Genre question for electronic/electronica fans.

[kavika411]

Thanks for reading this. I am a huge music fan, and an even bigger fan of all things iTunes. I spend an absurd amount of time rating songs, making sure the album art and release year are right, and - most importantly - that I correctly identify the genre of the song. (If you are bored by reading what I've written so far, stop reading now; it does not get more interesting.) For better or for worse, I like to give a song only one genre; that means that I work very hard to get the genre just right.

I have a lot of music that falls somewhere between "electronic music" and "electronica." I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinion on how he/she differentiates between so-called "electronic music" and "electronica." Any input is greatly appreciated.

[apsterling]

I generally consider Electronica to be more of a relaxed feel as opposed to pushy, but that's myself. It all boils down to what you think. If you think you'll be discriminated for mis-genre-ing your music, there's issues.

[kavika411]

If you think you'll be discriminated for mis-genre-ing your music, there's issues.

Indeed, my issues regarding rating songs and assigning genres are vast. :D

[Gray-Wolf]

To me, Electronic music is from groups like

Tangerine dream

Oxygen by Jean Michel Jarre

[rockosmodurnlif]

Thanks for reading this. I am a huge music fan, and an even bigger fan of all things iTunes. I spend an absurd amount of time rating songs, making sure the album art and release year are right, and - most importantly - that I correctly identify the genre of the song. (If you are bored by reading what I've written so far, stop reading now; it does not get more interesting.) For better or for worse, I like to give a song only one genre; that means that I work very hard to get the genre just right.

I have a lot of music that falls somewhere between "electronic music" and "electronica." I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinion on how he/she differentiates between so-called "electronic music" and "electronica." Any input is greatly appreciated.
Man, that's like asking what's the difference between rock and rock and roll. I've found it's best to come up with your own definition and let it ride. But I'm guessing you're looking for some direction so here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronica
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=73:11605

I'm like you with the tagging and art and genre labeling but I don't differentiate between electronic and electronica.

[phuong]

wow would hire you to "do" my library if i could.
most of my music, about 10GB or so, are not bought from itunes so they don't have album art nor proper genre, artist name, album name etc.

[richard.mac]

its either Electronica or Electronic is doesnt matter. but the music played in clubs these days for dancing is more Electronic/Dance.

[mannix87]

it's really up to you but personally, i prefer classifying these as 'electronica/dance' as Tower Records started doing more than a decade ago. I guess it stuck with me. in iComp and MacJams, forums for Mac musicians, such music is classified as Electronica as well.

[idyll]

Big Beat

[WellRedd]

Electronica, now there's a term I dislike :mad:

Electronic music for me gets divided into it's sub-genres, for example, techno, house, deep house, ambient, drum n bass, IDM (another term I dislike, although it does help categorise certain artists), hardcore, acid, trance, trip hop, downtempo, modern classical/Musique Concrete, jungle, grime, ghetto-tech, electro, gabber, future jazz, dubstep, breakcore, chiptune, broken beat, breakbeat & big beat, among others. I'm currently going though my collection adding a further genre, Detroit, to allow me to easily find anything from that city.

In answer to your question though, it's entirely up to you, if it works.

www.discogs.com is an enormous help.

[edit]

I forgot to say, most releases have multiple genres, less neat, but so much more useful and flexible. There's many tracks and/or releases that contain, say, ambient and techno, or deep house and techno, I'd hate to search and miss out on something.

[Tattoo]

Thanks for reading this. I am a huge music fan, and an even bigger fan of all things iTunes. I spend an absurd amount of time rating songs, making sure the album art and release year are right, and - most importantly - that I correctly identify the genre of the song. (If you are bored by reading what I've written so far, stop reading now; it does not get more interesting.) For better or for worse, I like to give a song only one genre; that means that I work very hard to get the genre just right.

I have a lot of music that falls somewhere between "electronic music" and "electronica." I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinion on how he/she differentiates between so-called "electronic music" and "electronica." Any input is greatly appreciated.

Are you referencing music like: Daft Punk, Dj Tiesto, Paul van Dyk?:confused:

[kavika411]

Are you referencing music like: Daft Punk, Dj Tiesto, Paul van Dyk?:confused:

I admit my catalogue in this arena is a bit shallow. To answer your question, it ranges from Depeche Mode, to Junkie XL, to Daft Punk, to Chemical Brothers, to The Crystal Method, to Recoil, to Massive Attack, to a few others. On top of that, I have a few "best of" trance CDs and the like.

I know people have a love/hate relationship with genres. I am no exception. I believe, however, that with the advent of the smart playlist, there is extreme value in utilizing genres. The converse, of course, is that if you have too many genres at play, especially too many on one song, then smart playlists will carve out too many songs. Hope that makes sense.

I guess the point of my original post was that I like so-called "electronic music" enough to own a decent amount. I'd like to be using the correct terminology when I assign the genres. I've read the wikipedia entries for "electronic music" and "electronica" and gained zero understanding of the nuances between them. I was hoping that other iTunes users who obsess over genre-assigning, and who like this type of music, could give me some hints on how they handle it. So far, some of these entries have been helpful.

Thanks.

[c-Row]

I usually use the "Electronica" tag for music that can't be filed under a specific genre. "Electronic" sounds more like an overall genre to me, like "Rock".

[MotleyPete]

Electronica = Germans with side parted hair, black shirts and a thin red ties.

Electronic music = Everything except Nick Drake and chanting Tibetan monks.








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[WellRedd]

Electronica = Germans with side parted hair, black shirts and a thin red ties.
.

Otherwise known as electro, if you're talking about Kraftwerk that is.

Top band BTW.

[Sesshi]

electronica tends to be beat-driven music of a purely or mainly electronic nature. electronic music is everything else which is purely or mainly electronic nature. Both have tens to hundreds of subcategories which makes it a long and tedious process when compiling my Smartlists.