Genre Obsession! |
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progprogprog
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 05 2011 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
Topic: Genre Obsession! Posted: January 05 2012 at 11:16 |
I don't know if the subject had been created before, excuse me if so.
Generally this post is more of a confession to be honest.
Since I joined this forum I found myself very concerned about prog varieties.old prog , new prog, classic prog, new wave, 70s, ... and you know what?, I'm really sick of it.If I was a musician or producer, then this obsession was a little bit reasonable, but for someone like me who is just an audience, this kinda approach just cause confusion. Paying attention to genres will help having better choices when you wanna buy an album, but with this whole internet stuff and sites like PA and Youtube, you can hear bands sample songs and decide whether you like it or not. Progressive rock music(specially old ones) are very uncommon in my area, and I think thats made me such a fanatic person about prog. Edited by progprogprog - January 05 2012 at 12:20 |
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Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom.
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CCVP
Prog Reviewer Joined: September 15 2007 Location: Vitória, Brasil Status: Offline Points: 7971 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 11:40 |
I`m obsessed in progressive rock, specially in progressive metal and symphonic space.
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lazland
Prog Reviewer Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 13354 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 11:41 |
The Archives is meant to be, amongst other things, an encyclopedia of prog, and, as such, it is understandable that classifications are required. For example, in Encyclopedia Britannia you wouldn't put a whale in with a fish, would you?
However, having said that, we are far too obsessed with the right sub genre, whether prog is prog, and etc.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
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Cimnele
Forum Newbie Joined: December 26 2011 Status: Offline Points: 39 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 11:49 |
For the life of me I still can't understand why bands are forced into one genre here... a per-release or even per-song tagging system would be far smarter. I can only assume that the amount of work already sunk into this place outweighs the need to improve. :\
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progprogprog
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 05 2011 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 11:53 |
Could you explain more?
Edited by progprogprog - January 05 2012 at 12:05 |
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Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom.
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rushfan4
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: May 22 2007 Location: Michigan, U.S. Status: Offline Points: 66057 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:02 |
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Cimnele
Forum Newbie Joined: December 26 2011 Status: Offline Points: 39 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:03 |
Well, if everyone could tag the individual releases of a group such as Soft Machine, who transformed from Psyche to whatever Canterbury is, to Jazz Fusion over the years, it'd be less misleading. As it is now, a band is added with one genre and entrusted to a team, even though their might be exceptions in their discography. Opeth would be a more recent band that suffers from its single genre rating - lodged in metal, they have albums which would be more satisfying listed as prog-folk, or crossover, or what have you.
I suppose this does sound like Genre Obsession!... but if you're going to mention the genre at all, I say do it right. |
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 33095 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:08 |
EDIT: Was multi-tasking so I didn't see the two last posts before posting the following.
^ Tagging the categories (subgenres) of albums and individual tracks. For instance, tagging an album Symph, Folk, and Jazz. See http://progfreak.com There have been lots of calls for multi-tagging. I really wish we had album and song-tagging here as well. I haven't been tagging albums and songs there cause I'm lazy, but I find the system we have at PA very lacking. There have been lots of calls to change it over the years, but it's been considered too much work. I wish that we had a srobust search engine feature where I could search by multi-category for albums by filling in fields in order of pereference. For instance, if I'm looking for an album that crosses Krautrock, Zeuhl, Folk, and Symph... I'm fine with keeping the subcategories for bands and artists although it is common for bands/artists to cross different styles,and think we could leave those categorisations to the teams at PA (to avoid much abuse there), but open up album and song tagging to anyone who wants to do it. Edited by Logan - January 05 2012 at 12:09 |
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Just a music fan passing through trying to fill some void. Various music I am into now: a youtube playlist
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progprogprog
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 05 2011 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:09 |
Like rushfan4 said, it'd be almost impossible for PA, the archive is pretty huge.
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Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom.
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Padraic
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31165 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:10 |
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progprogprog
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 05 2011 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:13 |
34,644 albums
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Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom.
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 33095 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:13 |
It doesn't have to be complete, or anywhere near complete, and if everyone can do it, then there would be significant progress (as people rate/review albums they would add tags). We keep the band/artist genre system we have in place and that is an added feature. People have been saying it was too much work since before I joined when there was not nearly so much in the database.
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Just a music fan passing through trying to fill some void. Various music I am into now: a youtube playlist
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Progosopher
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 12 2009 Location: Coolwood Status: Offline Points: 6401 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:17 |
Genres and sub-genres, and sub-sub-genres (ad infinitum) are a by-product of our highly specialized society and the result of increasingly detailed attempts at identification and understanding. They serve a purpose. This is not limited to Prog or the Archives, nor are the administrators and fans on this site the worst offenders. Not even close. A neighbor of mine likes Industrial (NIN) but hates Metal (Metallica). It all sounds like Metal to me, but fine distinctions bring out the differences rather than the similarities. That said, it often drives me up the freakin' wall. Basic distinctions are about all I can handle. The fact that a lot of the music I listen to is cross-over in orientation. (Is Fairport Convention Folk or Rock? Is The Ian Gillan Band Rock or Jazz?) So much music is eclectic by definition, and that is part of what makes me appreciate my favorite bands and artists. To me, the finer distinctions are a necessary evil - useful for identification purposes, or we might simply call it filing, but often confusing. Once again, it all comes down to what I (or anybody) likes and dislikes despite the categories. As I have said before, good music is good music no matter what genre it is put in. I used to organize my music collection by genre (Blues, Jazz, Rock, Classical, Metal, etc.), but should I put Ravi Shankar under Indian Classical, Indian, or World? So now I just organize everything alphabetical by artist/band. So much easier.
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The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 33095 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:18 |
I wonder how many ratings are made every day at PA. What does it matter if they're not all tagged? |
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Just a music fan passing through trying to fill some void. Various music I am into now: a youtube playlist
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rushfan4
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: May 22 2007 Location: Michigan, U.S. Status: Offline Points: 66057 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:25 |
I've not paid to close attention to the multitagging on the other sites, but I believe each band is given the default tag of whatever genre they are placed in. I am pretty sure that only some of the most familiar bands have actually had multiple tags added to their albums. For example, I know Rush have some that were changed to non-metal and I think maybe proto-metal. (Not entirely sure why they are even on MMA, but now that there is a hard rock category it makes a little more sense).
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progprogprog
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 05 2011 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:26 |
Absolutely right, basic distinctions are quite enough for those who are just fans.
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Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom.
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 33095 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:27 |
The thing with categorisation is that it is extremely helpful to find music that will appeal to ones preferences at an archive, and it can help to expand ones tastes. I know that I'm much more likely to find music that will appeal to me in various categories at PA than in others, and there's so much in PA that trawling through all the music samples and reviews would be very tedious. For instance, Neo-Prog does not appeal to me, whereas RIO and similar "avant" oriented bands do appeal to me. I like music from most of the categories at PA, but I don't want to see them all lumped together alphabetically. I don't tag my album collection, and I have a ton of albums, but I don't need to as I know all of the albums in my collection and can quickly find whatever I feel like at any given time.
If I go to a museum, I like to have different sections. |
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Just a music fan passing through trying to fill some void. Various music I am into now: a youtube playlist
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 33095 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:31 |
At ProgFreak users can tag albums using various descriptors (same system I'd like to see here for album tagging) -- I used to wish that Mike and M@X would join forces to combine both sites, but it won't happen.. Rateyourmusic, which is a very big site, has different descriptors for different albums in a discography. Edited by Logan - January 05 2012 at 12:32 |
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Just a music fan passing through trying to fill some void. Various music I am into now: a youtube playlist
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progprogprog
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 05 2011 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:42 |
When I first found PA, It was weird for me to see bands in metal family on the archive, but now I think it's a good idea actually.It will let many youngsters to have a chance to be familiar with the prog masterpieces and also attract them to the genre.
Edited by progprogprog - January 05 2012 at 13:11 |
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Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom.
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Bonnek
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 01 2009 Location: Belgium Status: Offline Points: 4515 |
Posted: January 05 2012 at 12:42 |
I hope album tagging will happen some day. I think it's quite feasible, artists and their current genre could stay as they are, but the teams could gradually add tags per albums, starting from the most popular artists for instance. After all, there are maybe 36.000 albums in the database, half of them has barely one or two ratings and those would not be priority. Also, I guess half of the artists only have one album so those wouldn't be much work either. Edited by Bonnek - January 05 2012 at 12:43 |
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