurodance 55.Dream 56.Southern Rock 57.Comedy 58.Cult 59.Gangsta 60.Top 40 61.Christian Rap | 62.Pop/Funk 63.Jungle 64.Native American 65.Cabaret 66.New Wave 67.Psychadelic 68.Rave 69.Showtunes 70.Trailer 71.Lo-Fi 72.Tribal 73.Acid Punk 74.Acid Jazz 75.Polka 76.Retro 77.Musical 78.Rock & Roll 79.Hard Rock 80.Folk 81.Folk-Rock 82.National Folk 83.Swing 84.Fast Fusion 85.Bebob 86.Latin 87.Revival 88.Celtic 89.Bluegrass 90.Avantgarde 91.Gothic Rock 92.Progressive Rock 93.Psychedelic Rock | 94.Symphonic Rock 95.Slow Rock 96.Big Band 97.Chorus 98.Easy Listening 99.Acoustic 100.Humour 101.Speech 102.Chanson 103.Opera 104.Chamber Music 105.Sonata 106.Symphony 107.Booty Bass 108.Primus 109.Porn Groove 110.Satire 111.Slow Jam 112.Club 113.Tango 114.Samba 115.Folklore 116.Ballad 117.Power Ballad 118.Rhythmic Soul 119.Freestyle 120.Duet 121.Punk Rock 122.Drum Solo 123.A capella 124.Euro-House 125.Dance Hall |
Looking at the list, I got to wondering what some of that music is. And I also got to wondering if people really know enough to classify their music correctly. For example, please give me a brief explanation of the differences between Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative Rock, Instrumental Rock, Southern Rock, Rock & Roll, Hard Rock, Folk-Rock, Gothic Rock, Progressive Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Symphonic Rock, Slow Rock, and Punk Rock. Why is “Acid” not “Acid Rock?” What’s the difference between Gothic and Gothic Rock?
And then there’s Industrial, Techno, Euro-Techno, and Techno-Industrial. The mind fairly boggles. Is Psychadelic (hey, they misspelled it, not me!) somehow different than Psychedelic Rock? And what, pray tell, is Trailer? I picture Billy Joe Bob sitting outside his trailer in a grungy t-shirt, holding a can of Keystone Light. What kind of music is he listening to?
Jungle? Is Jungle different than Tribal? I guess Trance is what hypnotists use? That’s somehow different, I suppose, than Meditative, which apparently people use to put themselves into a trance?
How many people can accurately differentiate between Disco, Soul, Funk, Pop/Funk, and Rhythmic Soul? And what the heck is a Power Ballad? Is that somebody serenading his electric generator?
I especially like #39: Noise. We could probably halve the genre list by reclassifying things like Disco, Death Metal, Gothic, Bebob, Avantgarde, … oh, forget it. Just make everything “Noise” and be done with it. No matter what kind of music you have, somebody is going to call it noise.
Interesting that there’s no “Baroque” classification. Is that because nobody listens to Baroquen records?
I doubt that even music publishers can agree on what “genre” many types of music fit into. And some music fits into many of these categories. A song could be Rap and Top 40, for example. It’s pretty obvious that this list of genres was intended for people to use in their own music collections, the idea being that the person would know what he means when he calls something “Lo-Fi” (whatever the hell that is). But when these private collections start escaping onto the Internet where the whole world can see them, confusion ensues.
Excuse me now while I go Rave to a Fusion of Booty Bass and Porn Groove.