iTunes Music Genres

(This image reminds me of when I used to classify rap music by its respective coasts. Seems like iTunes has picked up the trick.)

I keep all iTunes music restricted to the following genres*:

• Alternative
• Classic Rock (e.g. The Allman Brothers)
• Classical
• Comedy
• Country
• Electronic
• Hip-Hop/Rap**
• Holiday (Christmas music, mostly)
• Punk
• R&B/Soul (from Al Green to R. Kelly)
• Reggae (e.g. Bob Marley, but also Sublime)
• Rock (e.g. Smashing Pumpkins)

* Accurate or not, I force them into one of these to keep from having too many genres. I’ve wanted to venture out more. For instance, I’ve never liked the term “Alternative”, but it catches everything from indie to poppy stuff I can’t quite figure out. I’ve also found that fewer genres are easier to create smart playlists for music I might want to listen to. A good example of why genre names that are too broad works is to consider Bob Dylan. You might want to use Singer/Songwriter, Folk, Folk Rock, Blues, Rock, or any number of genre names. But I don’t like to have artists too far afield and stretched out in multiple genres. So I keep Bob Dylan solely in the Classic Rock genre. More specifically, I suppose I do not like one artist’s album to have songs which are in different genres.

** When I was a young man, I had my hip-hop section divided into the four regional areas, “West Coast”, “East Coast”, “Dirty South”, “Midwest”; everything else falling into a general “Hip-Hop” section.

Somewhat interestingly, I separate rock music by time–stuff before the ’90s I call Classic Rock, the rest being more high energy stuff I grew up with. However, I do not distinguish the Country genre this way. Country encompasses everything from Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn to Dierks Bentley.

If you’re interested in seeing more about the music I like, check out my Last.fm profile. How do you organize your genres?