Here's a new and improved version of the genre top lists. This time I am using RYM's genre names, but the structure of my genre tree is a bit different.

Now I need your help to make the genre lists even better. See if you agree with the genres for the albums you are familiar with. If you are a RYM member, you may also want to view the RYM album page and check the genre votes before you suggest a change here in this thread.

Comments on the tree structure are also welcome.

Click this link for the list of genres and more information

I think it is well organized. This is more of a personal opinion, but Exodus is The best reggea album ever. Aside from that, I think you should have a teen pop section and a normal R&B section.

Nice, this feature is getting better and better. One thing I noticed browsing through real quick; The Smiths are not (indie) rock?

This is really getting better and better--what an excellent feature!

A couple things I noticed:

Why is there such a disparity between Experimental and Experimental Rock?

The Stooges' Fun House shouldn't be under garage rock.

The Velvet Underground & Nico should show up under alternative rock.

Brian Eno's Before and After Science should show up under Art Pop as well as Art Rock.

All of Elliott Smith's albums should be under Alternative Singer Songwriter, not just XO.

Shouldn't Punk and Post-Punk be under the Alternative Rock 'tree?'

Teen Pop is a genre, but there aren't 5 albums that have been tagged as this...
One of the changes I made from the RYM genre tree is that I have a soul as one of the tree roots, rather than an R&B section. I felt that soul should be the main genre to Contemporary R&B, Disco, Funk and Motown, not another subgenre side to side with them. Going by that definition, there are hardly any albums that are R&B but not soul, so the R&B tag seemed unnecessary. Do you disagree with this structure?

I just found it odd that you included contemporary R&B and not plain R&B. Overall, it'a a job well done.

Hmmmm great job Henrik!

One thing though- should The Avalanches "Since I Left You" really be under hip-hop? I would have put it under electronica somewhere.

Since I Left You is tagged as Turntablism, which is filed under Hip-Hop. The only other albums tagged as Turntablism are DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing" and Herbie Hancock's "Future Shock". Turntablism is usually traced back to early Hip-Hop DJs, but for AM's purpose maybe it would be appropriate to file it under Electronica instead (DJ Shadow will still be filed under Hip-Hop due to other tags)? What do you think?

"The Smiths", "Meat Is Murder" and "Strangeways" are tagged as both indie pop and indie rock, while "Hatful of Hollow" and "The Queen Is Dead" are just indie pop. I don't think there's much difference in pop/rock feel between the albums so I will tag them all as indie rock.

experimental music is music that makes you question what music is. experimental rock is using an experimental method within the context of rock music.

I'd love to see synth funk and italo disco in there!

Six albums have the synth funk tag but less than five of them are in the AM top 3000 and no AM albums are tagged with Italo-Disco. I might include genres with less than 5 albums in the tree in the future (if it won't make the tree too messy).

Thanks for this definition; this makes sense. The first Faust album should definitely be under 'Experimental' as well as 'Experimental Rock,' then.

Currently it looks as if funk, disco and contemporary r&b were subgenres of soul, which they are not. They rather are subgenres of rhythm & blues and should stand next to soul in the tree. I think the Wikipedia box for soul music is actually not too bad --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_music

Synth funk is a pretty new genre (I know because I added it to RYM!), but I think a lot of the albums classified as funk would also qualify as synth funk albums. Italo disco is probably a lost cause for acclaim, though.

That Wikipedia page actually says that funk, disco and contemporary r&b are derivate forms of soul.

I really like this feature and how you've implemented it!

Jackson, I can see where you're coming from on all of these but the RYM voting stats aren't really with you.
Votes for/against Fun House as garage rock is 84/8.
Votes for/against VU&Nico as alternative rock is 12/93.
Votes for/against Before and After Science as art pop is 8/18.
Perhaps no Elliott Smith albums should be tagged as alternative singer/songwriter, rather than the other way around? Actually, the RYM votes for XO has changed to negative (5/6).

They are derivative forms of soul, but that does not necessarily mean, that they are also subgenres. Rock & roll for example would be a derivative form of both country and blues in a way. Yet it is definitely not a subgenre, because it developed a very unique style, that can not directly be traced back to its country and blues roots. The same goes for the above mentioned genres and their relationship to soul (at least that's how I understand it).

pauldrach, you're right. Well, I just didn't want to copy too much from RYM. I will put R&B back in the tree, but I think I will keep Motown under Soul. On RYM, Motown is side by side with Soul, but that's not correct, is it?

Well, Motown is rather a label than a genre, but the genre at RYM seems to refer to the traditional Motown sound, which is without a doubt soul.

The lists by genre have been updated as per the discussions above.

Teenage Fanclub and Deerhunter aren't considered shoegaze and Cocteau Twins and Jesus and Mary Chain...HMMM!...they invented the genre but I'm not sure if either were considered shoegaze bands but that's questionable. Definitely not Teenage Fanclub or Deerhunter though.

Henrik, if you're still looking for help with genres for song-only artists, let me know.

Matt, that would be awesome!

It's a huge task... would you categorize the songs by AM rank or by artist? Categorizing songs by artist would probably be more convenient for you, but do you think you would be able to complete the work? If you do it by AM rank, I could always present the top songs by genre for the XX most acclaimed songs.

Thanks!

Teenage Fanclub will be removed.

For Deerhunter (Microcastle), it's currently listed as both a primary and secondary genre. The yes/no RYM stats is 23/16 (primary genre) and 65/10 (secondary genre). So maybe it shouldn't be considered a primary genre then. If someone else agree that Microcastle isn't shoegaze I will remove it.

Edit: Psychocandy is tagged as shoegaze but not the other J&MC albums. I think that's correct.

"Heartbreaker" by Ryan Adams, shouldn't that be under country?

I think Microcastle should be considered shoegaze. Though it wasn't part of the shoegaze scene, there are many parallels in sound and shoegaze's influence on the album is clear.

Not sure exactly what you mean. Here's what I was planning on doing...

I was just going to send you a list of all the songs with a list of all the different styles each song fit into, according to allmusic.com. It appears as though allmusic is pretty darn close to what you already have in your list. If what I have is too specific or not specific enough, let me know and I can adjust. Here's an example of what I was thinking (the list I send would be in .xls format):

#1: "Like a Rolling Stone" - Bob Dylan
Album Rock; Blues Rock; Contemporary Pop/Rock; Folk Rock; Political Folk; Psychedelic; Rock & Roll; Singer/Songwriter

#2: "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - The Rolling Stones
Blues Rock; British Blues; British Invasion; Contemporary Pop/Rock; Hard Rock; Rock & Roll

#3: "Good Vibrations" - The Beach Boys
AM Pop; Baroque Pop; Contemporary Pop/Rock; Psychedelic; Psychedelic Pop; Sunshine Pop

...and so forth.

Let me know. mrschroeder1982 (at) yahoo (dot) com

P.S. I noticed that you didn't include any bubbling under albums in the genre lists. Do you need someone to classify those too? Or are you not going to include them at all?

That seems like a lot of genres for a few minutes of music. Are these the allmusic genres for the artists or for the songs in particular?

The RYM genres for these three songs are
Like a Rolling Stone: Folk Rock and Singer/Songwriter
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction: Rock, Mod, Rock&Roll
Good Vibrations: Baroque Pop, Sunshine Pop, Psychedelic Pop

That's the allmusic genres for the albums on which those songs appear.

I've pretty much got the list of the Top 3000 finished. Do you want me to do the bubblers as well?

Wow! It would be great to have the bubblers as well, but it's probably best if you send me what you have first so we can discuss how to use it. Thanks!

I can send you the top 1000. What would be a good email address to contact you?

henrik.franzon at gmail.com
Thanks!

Well if you're going to include Microcastle as shoegazing there are more current albums that are more shoegaze than this one such as Lazer Guided Melodies, Doves first two records, Boo Radley's Giant Steps, 90s Dandy Warhols,BRMC,M83, Stars, Blonde Redhead,Takk by Sigur Ros,House of Love, the Chameleons UK, Horror's Primary Colours, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Elbow,Yo Lo Tengo, Mercury Rev, Galaxie 500 and might as well leave in Cocteau Twins if you're going to put Deerhunter on the list.

Is disco really R&B?

I'll admit I haven't heard most of the albums/artists you mention; from the ones I have heard, Mercury Rev definitely isn't (at least on Yerself is Steam and Deserter's Songs) and Laser Guided Melodies is borderline.

Microcastle I admit is borderline too; some songs definitely are shoegaze ("Neither of Us Uncertainly" and "Twilight at Carbon Lake") while "Nothing Ever Happened" and "Never Stops" are more indie rock. Honestly though, shoegaze might be one of the hardest genres to identify which albums/artists belong, so it's more of a judgement call.

Shouldn't M.I.A.'s albums also have inclusion in the Hip Hop section?

It primarily developed out of funk, and is therefore considered a subgenre of R&B. Obviously it's always a little subjective to say one genre is still subgenre of another, while another one is moved into its own genre (rap also primarily developed out of R&B genres, yet stands on its own in most genre classifications). Yet one should probably go with the majority view on those things, which says that rap has enough specific elements to classify as an own major genre, whereas disco doesn't.

It is especially since the shoegaze bands that stayed together all tried to evolve into something else. I actually left out the Verve who changed their sound by the second record but some songs on Urban Hymns were feedback heavy, spacy, atmospheric, fuzzy and dreamy but you could not identify them as shoegaze anymore because their fans would not stand for it. And you had a band like Swervedriver that was far more grungy than a band that liked to be considered grunge, Ned's Atomic Dustbin who had more of a shoegaze sound than Swervedriver. So for shoegaze fans it wasn't cool to stay shoegaze for long and if you tried to evolve they'd complain that they weren't as good as they were during their shoegaze days. So I guess since it was that way with fans bands would rather not even identify themselves as shoegaze. It's sort of making a comeback but bands like Dum Dum Girls and Pains of Being Pure at Heart are identified as more than shoegaze or twee. I've heard them identified as lofi indie pop like Black Tambourine who were very feedback friendly but never identified as shoegaze OR twee either.