A long time ago marc sent me an impressive compilation of the all-music genres and styles for each AM album. Now I have finally started to work with these data and in this thread I will post links to "beta versions" of these top lists.

I think I will only present top lists if there are at least 5 albums in the all-time top 3000, at least for styles (there are A LOT of styles with only a couple of albums).


First off, here are all-music's genres:

Avant-garde
Blues
Celtic
Classical
Country
Electronica
Folk
Jazz
Latin
New age
R&B
Rap
Reggae
Rock
Soundtrack
Vocal
World

There are also these genres that have less than 5 albums in the top 3000:

Cajun
1. Clifton Chenier - Bogalusa Boogie
2. Balfa Brothers - Play Traditional Cajun Music

Comedy
The infamous Bob Newhart entry...

Easy listening
1. Esquivel - Exploring New Sounds in Stereo
2. Henry Mancini - The Music from Peter Gunn
3. Henry Mancini - The Pink Panther
4. Henry Mancini - Breakfast at Tiffany's

Gospel
1. Mahalia Jackson - Newport 1958
2. James Cleveland and The Angelic Choir - Peace Be Still

Spoken word
1. The Last Poets - The Last Poets
2. The Last Poets - This Is Madness


Do you think any of these albums could be filed under another genre?

Suggestions:
Clifton Chenier & Balfa Brothers => World
Henry Mancini => Soundtrack
Last Poets => Rap

I will be back with links to the genre top lists. I want your help to check if AMGs genres and styles are correct and if any of them can be grouped together.

AMG genres/styles are my forte. Contact me and I'll be happy to help.

mrschroeder1982@yahoo.com

As the roots connoisseur, I can speak for Clifton Chenier and Balfa Brothers.

Tey are indeed very different artists and that's why I would split them

Clifton Chenier is a Zydeco artist, and can be easily put under the "blues" category.

Balfa Brothers play traditionnal cajun music (not the same as Zydeco) and bear a lot of common traits with country music. So you should put them in the "country" group.

Putting last poets in the rap category, even if it is a little anachronistic, is a satisfactory solution IMO.

OK. Let's start with the genres. Take a look at http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/Beta/genrelists.htm and see if you agree with the classifications.

Please use this thread to report what you think are misclassifications. I think there's a lot to dig into for those who want to. Should Massive Attack and Tricky be electronic and Portishead pop/rock? Are the Harold Budd & Brian Eno albums really Avant-Garde? And so on...

More genres with only a couple of albums:
Can the "Religious" albums be filed under "Pop/Rock"?

Please note that the artist, album and year links are not working on this beta version of the top albums by genre pages.

This is quite possibly the most awesome thing I've ever seen. Fan-bloody-tastic work Henrik!

Edit: I suppose in versions beyond the beta we can specify artists to a larger degree? Early Dylan for example would fit better in the folk category. If I find myself with some more spare time I'd definitely be willing to help with specifying.

I'll throw it out there:

I feel that having Pop/Rock as one unity is a bit silly. Marking each of the albums out individually is going to be understandably tough, but the top 100 Pop/Rock albums are comprised from the top 115 albums overall. IMO there should be a higher level of segregation to achieve the desired effect with this listing. After all, how closely does Sufjan Stevens lie to Prince, or My Bloody Valentine to Dusty Springfield, or Guns 'N Roses to Carole King?

This is really cool. Nice work.

One thing though: I know that this would pretty much kill the classical page, but I think that Steve Reich and Philip Glass would be better classified as Avant-Garde.

Very cool!

Perhaps Gospel and Religious could be combined into one genre?

Excellent job !

Agree for Mancini, why "easy listening" ? It's three fabulous soundtracks.
Just a question for singers like Bashung ! Where did you put his name :"Latin, folk, world" ?

Excellent work, Henrik, the new feature is awesome. Just some comments:
I suppose you are basically following the allmusic subdivision of styles (and that’s the right thing to do!) but this makes the Pop/Rock category like a jumble where we put all the albums that don’t fit into other categories.
If we go to the Pop/Rock genre page in Allmusic we can find 11 styles there. We all agree that it’s too much but surely we can narrow it into 3 sub-categories:
1) ROCK (not sure about the definition, power over melody maybe?): it could include the allmusic styles art-rock, hard-rock, rock&roll and psychedelic.
2) POP (melody over power?): it could include pop/rock, europop and british invasion.
3) FOLK-ROCK: it could include folk-rock and soft-rock (it includes singer-songwriters) allmusic styles.
Maybe even the 2 and 3 caregories could be united ending with Rock (The Rolling Stones) and Pop (The Beatles).
Of course many of the great artists are very difficult to file: I mean Bob Dylan circa 1963 is folk, circa 1965 is rock, circa 1975 is singer-songwriter. Could Neil Young be filed under power-over-melody or under melody-over-power?
Anyway great work (as always), Henrik.

Note that the genre list is just the start. Soon I will post a list of hundreds of styles!!!

AMG defines one genre per album and several styles that might cross over several genres. For example, Bob Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home" is categorized as the genre pop/rock, but also as the style political folk, which belongs to the folk genre. I suggest that albums that have styles that belong to different genres are also listed under all these genres (i.e. "Bringing It All Back Home" would be listed as both pop/rock and folk).

For me, in classical, for sure : Cage, Henry, Reich, Glass, Pärt, Stockausen...I don't know the other guys on avant garde group. But if it's pop or rock group who are doing avant garde music, we must not put here name in classical.

Gospel and religious, I totally agree too.

I know it's alot to ask Henrik, but could you also create a greatest Artists list that's sortable by genre as well?

I think M.I.A. should be under Pop/Rock instead of Electronic

Here's a NEW VERSION.

Excellent work once again man. 75% of the time when I introduce someone to acclaimedmusic.net they want to see the lists per genre, and now it's actually possible.

Hi Henrik,

I was wondering how you would include these genres and styles into your list. But the results are realy amazing. I think this makes your site even more interesting than it already was. Great work again!

Excellentissime !
A big bravo to your job !

About Latin lists:

-10. Orchestra Baobab
Ken Dou Werente/Pirates Choice (actually is World Music - from Senegal)

-13. Orchestra Baobab
Specialist in All Styles
2002 (Idem)

-16. Antonio Carlos Jobim
Wave
1967 (Is there a Brazilian item right?)

These albums are in World Music but they could fix in Latin category

Camarón
La leyenda del tiempo
1979 (it's flamenco)

Pata Negra
Blues de la frontera
1988 (Flamenco Blues from Spain)

Awesome feature, Henrik!! Congratulations!!

Splitting pop and rock is a dangerous thing IMO.

I think AMG's classification is a good one, even if a huge majority of the lists' records will end up in the pop/rock section.

Proof of that is that in the "rock" category" you have styles called pop (britpop for instance), and under the pop genre you have pop/rock...

I divide my own music library into styles and it's based on the AMG classification.

Pop and rock styles are too much entangled together. Like AMG brillantly says

"Rock & Roll is often used as a generic term, but its sound is rarely predictable. From the outset, when the early rockers merged country and blues, rock has been defined by its energy, rebellion and catchy hooks, but as the genre aged, it began to shed those very characteristics, placing equal emphasis on craftmanship and pushing the boundaries of the music. As a result, everything from Chuck Berry's pounding, three-chord rockers and the sweet harmonies of the Beatles to the jarring, atonal white noise of Sonic Youth has been categorized as "rock." That's accurate — rock & roll had a specific sound and image for only a handful of years. For most of its life, rock has been fragmented, spinning off new styles and variations every few years, from Brill Building Pop and heavy metal to dance-pop and grunge. And that's only natural for a genre that began its life as a fusion of styles."

I was surprised to see L.A.Punk being part of the progressive rock genre and also The Almann Brothers Band's At The Fillmore East being the 4th jazz album of all time! Dit it slip from the jam bands genre just above? Anyway, it was fascinating going through all these NEW lists! What a tremendous work Henrik! Thanxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks o.m. and everyone! I have moved LA Punk to where it belongs, but I haven't made genre changes for any albums yet, as I haven't decided how to move on with this (see the comparison vs RYM thread).

shouldn't Wilco be under alternative? at least for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Summerteeth, which have little or anything to do with Country.

Also M.I.A. imo should be under rap or electronica. DEFINITELY not alternative.