Looks interesting. Echonest have done some amazing stuff in the past. Can anyone find a flat list of all the genres?
This app has a pulldown list of all of The Echo Nest genres - http://static.echonest.com/demo/GenreSampler/GenreSampler.ht...
The Future of Music Genres Is Here
31–40 of 46 posts
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#32Ah, genres. In the 90's, I was into Breakbeat Hardcore and then later Jungle, which transformed into Drum & Bass, which was subdivided over time into Ragga, Neurofunk, Tech Step, Hard Step, Jump-Up, Clown Step, Liquid Funk, Ambient Drum & Bass, Drumstep and so on. Of course, what I understand under "Drum & Bass" is very different from a 18 year-old teenager who thinks late-period Pendulum is the greatest thing on ear…
I've noticed that electronic music seems to really embrace these extremely granular genres, compared to other types of music. Any idea why this is the case, or is my perception (as someone not really familiar with electronic music) inaccurate?
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#33Ah, genres. In the 90's, I was into Breakbeat Hardcore and then later Jungle, which transformed into Drum & Bass, which was subdivided over time into Ragga, Neurofunk, Tech Step, Hard Step, Jump-Up, Clown Step, Liquid Funk, Ambient Drum & Bass, Drumstep and so on. Of course, what I understand under "Drum & Bass" is very different from a 18 year-old teenager who thinks late-period Pendulum is the greatest thing on ear…
I see the same thing happening in metal. When I was in highschool, there were a few genres -- mostly 'thrash/speed', 'death', 'black', 'progressive' and maybe a couple more. In college I kind of got away from metal, and in my late 20's got back into it. After getting back into it, I thought "what the hell happened?!!?" There are now so many genres, I don't even know where to start. The hardcore punk of the 80's and 9…
No offense, but your comment reminds me all too much about the elitism that surrounds music criticism. I listen to a wide range of metal. I, for one, encourage the experimentation and the cross pollination with other genres.
Who really cares whether this, for example: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry0dHtwD4TU) is metal or not? Mostly people who care more about being "fucking metal" than music. Is it such a surprise that liking a kind of music can be about more than just social capital?
Yes, as genres get more complex, genre labels also become more complex. And sometimes the defining characteristics aren't clear. So what? This isn't a bad thing. If all "prog" was the same, then it'd be boring. There'd be no point in having yet another prog band. You'd be constrained by the label into doing a certain thing. People rightly chose not to do that. A genre gets you 80% there in terms of guessing what a band sounds like, and that's okay.
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#34They pretty much nail the limitations of "genre" in the second paragraph. It's a blunt way to organize a record store, when you can only group physical products one way. Genres are deeply ingrained in people's heads, but they're a vestige from record stores and radio stations with limited playlists targeted at specific mass-market demographic points. The more you listen and explore on your own, the less meaningful th…
This is my experience with movies as well. I find the use of genres (a la Netflix style of taste profile builder) annoying. Why should I be shoe - boxed as a comedy movie watcher or a horror movie watcher? Maybe, I only watch specific comedy movies that are made by Judd Apatow? Is there a genre for me then?
On the other hand, this ingraining of genres is everywhere. Fiction for example. Why are you supposed to be into Fantasy just because you read Tolkien?
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#35It seems like tags might be a better solution to classifying music than over-broad categories like "rock". Making genres more specific and granular just makes categorization more confusing and contentious. But use of multiple tags to categorize a song could allow different people to simultaneously apply the labels they prefer. Or perhaps a better solution would be "x sounds like y, z, etc."
But Genres already are, effectively, tags. Depending on implementation, artists, albums or songs are given one or many genres.
If by tags, you mean user-driven categorization by arbitrary text, that's an even harder problem. Tags can be spelled differently and mean the same thing. Or they can be spelled the same and mean completely different things. What you mean by "punk" and what I mean by "punk" are different. Possibly radically different. If tags are to be useful at all, you still need one authority who decides specifically what each tag means.
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#36So I used the Echonest API on my final masters project, which created a shared music taste profile based on people in a given location, and used Echonest's built in smart playlist to play music in the space. As a part of the application, I also built a D3 visualization quite similar to the one in this article for the tastes of the individuals and the tastes of the location. It's amazing how much you can learn about a…
Is the project available anywhere? I'd love to play with it!
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see the same thing happening in metal. When I was in highschool, there were a few genres -- mostly 'thrash/speed', 'death', 'black', 'progressive' and maybe a couple more. In college I kind of got away from metal, and in my late 20's got back into it. After getting back into it, I thought "what the hell happened?!!?" There are now so many genres, I don't even know where to start. The hardcore punk of the 80's and 9…
No offense, but your comment reminds me all too much about the elitism that surrounds music criticism. I listen to a wide range of metal. I, for one, encourage the experimentation and the cross pollination with other genres. Who really cares whether this, for example: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry0dHtwD4TU ) is metal or not? Mostly people who care more about being "fucking metal" than music. Is it such a surpri…
I'm sorry it came off as elitism, I definitely didn't mean it as such. I listen to bands from pretty much all the genres I mention, I mainly have a problem with the labelling itself.
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#38Ah, genres. In the 90's, I was into Breakbeat Hardcore and then later Jungle, which transformed into Drum & Bass, which was subdivided over time into Ragga, Neurofunk, Tech Step, Hard Step, Jump-Up, Clown Step, Liquid Funk, Ambient Drum & Bass, Drumstep and so on. Of course, what I understand under "Drum & Bass" is very different from a 18 year-old teenager who thinks late-period Pendulum is the greatest thing on ear…
I see the same thing happening in metal. When I was in highschool, there were a few genres -- mostly 'thrash/speed', 'death', 'black', 'progressive' and maybe a couple more. In college I kind of got away from metal, and in my late 20's got back into it. After getting back into it, I thought "what the hell happened?!!?" There are now so many genres, I don't even know where to start. The hardcore punk of the 80's and 9…
You are so right about this. I think the only thing worse is that through it all, whatever band you like is NOT METAL. Only the three sub-sub-sub-genres that I like are true metal.
Bah. Get off my lawn.
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#39Music Popcorn reminds me of a favorite idea I'll never use: a self-organizing mp3 dj. It simply makes a weak link between any two songs that get played in order, makes an anti-link between a song that gets skipped and the previous song, and then makes stronger links for awhile, presuming the user is paying attention if she's skipping songs. It gives some weight to playlists, but not too much: if you want the playlist you play it, so we have to be careful not to burn grooves in the network that way.
This would make the 'random' mode function better, so that when I'm listening to relaxing music in the evening and get served bass music, skipping it makes that less likely to happen in the future. The player itself doesn't know what 'genres' are, though it knows albums, artists, and playlists.
Re: The Future of Music Genres Is Here
#40Ah, genres. In the 90's, I was into Breakbeat Hardcore and then later Jungle, which transformed into Drum & Bass, which was subdivided over time into Ragga, Neurofunk, Tech Step, Hard Step, Jump-Up, Clown Step, Liquid Funk, Ambient Drum & Bass, Drumstep and so on. Of course, what I understand under "Drum & Bass" is very different from a 18 year-old teenager who thinks late-period Pendulum is the greatest thing on ear…
Super fucking useful, especially with a chronological qualifier. I would pay $1000 to listen to "90s dance" versus "Contemporary Country", and I don't even love "90s dance".