Questions on PA genre & rating
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Topic: Questions on PA genre & rating
Posted By: Gerinski
Subject: Questions on PA genre & rating
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 14:25
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Hi, I'm a newbie so sorry if I'm probably asking things which are already answered elsewhere.
As far as I can tell, PA is undoubtedly the best prog site around, but I have a couple of questions about how does it work.
1. GENRE
PA assigns the genre by band, not to each individual album. I can understand this approach and it's probably the best, it could be hard to get consensus on which genre does a certain album belong to, while it's usually more or less clear which genre does a band fit into. However for bands with a long or erratic career this may bring some apparent paradoxes such as (let's say) having Genesis 'We can't dance' listed as a Symphonic Prog album.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean any criticism to PA's way of doing, I simply would like to understand a bit how does PA approach this potential issue. Do bands get slotted into a genre by their first few albums? what if a band shifts significantly during its career, would PA consider to move the band to a different genre?
2. When I go to the 'PA Top Prog Albums' query, if I select 'Symphonic Prog', 'Studio', year = 'all', country = 'all', and Filter Max results = '250' (the maximum allowed), I get a list of only 112 albums. Why don't I get 250?
Thanks for clearing my curiosity
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Replies:
Posted By: Any Colour You Like
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 14:37
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1. There would simply be too much to do if every album had to be individually classified. Would that then mean that every track had to be classified etc. Bands can shift, but this usually occurs if they were classified as something other than their regular output. 2. Don't know. |
Posted By: Rune2000
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 14:55
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2). I suppose that it might have something to do with the Filter: Minimum Number of Ratings-setting. Originally it is set at "0" (zero) which means "avg. number of ratings". Try setting it to "1"or higher and you will get at least 250 results. |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 15:04
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Rune2000 wrote:Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 15:05
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Hi, 1. The Genre is more generic since some bands cross that threshold all the time ... and some go popular ... like Genesis did.
2. I think that "symphonic" is the single worst sub-group of all the sub-groups listed. Why? ... because even King Crimson made its name in "symphonic" fashion ... with "Epitath" and the title song!
Basically ... it's like saying that you can'tbe symphonic if you do not use strings of some sort ... so a barrage of synths with strings ... is symphonic ... a symphony for violin like Darryl Way's ... is not!
It's all part of the ... I don't like it thing or listen to it ... so you put it in a genre that you are not gonna listen to? ... something silly like that ...
The most important one is ... that a band can't be "progressive" without keyboards ... that's the one that gets me! ... and it tells you that it is NOT about the music at all ... it's about a definition that has nothing to do with music at all ... and needs to change! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Rune2000
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 15:12
Glad to be of assistance. I hope that you'll get the search results you need to continue writing those excellent reviews that you've been posting here lately!  |
Posted By: petrica
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 15:22
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Categorizing every album into a specific sub genre would be probably to hard but doesn't mean that is right to say that the late Genesis work can be consider progressive rock. Maybe it is a good idea to let the users attach sub genres labels and to moderate this if that's the case. |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: March 05 2010 at 15:58
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Posted By: clarke2001
Date Posted: March 06 2010 at 08:36
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Hi Gerinski, 1.) it's true our system is not perfect - and it will never be, thankfully. We are Prog Archives, we are archiving data about music, putting it into little pockets so the people can find more-or-less what they want accurately. Since we love music, it's fun. Musicians just play their music, they don't care for subgenres, that's our headache.  2.) If a band constantly shifts its musical style (while being progressive rock all the time), most likely it will end up in Eclectic Prog category - which means (among other things) that almost every album is different in style - for example King Crimson. 3.) Addmitedly there are bands who had shifted their style a lot, but they're in certain categories for 'historical' reasons, and because they're genrally perceived a such by a public. Jethro Tull played folk, blues, symphonic, electronic, pop, rock ,metal. They're known for their folk. Gong played psychedelic/space, jazz-fusion, but they're associated with Canterbury scene. Genesis were the forerunners of symphonic rock, and since this is a prog site, their pop albums are less relevant for their status. 4.)Sometimes a band is balancing between two styles - they will found their home in one category. Even if it is not the best fit, it's better than something else that doesn't make sense at all. The bottom line is - it's most important the band is here, somewhere. 5.) All the little oddities and exceptions will be mentioned in the band's biography so a reader can be informed what's going on. If not in biography, you can read many opinions in plenty of reviews. If there are no reviews, you can always ask on this forum. 6.) This website exists for the couple of years, and we had been discussing these subjects. Deeply. Someone prefers the system as it is now. Someone wants multiple tags. Someone wants subgenres associated to a particular album rathen than artist. We discussed all that options many times. This system, while not being perfect, it's not bad at all. Other system will require an awful lot of time to be done - we have over 5000 bands in our database and over 25000 albums, and we're busy all the time: 7.) There are more than 300 bands added from January, and there are hundreds more waiting for evaluation. There's a lot going 'behind the scenes' of this forum, we are evaluating and adding every day, and thoroghly discussing the most accurate subgenre for a certain artist. 8.) Since humans do mistakes, if you found something blatantly wrong, like an obviously prog metal band in a jazz-rock section, say it. In forums, in a private message, it will be re-evaluated and moved if necessary. 9.) Ignore this: 
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Posted By: micky
Date Posted: March 06 2010 at 08:40
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genres? Not worth the paper it is printed on.. except for one important notion. One some forget.. and one some never grasp. It is a guide... a guide for visitors and users of the site to help in their explorations. Unfortunately far too many over the years have taken the whole genre thing WAY too seriously. ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: March 06 2010 at 08:49
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I don't agree Mick. If a site chooses to have genres in the first place, and ask teams of people to get together and help make those decisions, those people do the best they can with the skills they have. It's a difficult thing sometimes to find the most appropriate home for a band that crosses genres, but the answer is to really give it your best effort, not to just minimize the whole concept and insinuate collabs are too anal, which you choose to do often sadly.
------------- ...that moment you realize you like "Mob Rules" better than "Heaven and Hell" |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: March 06 2010 at 08:57
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what is the purpose of the genres then... as others have pointed out ..though sometimes not in the most constructive of ways...there are not enough subgenres.. never will be.. to place all the groups that sound the same in the same genre. Some mutate in sounds and styles... many have very unique sounds. All we can do.... all we have done is place groups that are similar enough, be it musically.. or otherwise.. to where people who want to explore deeper than the same old sh*t will have some guide to go by. The day the site gives us 50 sub-genres.. then we can claim to have an accurate sub-genres with groups based on their sound. That is the beauty of RPI... it was the fullest realization of that notion. Who cares if Area is more jazzy than PFM.. or Banco more symphonic than Osanna. With those groups... A leads to B.. which leads to C. It is a guide.. nothing more.. nothing less.
------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: March 06 2010 at 09:16
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All I'm saying is that if you create definitions, you do the best you
can to utilize that classification accurately, so that it has meaning
to the user. We have erroneously placed bands (mostly neo-prog) in RPI
which we are trying to remedy--that doesn't help users to come here,
perhaps being new, and believe that some of these groups are RPI.
Trying to make the best determination on the front side is the job,
unless the site chooses to drop the genre system. That's not "taking
things too seriously", it's just doing what our assigned task is, to
try to make that determination for the users. Yes sometimes that slows a band being added, but they will get added. The answer is not to jam them somewhere they don't belong. You take the time to do it right, or we change the way the site works. This is a much wider debate that will be ongoing in the collab zone, better than here I suppose, so I'll stop there. ------------- ...that moment you realize you like "Mob Rules" better than "Heaven and Hell" |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: March 06 2010 at 09:17
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I've seen people 'take things too seriously' let's hope you don't... ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: March 06 2010 at 12:54
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/27904901@N06/3430866594/">  ------------- ...that moment you realize you like "Mob Rules" better than "Heaven and Hell" |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: March 09 2010 at 18:35
And I for one think it has done a good job ... although I would prefer that we say above the list that these are not "de facto" depictions of the music, but a way to help people find things that might otherwise be closer to their tastes ...
I would mention one of the toughest to deal with ... Amon Duul 2 ... from the first album to Hijack ... the only 2 albums that have any similarity is the conceptual build up that was Wolf City being copied by Vive La Trance and end abruptly after "Apocalypse Bore" ... the song that pretty much said good bye to the past!
And this is the hard part of it all ... how do you tell Picasso he is not blue/pink and whatever other period he has (as it is called) ... when he all of a sudden gives you Guernica and then paints in that style for 20 years? ... his work is not valid? IT IS ... but it might not be indicative of the great work that said artist did that he/she became known for ... and Genesis or otherwise, I personally do not like to "lower" their status because they went pop/fame ... and they still played some of that stuff in concert and in come cases they did some nice versions of it too!
It's all a part of their work ... some of which is considered better than other ... in the end, separating the artist from some of their work is a bit of a dis-service to them ... they worked hard for what they did and deserve the credit ... it may not have been "perfect" ... but then, neither is the definition of "prog" ... specially when we take away the very obvious classical music inspirations in all of them ...
And nowhere is this more visible than Frank Zappa who was known to take this and that concept and superimpose them ... and he made it work ... it's strange ... if you see Zappa plays Zappa and you see Steve Vai play for 15 minutes, you take a step back ... and you super impose Yehudi Menuhin ... and you can easily say ... WOW!
And this is one of the things that made Frank so special ... not only was he a master improviser, he was comfortable enough with his musical knowledge and arrangement abilities that he could easily superimpose and mix things ... and make it sound right! ... and for fun, make fun of the fatties, as I call them ... that is the overly enfatuaded classical people with their "knowledge" ... which they can not even see when it passes right by their feet!
I have suggestions, but making one that can be implemented ... and help organize it ? ... I have no idea ... but if there is one thing I would like to see is the forums redesigned and re-conceived so that things are better organized. I do think that a post like the blahblah appreciation thread that is on its 150th page ... does anyone any good ... no one is going to read it! ... maybe even spending some time to take out the trolling posts and lock down the first several pages of the thread that have the left over information that is strong and spekas of the band and its music ... my only problem is that there is too much trolling on those threads and it would serve the "artist" and the music a lot better, specially new folks, if this was torn down and only left with the information that was valuable about/to the artist.
The other one might be that since the index'ing is a mess and someone moves them to the proper area ... that we should maybe have a generic dump all folder and then the thread is moved ... however this will make it hard to find what you just posted ... since you have no idea what someone was thinking when they moved it!
Yeah ... the only concern here for me would be ... today this band is this and tomorrow it is that ... ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |