Important Changes to Genre Listings on SHOUTcast

[SC_faisal]

Dear SHOUTcast Broadcasters,

In an effort to better organize the vast variety of music genres available on SHOUTcast, and to make it easier for listeners to find your station, we will be making some changes to the way your stations are categorized in the SHOUTcast Radio directory. Starting MONDAY, JUNE 07 2010, the genres available on the SHOUTcast Radio directory will be limited to the following list:

Alternative
Adult Alternative
Britpop
Classic Alternative
College
Dancepunk
Dream Pop
Emo
Goth
Grunge
Indie Pop
Indie Rock
Industrial
Lo-Fi
Modern Rock
New Wave
Noise Pop
Post-Punk
Power Pop
Punk
Ska
Xtreme

Blues
Acoustic Blues
Chicago Blues
Contemporary Blues
Country Blues
Delta Blues
Electric Blues
Cajun/Zydeco

Classical
Baroque
Chamber
Choral
Classical Period
Early Classical
Impressionist
Modern
Opera
Piano
Romantic
Symphony

Country
Alt-Country
Americana
Bluegrass
Classic Country
Contemporary Bluegrass
Contemporary Country
Honky Tonk
Hot Country Hits
Western

Easy Listening
Exotica
Light Rock
Lounge
Orchestral Pop
Polka
Space Age Pop

Electronic
Acid House
Ambient
Big Beat
Breakbeat
Dance
Demo
Disco
Downtempo
Drum and Bass
Electro
Garage
Hard House
House
IDM
Remixes
Jungle
Progressive
Techno
Trance
Tribal
Trip Hop

Folk
Alternative Folk
Contemporary Folk
Folk Rock
New Acoustic
Traditional Folk
World Folk

Themes
Adult
Best Of
Chill
Experimental
Female
Heartache
LGBT
Love/Romance
Party Mix
Patriotic
Rainy Day Mix
Reality
Sexy
Shuffle
Travel Mix
Tribute
Trippy
Work Mix

Rap
Alternative Rap
Dirty South
East Coast Rap
Freestyle
Hip Hop
Gangsta Rap
Mixtapes
Old School
Turntablism
Underground Hip-Hop
West Coast Rap

Inspirational
Christian
Christian Metal
Christian Rap
Christian Rock
Classic Christian
Contemporary Gospel
Gospel
Praise/Worship
Sermons/Services
Southern Gospel
Traditional Gospel

International
African
Afrikaans
Arabic
Asian
Brazilian
Caribbean
Celtic
European
Filipino
Greek
Hawaiian/Pacific
Hindi
Indian
Japanese
Jewish
Klezmer
Mediterranean
Middle Eastern
North American
Polskie
Polska
Soca
South American
Tamil
Worldbeat
Zouk

Jazz
Acid Jazz
Avant Garde
Big Band
Bop
Classic Jazz
Cool Jazz
Fusion
Hard Bop
Latin Jazz
Smooth Jazz
Swing
Vocal Jazz
World Fusion

Latin
Bachata
Banda
Bossa Nova
Cumbia
Latin Dance
Latin Pop
Latin Rap/Hip-Hop
Latin Rock
Mariachi
Merengue
Ranchera
Reggaeton
Regional Mexican
Salsa
Tango
Tejano
Tropicalia

Metal
Black Metal
Classic Metal
Extreme Metal
Grindcore
Hair Metal
Heavy Metal
Metalcore
Power Metal
Progressive Metal
Rap Metal

New Age
Environmental
Ethnic Fusion
Healing
Meditation
Spiritual

Decades
30s
40s
50s
60s
70s
80s
90s

Pop
Adult Contemporary
Barbershop
Bubblegum Pop
Dance Pop
Idols
Oldies
JPOP
Soft Rock
Teen Pop
Top 40
World Pop

R&B/Urban
Classic R&B
Contemporary R&B
Doo Wop
Funk
Motown
Neo-Soul
Quiet Storm
Soul
Urban Contemporary

Reggae
Contemporary Reggae
Dancehall
Dub
Pop-Reggae
Ragga
Rock Steady
Reggae Roots

Rock
Adult Album Alternative
British Invasion
Classic Rock
Garage Rock
Glam
Hard Rock
Jam Bands
Piano Rock
Prog Rock
Psychedelic
Rock & Roll
Rockabilly
Singer/Songwriter
Surf

Seasonal/Holiday
Anniversary
Birthday
Christmas
Halloween
Hanukkah
Honeymoon
Valentine
Wedding
Winter

Soundtracks
Anime
Bollywood
Kids
Original Score
Showtunes
Video Game Music

Talk
Comedy
Community
Educational
Government
News
Old Time Radio
Other Talk
Political
Public Radio
Scanner
Spoken Word
Sports
Technology
Hardcore
Eclectic
Instrumental

Misc



If you already have at least one of the keywords above in your server configurations for the Genre no action is required from you at this time.

If your station’s genre does not match at least one of the keywords above, you will have to make the change manually in your server’s configurations to at least one of the keywords above. Pick two or three keywords from the list that best describes the music that you play on your station. You can change the Genre of your station by changing the ‘Genre’ parameter in the SHOUTcast DNAS configurations or the DSP.

Please note that starting MONDAY, JUNE 07 2010 those stations that have not changed their genre configurations to at least one of the above keywords will have their stations automatically mapped to fall within the list. Therefore, if you want to make sure listeners can find your station please take the time to ensure your genre strings accurately match at least one of the keywords in the list above.

Thanks!

Faisal
-SHOUTcast Dev

[Jkey]

Thanks F..
Stuck as requested.

[chuckeh]

Ok, some questions:

You listed these genres:

R&B/Urban
Classic R&B
Contemporary R&B

What about "RnB"? I think that is used more than "R&B". Same on "World", which is not listed, but you listed

World Folk
World Pop
World Fusion
Worldbeat

And do we have to choose exactly "R&B/Urban", which uses more letters or can we use "R&B" OR "Urban"?

[SC_faisal]

Thanks for posting the questions here. :-)

Will take your comments into consideration - but for now please use only the keywords as they are listed above in your genre string settings.

Thanks!!!
f.

[aaronsnet]

I would like to recommend "Mixed" and/or "Freeform" and/or "Variety" for the eclectic stations that do not fall into a particular strict genre.

[SC_faisal]

Originally posted by aaronsnet
I would like to recommend "Mixed" and/or "Freeform" and/or "Variety" for the eclectic stations that do not fall into a particular strict genre.

For now, all those stations that dont fall into one of the categories from the list will go into the "Misc" bucket.

We can see if we will add a "Various" genre in the future if there's enough of a demand out there. What we dont want happen is get to where we are now: where we have seemingly infinite number of genres in the DB, making it really difficult for listeners to find what they are looking for.

Cheers
f.

[hard69rock]

I changed the genre to Classic Country. My station doesn't show up. DNAS says that the station/computer cannot be seen and the connection times out.
What else can I try to get it back on?

[SC_faisal]

Please note that this change will not happen on Tuesday, March 3. I will update you all when this is complete.

Thanks!
f.

[Jkey]

Thanks for the update faisal

[SC_faisal]

Please make sure your genre fields are up to date.

THanks
f.

[Jkey]

Originally posted by SC_faisal


Please make sure your genre fields are up to date.

THanks
f. [/B]

[chuckeh]

Dont see it live yet?

[SC_faisal]

There was a minor DB glitch during last night's push, so we rolled back the update.

Please stay tuned for updates on when this change will go live. THanks for your patience!!!

f.

[eger]

No Death Metal?

Guess I'll categorize differently. Does the Genre have to be an exact match to be listed or can it contain at least one of these genres as a comma separated value?

[geniegate]

Hope this is the correct place to ask, can you tell us the correct genre format? is it case sensitive?

What about spaces?

I tried:

"genre1,genre2,genre3 with spaces"

(3 genres, all lower case)

But so far, it only shows up in one genre, the one w/out the spaces.

I noticed from looking at other stations,

Easy Listening, Love Songs

Appears as: "Easy, Listening, Love, Songs"

Should we be using %20 or + for spaces?

Thanks!

Jamie

[coskel]

there are 2 stations playing pop music that are listed as Classical & Country. How can they get delisted and moved to the right format?

[SC_faisal]

Please note that starting MONDAY, JUNE 07 2010 those stations that have not changed their genre configurations to at least one of the above keywords will have their stations automatically mapped to fall within the list. Therefore, please ensure that your server configurations have been updated before Monday to ensure your station being listed in the right category.

Thank you!
f.

[SC_faisal]

Please note that starting MONDAY, JUNE 07 2010 those stations that have not changed their genre configurations to at least one of the above keywords will have their stations automatically mapped to fall within the list. Therefore, please ensure that your server configurations have been updated before Monday to ensure your station being listed in the right category.

Thank you!
f.

[SC_faisal]

Here's how to change the genre string for your stations, depending on what tool you are using:

Winamp DSP:
1.Edit the genre setting in the following tab:
Output -> Yellowpages -> Genre
2. Click Connect

SHOUTcast SC_TRANS
1. In sc_trans.conf, change the parameter genre=[Genre]
2. Restart sc_trans


If you use any of the many third-party applications to source your streams, please refer to the documentation that came with the app.

thanks!
f.

[maxlom]

Please, the 'Italian' genre no longer exist?

Best regards,

Massimo

[Killzone_Kid]

The old system was better. The new system makes it more difficult to find favourite stations due to limited variety of fixed genres. Disappointed.

[Love China]

This change on 7th June seems to have caused my station to get deleted from the 'International' genre.

After a day of fiddling/headscratching, I found that if I continued to specify my genres as "International Asian" I consistently only get listed in Asian. Therefore, my station had become invisible to people who can't see the sub-genres, for example, because they're navigating using the genre links to the right of the YP; not expanding the top level genre; or are using an iPhone/mobile. The only way I could get my station back into 'International' was to delete Asian from my genre list, which is a shame as it was a useful search term.

Is there some il-thoughtout logic in the new genre processing ..or some other reason?

Cheers.

[SC_faisal]

Originally Posted by Killzone_Kid

The old system was better. The new system makes it more difficult to find favourite stations due to limited variety of fixed genres. Disappointed.

The new system is constantly evolving. In the coming days you will see many new changes that will make it easier for users to find the music they are looking for. We're also adding a lot more genres to this list. Stay tuned for an updated genre list based on your feedback and from the data in our database by next week.

In the past, the system has been great for broadcasters but not necessarily for users. We are going from a free-form anything-goes system to a set taxonomy that makes sense for users. "foobar" might be ok for broadcasters to put in the genre string, but "foobar" is not necessarily a music genre.

thanks
f.

[Killzone_Kid]

I think trying to have a fixed list of constantly evolving music styles is futile Anyway I strongly suggest you allow to classify genre by country as well. It was very handy, but now it is gone.

[pperkins1]

Have two questions:

1. Are you saying the headings Blues, Jazz, R&B, Gospel etc are no longer accepted and that we must use keywords which are "under" the categories you have listed?

2. There are many categories which are most commonly used by the populance which are not included, i.e., under "Blues" there is no Southern Soul, Southern Blues, or Downhome Blues.

[SC_faisal]

Originally Posted by Killzone_Kid

I think trying to have a fixed list of constantly evolving music styles is futile Anyway I strongly suggest you allow to classify genre by country as well. It was very handy, but now it is gone.

Actually it was always the plan to have it "both" ways... We're working on a solution that will allow users to use search terms as they do now, whilst still having a set controlled genre list and not freeform.

Having countries in the master genre list is a good idea. We'll get that implemented if the solution above doesnt address it.

thanks

f.

[miamigo]

Why have some stations with the correct genre's now been dropped by the directory but are okay according to their D.N.A.S. page.

[straferd]

"Asian" is not specific at all. The listeners aren't interested in "Asian" music, they want "korean" or "japanese" or "chinese" or "thai".

[pperkins1]

This new list will not better define a station's music but will do no more than add more confusion because the opportunity to add more categories even if you only play one song from that genre in a day.
I challenge you to use the Shoutcast directory, click on the letter R and then click on R&B/Urban.
From the list of stations that pop up, find 4 that are actually playing music from that category. You can do the same thing with just about every genre listed. If a user is looking for Classical Music he'll be forced to go through a list of everything else imaginable, because the unrelated stations have Classical listed, before finding what he actually wants to hear.

[geniegate]

While I appreciate the problem..

There's no "Standards" genre anymore? What do Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Vikki Carr, etc.. fall under?

The old way had issues, but, might it be possible to some-how extend it with a kind of tagging system for cross-references?

I think the reason people used to find us under "Retro" and "Standards", was because a lot of other stations also used that "tag", so they'd sort of click on the links for other stations in the made up genre. (thats how I used it... searched for streams "sort of" like mine and used what they were using)

While it was clearly "abusing" a genre system, it was actually useful as a tagging system for people to find stations with the same "tags".

[fastfred3a]

I was able to get WMVY 92.7 fm out of Martha's Vinyard, MA on Shoutcast up until this week. Now I can't find it anywhere. Can you help me? I think I originally found it on Shoutcast by using, mymvy.com, or mymvyradio.com but I'm not sure.

[NJK]

YP is having problems at the moment.
Several stations are either not visible anymore or the info is not right anymore.

Just wait it out. as always it will turn back to normal.

[Clausel]

Hmmkay....so we'll wait and see.

[pperkins1]

Have two request.
(1) Please add "Deep Soul" under the Blues category
(2) Please consider researching the industry standards with record companies, libraries, etc., for proper/common category usage in determing music genre classifications.

[pperkins1]

Please consider adding "Deep Soul" under the blues category

[smoothbeats]

Originally Posted by miamigo

Why have some stations with the correct genre's now been dropped by the directory but are okay according to their D.N.A.S. page.

Agreed. Smoothbeats.com has 2 channels - hiphop and nujazz, and both have genre strings that fit into this list. The hiphop channel is only listed under "hip hop" and the nujazz channel is completely missing since the YP genre update.

[to6e]

This is by far the worst which could ever happen to Shoutcast. I cannot find so many of my beloved radio stations again...

It is now impossible to find stations with tags like "Club", "Downbeat", "Full On", "Goa", "Nu Jazz", "Oldskool", "PsyTrance", "Relax", "Retro", "Space", "Uplifting" and so on. Because most of these tags weren't in the Shoutcast genre list anyway, I always searched them using the following address scheme:

http://www.shoutcast.com/genre/Club
or in newer times with the alias
http://www.shoutcast.com/radio/Club

and for two or more words
http://www.shoutcast.com/radio/Nu+Jazz

Now I cannot find any of these stations at all. With the decision of reducing the possible genres to a specified list I have to choose a nearby genre and search through hundreds of stations manually, ending up most of the time with nothing at all - even if Shoutcast expands its genre list in the future. Have you alone known that there are dozens of sub genres to "PsyTrance" and "Goa"?

By using the above mentioned address scheme you could search for stations playing e. g. "bird songs", "river sounds", "jokes", "C64 tracks", "Amiga mods" and all that special interest stuff. I loved playing around with that. Now it's all gone.

So my desperate plea to the Shoutcast dev team: Please give us back the possibility to search and find what we need. Otherwise this is a huge step back into the days of terrestrial radio, where non-conform and special interest stuff was hard to be found. This is not what internet radio should be! And it's very important to me, because I just thought that radio is back...

It is out of question that nobody could ever define a comprehensive and complete genre list, because MUSIC IS GREAT - and fast evolving over time. So please let the stations decide, where and how they want to be grouped.

Thank you in advance
- Tobe -

P. S. 1: Of course this could be realized otherwise than through the discussed genre tags. To me (and surely others) it's just important that it works.

P. S. 2: If I have overlooked any possibility to fulfill my wish, I beg your pardon! Then please tell me what I have to do. I've tried searching in the stations' names, but that's no alternative.

[couch-potato]

try http://www.shoutcast.com/Internet-Radio/club

that worx
tom

[chuckeh]

Yep, just use the search function.

[to6e]

Hello couch-potato and chuckeh,

no that's not the case. You have just found the function for searching the stations names - which I stated in my "P. S. 2" is no alternative. It may work more or less with a term like "Club", which many radio stations use in their names, but it's not very useful for finding other genres or all that special interest stuff.

The problem is that most of the stations do not use their genres in their names. So if you search their names, you find either nothing and/or a lot of stations you're not searching for. And then the manual searching begins...

Besides I wonder why they intend to group ten thousands of stations in a relative small genre list. That must lead to huge listings for the more popular genres while the special interest stuff is hard or not to be found.

Why don't they give a predefined genre list and let the stations decide whether they want to integrate or not. That would fulfill more the true nature of music. (They also could implement two genre lists, a fixed one and a free one, which you could search both or separately.)

If you ask me, the special interest stuff is the true benefit of internet radio, because you can't get it somewhere else. Now I fear this is dying a bit...