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| cdbaby.com used to have 249 genre categories. Now it has 864. |
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I made a medium-big change to CD Baby today that could help call attention to your music, if you use it wisely.
The CD Baby website used to have 249 genre categories. Now it has 864.
This move will make it easier for fans of subgenres such as Progressive Bluegrass, Cuban Son, L.A. Punk, Gregorian Chant, Hyphy, or Merseybeat to find their favorite kind of music on cdbaby.com.
The 864 genres came from a ton of research at Wikipedia, AllMusic, Amazon, and many specialty sites - then a ton of work recategorizing existing albums, so the new genres wouldn't be empty.
But you know your music better than I do, so this would be a good time for you to make sure your music is still categorized where you like.
MY ADVICE:
#1 - browse through http://cdbaby.com/style to see which genres your music seems to fit
#2 - notice which genres are not as crowded. you have a better chance of being discovered there, if your music is truly in that genre.
#3 - if you are not positive what a genre means, search Google or Wikipedia, but don't classify your album in a genre you've never heard of before.
Then log in to your account, here:
https://members.cdbaby.com/login
Once logged in, click [YOUR ITEMS], up top, then EDIT ALBUM INFO next to each album.
Unfortunately, I can't help you choose a genre. If you're stumped, this would be a good opportunity to email your mailing list, point them to http://cdbaby.com/style, and ask them to help you choose.
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I find your music genre designations to be a bit too empirical for
me. It would have been better to first consult with musicologists
(which I am not), then correlate to common practice.
Genre, Form and Style are often confused and mixed together,
but for consistent and enduring classifications they need to be
well defined and distinct.
Here is my current work on genre and form: http://
homepage.mac.com/dalegaumer/MusicGenreForm/
Music_Genre_Form_Detail.html
Music Genre: a way of expressing music that is characteristic of
a particular
• purpose (e.g., gospel, dance)
• type of performance (e.g., vocal, film music),
• group of people (e.g., Celtic, folk),
• time period (e.g., Baroque, or “popular music”, which has a
wide appeal for a short time), etc. (Some use the term "epoch",
which is expanded here: http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/
epochs.html)
Musical Form: the unified and consistent perceptual structure of
a music composition
• (e.g., ballad, bluegrass, toccatta, concerto)
Here is a list of forms: http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/
musical_forms.html
Style: "The sum of the devices—melodic, structural, harmonic,
and all the rest—that a composer consistently employs, that a
class of works regularly exhibits, or that a particular age finds
most useful for its aesthetic purposes." [Encly. Britannica]
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It would have been better to first consult with musicologists
(which I am not), then correlate to common practice.
Sorta depends on what you are trying to do. I don't think that the buying public is going to go through this to figure out what they are buying. And the musicologists often disagree (for instance see the raging debate on smooth jazz going on on Winkepedia). The only point of such a label is so your CD is in the same virtual bin as comparable artists, so their fans can become your fans and vice versa. Actually, because of the links to similar music that CD Baby has been putting on our sites since time immemorial, maybe we should just use Irving Berlin's apt observation that there are only two kinds of music--good and bad. It would be easier for the CD Baby folks to code in for sure.
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I think CD Baby should implement tagging at some point :)
Agree it's an interesting breakdown from an academic stance, but I don't think it represents how people actually categorize music in their minds, and not how they think about it during discovery.
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I'm all a cappella stuff, so I'm psyched you've got those genres/styles. It's not close to perfect, but it's a step in the right direction (see www.a-cappella.com for a better delineation of a cappella sub-categories).
However, I feel stupid because I can't seem to access the new "styles" for my CDs. I go to Edit Album Info, choose genres, and only the list of Genres (on the left of http://cdbaby.com/style) are available and not all of the style/mood options on the right column of that page.
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I'm surprised Derek is getting so much flak over this from some of you guys here. I think this is a big improvement. People that are curious about a music style listed here will obviously want to click on it and hear a sampling. If they like what they hear, they'll buy it. The more categories (genres, subgenres, what ever the purists want to call it), the more chances of that happening.
Maybe you all can de-stress yourselves by listening to my CD: "The Fur Elise Jam"
;)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/gerryaire3.html
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My favorite part of the email I received from Derek about this
was the last line at the bottom - kinda leaves it up to the artist
to give this idea credibility. Sure, it's hard for me to label my
own band (Citadel) but as a buyer of other music, it's an aid to
have distinctive choice aids. IMHO...
KEEP IT UP DEREK!
Citadel is SOOOOOOOO stoked to be here with you and your
gazillion other babies!
http://www.cdbaby.com/all/citadel
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I like the new improvement
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I'm all for more clarity for the listener and for the musician. I appreciate any new way to help people define my music since i have a hard time defining it myself, mainly because staying within the confines of one genre isn't happening with me. so three cheers for Derek and the CDBaby team. yay.
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Derek,
All those sub-genres represent an harmful shop-window for my upcoming product in CdBaby. Already the Classical section is a tiny part of the market so split it into so many sub-genres leads to an annoying shopping for customers instead of an exploratory journey.
May I suggest this classification found here: http://www.mfiles.co.uk/classical-periods.htm
- Early Music (before 9th Century)
- Medieval (9th to 14th Centuries)
- Renaissance (15th and 16th Centuries)
- Baroque (1600 - 1750)
- Classical (1750 - 1820)
- Romantic (1820 - 1910)
- Modern (1910 - present)
And for performers :
- Concerto and solo
Virtual Orchestration and film music are part of the modern period.
This shop-window is solid and very inviting for listeners.
And also could you verify if your search engine works correctly ?
When we search more than one word the results are not convincing.
It's very important if somebody looks for "solo flute" that the engine returns only "solo flute" albums
Thanks to all the team for their commitment.
Oh and thanks also for your translations in different languages.
CdBaby is great.
SergeD
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Hello,Derek
I want to make you new sub-genres,
piano duo, piano for 4 hands, or works for 2 pianos!!!
from JAPAN
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Thanks to Derek for adding the new genres!
Would it be possible to add "Shred", either to the rock or metal genres? This would be for stuff like Rusty Cooley, Michael Angelo Batio, Wayde Cooper, etc. Music where really fast guitar is the central focus.
/jeff
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its great to have so many genres i say
confusing,but great;-)
the only one i dont see that i would like to see is Powerpop/Punk combined
i think that suits my bands sound most
keep up the good work Derek
JimmyD;-)
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Derek:
Thanks for these new styles/genres...although I am having some
difficulty deciding whether to call my music 'healing' or 'relaxing'
since it's both! :-)
But seriously, I do think it's a good move here - so thanks for all
your hard work!
Lorrie Sarafin
Healing Sounsdcapes Inspired by the Sonoran desert
http://www.lorriesarafin.com
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Hello Derek,
Celtic Rock is under Folk. Can you place Celtic Rock under Rock? Thanks. Good work!
John
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> Could we have an increase to 10 per CD?
The reason we limit each album to 3 genres is because if we had more, then most artists would be kinda stretching it saying, "Well... I'm a LITTLE bit jazz!", for example, then our entire Jazz section would be filled with Heavy Metal artists who have one jazzy song.
So, by giving artists the opportunity to choose 3, it doesn't limit it to one like most stores do - but it doesn't branch out TOO far so as to make the genres moot.
Besides, it's only per-album, not per-artist, so of course artists with many different albums can categorize each one under different genres, having that much more chance to be stumbled-across. (Assuming the genres are accurate.)
Also, the point of adding so many genres was to have LESS ALBUMS PER-GENRE, making it easier to browse for interested fans of that genre. The more albums there are in a category, the less useful that category becomes.
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Great points, Derek. Now I understand. Plus I have many CDs so I
should explore if I've maximized the specific genres possible for
the number of my CDs x 3 :-)
-Steven
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