Feelings about Genres

I'd like to see a new genre label for Progressive Pop, personally (would mainly come from Crossover and Prog Related). I like having bands organized and divided into different sounds.

It's fine the way it is; if we add any more genres, we risk scaring newbies, and it was because of the amazing cataloguing system on this site that I like the bands that I do. Keep it the same, or even go back to how it was last year

I find the assumption that it "doesn't encourage us to explore bands outside our preferred genres" to be baseless and a little bizarre, I think it insults the intelligence of many listeners, and that it would make even less sense to put Progressive Electronic artists or Jazz Fusion under the same umbrella as Symphonic, Folk and Eclectic

More couldn't hurt, I remember when Prog metal consisted of 1000's...and you couldn't find anything but Dream Theater, Opeth, Pain of Salvation and Shadow Gallery in the Top 50. More obscure bands seem to pop up that way and can be recommended easier.

I'd like to see something along the lines of progressive pop. But coming up with a clear definition that would not set PA up for debating inclusion on any purveyor of intelligent pop music might be a little short of impossible.
I could see XTC, the Police, 10CC, and lesser known acts like Jellyfish as being perfect examples of PP (and I add that abbreviation to put out a perfect set up for those who might want to rant against said proposal) along with some of the more interesting New Wave bands. Maybe some of the Goth bands might fit , too. But we'd likely get into the old fight over whether PA will ever put a limit on what it will consider including. The danger being that it would go beyond a prog site to a general music site.

If you want more genres then you should consider having a look at http://ratingfreak.com, my own little website. Why? Because I'm pretty sure that we won't see many more genres added here, and maybe that's a good thing.

I voted "more genres", but I would only want more genres if there was a way to switch back to a simpler display. If you have many genres and you know how they are related to each other, you can combine them and "emulate" a more basic view. The opposite is not possible: if you only have basic genres in the database you cannot "emulate" more complex genres.

Speaking as a member of the forum, not as a member of Admin

Personally, I feel there are way too many genres; I almost took the first option in the poll - genres, sub-genres & further sub-division leads (in my experience over the last four & a half years) to constant argument, disagreement & occasionally bad feeling among forum members - believe me, I've seen so many arguments in this vein, I've lost count - I feel this is mostly down to individual perception of where a band or musician is 'coming from'; the same piece of music could be called 'eclectic', 'art rock', 'avant garde' or any other arbitrary title - everybody would be right & everybody wrong depending on your own perception and/or subjective opinion.

Of course - a single 'progressive rock' genre would be unworkable (although a lot simpler ), but this music we all like has been divided, subdivided & analysed too much (again, this is only my opinion) - do we really want PA to become like this:


(a small section of Progressive Metal's current division structure)

...or do we want the archive to be easier to use (and no, I'm not advocating dumbing the Archive down, just making it more user-friendly).

That's my two-penny's worth, anyway - feel free to come down on me like a ton of bricks

^ no serious debate about the metal genre division ... apart from the 100+ pages of discussion that is.

Is this discussion about to take a nasty turn..?

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ no serious debate about the metal genre division ... apart from the 100+ pages of discussion that is.

as i recall it was just a mild discussion and definitely not harsh, nothing compared to those i mentioned in my post...