24 July 2007

Are you a lumper or a splitter?

There's a philosophical divide in the science of taxonomy (the study of the classification of organisms, for example why humans are Homo sapiens in the family Hominidae and wolves are Canis lupus in the family Canidae). On the one side are the lumpers, who prefer to classify organisms into larger groups based on substantial differences, resulting in fewer species overall, while the splitters prefer to use minute differences to classify living organisms into a greater number of separate groups. My explanation is a bit of a caricature, and it's not truly correct to say that all taxonomists fall into one or the other groups, but it is an apt enough description to be useful in describing an important debate with far-reaching implications. For example, the determination of whether or not a group of animals is a distinct species rather than just another population of a species with a larger range can have a critical impact on the degree of protection it receives. (You can google "Preble's jumping mouse" if you want to see just how controversial this can be.)

Another, equally serious area where this debate rages is in my music collection. I'm currently in the process of digitizing all of my cassettes, records, and CDs and importing the tracks into iTunes. Because one of the main fields on which iTunes allows you to sort your music is the genre, I've taken it upon myself to apply a genre to each album that I enter into my digital library. I'm getting most of the data about each album from an online database (the CDDB) so that I don't have to enter the title of every last track. Genre is one of the fields that you can get from the CDDB, but I've been pretty disappointed by the results. First off, you can get some strange, sub-, sub-genres. (Did you know that both the Chemical Brothers and the Crystal Method ply their trade in a genre called "Big Beat?"). Clearly, the splitters are in charge at the CDDB. But I don't find it useful to have a distinct genre for every third album. On a more practical note, the information is uploaded by users, which means it can be very inconsistent. On more than one occasion, I've queried the database for double albums where the first and second CDs in the set come back with different genres. For these reasons, I've decided to enter my own genres, which means I have waded headlong into the murky waters of the lumper/splitter debate.

Interestingly, I think I'm philosophically more of a lumper when it comes to my music. I say "interestingly" because I think I'm more of a splitter (at least to a point) in the realm of biology. I think where I fall in both arenas hinges on practical arguments. In biology, I tend to favor anything that emphasizes greater conservation, and the splitter philosophy tends to take this into account. (I'll save its shortcomings for another day; you'll have to enroll in my conservation biology class to get the low-down ;-) ) In my music, I think it makes more sense to have larger groups. I often think "I'm in the mood for X" when I'm gazing at my CD collection, waffling over what to play, so it makes sense to have some way to divide the music into different groups. But I also feel strongly that the music shouldn't be balkanized into many separate little subgenres. I may think "I'm in the mood for something electronic," but I doubt I'll ever think "I sure could go for some Big Beat right now."

So with my philosophical underpinnings set, I'm categorizing my music as I digitize it. I'm through the K's, and although I'm relatively happy with the categories that I've come up with, I'm also noticing some worrying trends. For example, nearly a fifth of the music seems to fall into the maligned "Alternative" genre. This is probably because Alternative has become my default for anything that doesn't quite fit anywhere else, including, but not limited to, bands that you might think of as traditionally "Alternative" like REM. (Careful readers may note that although I'm going in alphabetical order, I've skipped ahead for a few bands.) And I don't even want to get into what to do about bands that play more than one genre within one album. For example, Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts Now" got categorized country -- even though it's probably more of a rock album -- because he has a bit of a twang in his voice and one of the songs is a duet with Emmylou Harris.

A few of the more vexing problems beyond the preponderance of Alternative music have been determining what is "Rock" and how is it different from other genres, and is "Classic Rock" a legitimate category? (Provisionally, I've decided no.) What about "Progressive Rock" (also no) and "Space Rock" (a tentative yes). What about "Trip Hop?" (Another tentative yes, it may only have a couple records, but where else do you put Massive Attack and Portishead?) Is Hip-Hop/Rap destined to be a catch-all, or should I subdivide it?

So my system is still a work in progress. I've been adding genres as I go, which also means I have to go back and fix the metadata for some of the albums that I added earlier on in the process. I'm curious to hear if other folks have had to deal with this, and what you've ended up doing.

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

dude, wish I could go inline on your post and go point by point :)

Anyway, we have about 6 genres in our record collection...hip-hop/rap, funk/soul/r&b, electronic, rock, jazz, and reggae. Any further segmentation than that and the selection gets too fragmented to assess in any substantive fashion. So I guess you can call me a lumper. Needless to say, a lot of disparate stuff gets thrown into rock (everything from the Carpenters to Peter Murphy to Tool).

In the end, depends not only on the user, but also the usage. For example, if you're thinking of something to listen to, arguably a lumper sort of taxonomy would suffice. However, if you're trying to describe something to someone, splitting is the way to go.

For what it's worth, Big beat is good in my book as a descriptor for Chemical Bros and Crystal Method. Electronic is the worst of the splitter genres.

You should talk to Tad about this sometime...he was a professional taxonomist for a while.

7/24/2007 9:34 PM

 
Blogger Beau said...

I agree that CDDB sometimes, umm strike that, lots of times leaves something to be desired in genres, but so does the iTunes Music Store.

Don't you remember those discussions in high school late at night with Ed discussing the differences between techno, trance and house and that Orbital was a band, not a genre?

I would have to disagree, Classic Rock is different from Rock (although Rock is probably one of the biggest lumper categories, followed by Alternative).

I've found that I don't listen to music as much by category (although I need to as I start to include more music that Heather really likes - she just doesn't enjoy dinner with KMFDM (Industrial Dance - which as a category I just might disagree with)).

7/25/2007 4:06 PM

 
Blogger Peter said...

Mark:

You aught to check out the categories on my blog.

Hodgepodge
Rejectamenta
Potpourri
Not Yet Classified
Miscellaneous
Etc
Gallimaufry
Grab Bag
General
Odds & Ends

7/25/2007 9:57 PM

 
Blogger Mark said...

Roger: That's a very pared-down list of genres. I admire your lumping, although I don't think I could go quite so far myself. I think it says a lot about your collection that Reggae gets its own category. What do you do with other "World" music? I like your distinction between lumping and splitting in terms of their uses. Good to hear that Big Beat actually exists. There are definitely more kinds of electronic music than I can keep track of. Which brings me to ...

Beau: I do remember at one point being able to distinguish between, say, trance and acid house, although I'm not sure I can anymore. I guess it's kind of like pornography -- I'd know it when I see, er ... hear it. That and I think it has something to do with handclaps. I filed KMFDM under Goth/Industrial, because I don't buy the concept of "Industrial Dance" either. I'm not sure "Don't Blow Your Top" is a very danceable album. Maybe in a jerky, teutonic way.

Tad: That's an impressive list. I guess you have taxonomizing in your blood.

7/26/2007 12:46 AM

 
Blogger Peter said...

On a more serious taxonomical note: you are searching for what is called a 'faceted taxonomy,' in which items are described by a number of non-hierarchical attributes like "world," "pan-flute" "easy-listening" "smooth." Attempts to put something as ephemeral and personal as musical genres into a parent-child ontology are troublesome.

You could also take the ultra-splitter approach, in which the ratio of categories to entries is roughly 1:1

i.e;
Acoustic Blues
Acoustic Chicago Blues
Acoustic Memphis Blues
Adult Alternative
Adult Alternative Pop/Rock
Adult Contemporary
Album Rock
Alternative Country
Alternative Country-Rock
Alternative Folk
Alternative Pop/Rock
Alternative Rap
Alternative Singer/Songwriter
AM Pop
Ambient Breakbeat
American Popular Song
American Trad Rock
Americana
Appalachian Folk
Bakersfield Sound
Ballads
Bar Band
Barbershop Quartet
Baroque Pop
Big Band
Black Gospel
Blue-Eyed Soul
Bluegrass
Bluegrass-Gospel
Blues Gospel
Blues-Rock
Boogie Rock
Bop
British Dance Bands
British Folk
CCM
Celtic Fusion
Chamber Jazz
Chamber Music
Chicago Blues
Children's Folk
Christian Rock
Christmas
Classic Jazz
Close Harmony
Club/Dance
Cocktail
Comedy Rock
Conjunto
Contemporary Bluegrass
Contemporary Blues
Contemporary Celtic
Contemporary Country
Contemporary Folk
Contemporary Gospel
Contemporary Instrumental
Contemporary Jazz
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary Singer/Songwriter
Cool
Country Blues
Country Boogie
Country Comedy
Country Gospel
Country-Folk
Country-Pop
Country-Rock
Country-Soul
Cowboy
Cowpunk
Creole
Crossover Jazz
Cuban Pop

7/26/2007 9:01 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't do anything with the "other" world music because I don't have any :)

Electronic and reggae is actually one section, but I've split them out because they aren't really related and their lumping was a function of space rather than an ontological issue.

Don't sell yourself short, I bet you could still tell the difference between trance and acid house. As for garage vs dubstep, good lord, how many subgenres does one need?

Now here's a really interesting Flash-based guide to electronic music genres. I like it a lot.

http://www.di.fm/edmguide/music.swf

-Roger

7/26/2007 9:56 PM

 

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