Genre Obsession!

I don't know if the subject had been created before, excuse me if so.

Edited by progprogprog - January 05 2012 at 12:20

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?

Cimnele wrote:  a per-release or even per-song tagging system would be far smarter :\

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.

Like rushfan4 said, it'd be almost impossible for PA, the archive is pretty huge.

34,644 albums

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. 

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).

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.

Logan wrote: 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.