I had a suggestion to how we can improve the genre top lists. For every genre listed here, we could compare with RateYourMusic's top 100 list of the same genre. If we shared the work among many of us it would not be so hard I thought.

Then I checked the first genre (ambient) to suggest a format for reporting and use as an example. I came up with this:

Genre: Ambient

AM albums missing in the genre top list:
Tim Hecker "Harmony in Ultraviolet"
Aphex Twin "Selected Ambient Works Volume II"
Klaus Schultze "Timewind"
Tangerine Dream "Rubycon" and "Zeit"
David Sylvian "Gone to Earth"
Fennesz "Venice"
Labradford "Prazision LP"

AM albums that aren't ambient according to RYM:
Brian Eno & David Byrne "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts"
Einstürzende Neubauten "Kollaps" and "1/2 Mensch"
Swans "Children of God"
Orbital "Snivilisation"
Coil "Horse Rotorvator"
Gang Gang Dance "Saint Dymphna"
Manuel Göttsching "E2-E4"
Transglobal Underground "Dream of 100 Nations"
Material "One Down"
Bentley Rhythm Ace "Bentley Rhythm Ace"
Terry Riley "In C"
Mike Oldfield "Ommadawn"
Sabres of Paradise "Sabresonic"

This was a lot more differences than I thought, and I definitely think RYM is more correct in the majority of cases. This raises a number of questions:

1. Do you agree that RYM's genre classification is better than AMG's for ambient?
2. Do you think that RYM's genre classification is better than AMG's in general?
3. Is AMG correct but the transformation to RYM genres was poor?
4. Can AMG genres/styles be used at all?
5. Is this AMG vs. RYM check a good idea?

I have the RYM links for almost every AM album in a spreadsheet and I could create a macro that collects the RYM genres. The problem is that RYM has a robot detector so that the macro can only be run for a few albums at a time. Still, it might be preferable to this method.

No comments?

1. yes
2-4. no clue. i don't use AMG
5. presumably: yes

I really don't like AMG styles. The biggest reason why is because I think there is a definite difference between "rock" and pop. There is much crossbreeding, but I think that most songs that are "pop/rock" can be divided into catchy rock songs or pop songs with distorted guitars. I don't know much about RYM styles. I personally use the genres in the iTunes store, which are generally good, but they don't break down between subgenres and there are some odditites like "Vocal" and "Dance" which don't say that much. I

RYM genres are generally the best, i've found. they're much more specific and appropriate fitting. I don't go by itunes at all. i remember i once bought a chuck berry song and it was labeled as jazz.

Hi Henrik,

I have more affinity with the RYM genres, and have similar opinion as Alex D regarding the AMG styles.

My answers would be:
1: yes (for those albums that I know)
2: yes, over the last few years RYM has evolved much more than AMG and imo has better genre classifications.
3: depends, it is sometimes difficult to say what is 'correct' and what not.
4: yes, but does not have my preference.
5: depends, it is good to keep an eye on both sites and see their further development, for collecting your genres I would - for now - suggest to use the RYM macros.

Andre

P.S.: The last half year has not been so nice for me privately, which also resulted in less/no participation in this forum and hardly any communication. Looking towards the future, I don't think I will have much time to participate in polls or discussions, but I would like to keep assisting you in a technical manner (RYM macros, EOY lists, etc.). In this sense, I wish you all great Christmas holidays and the best of health and (musical) happiness for 2010!

Andre, once again I'm sorry that this year has not been so good for you.

I created the script to retrieve the genre info from RYM, (with great help from your "metacritic macro" ) and was really annoyed that I could only get info for a few albums until RYM's robot detector stopped me. But then I looked into our email conversations and found your sleep solution, which seems to work, so now I'm really happy!!!

The only thing that doesn't make me feel comfortable about using the RYM genres is that all the work that Marc did to get the allmusic genres/styles might not be used.