Information: Tags
Tags are those helpful words that define what kind of music the album you're viewing actually is, they are divided in to four categories: Genre, Mood, Style and Other. Each tag group is a loose collection of related words that help to inform you of the music in question.
There are over 70 of these tags, divided rather evenly between Genre, Style, Mood, and a few lone ones in the Other category. Some tags are more specific than others, and a few are vague enough that they approach uselessness if taken apart from the whole.
However, even the more useless tags are useful when viewing the list as a whole.
Example 1) tag
Alternative is rather useless on its own. Alternative what? Alternative Opera? It doesn't say. However, when combined with
Rock, which is another tag that is rather vague, it sheds more information and the description starts to look rather specific: Alternative-Rock.
Example 2) tag
Dark is another tag that is vague enough to confuse a compass. Dark what? Dark how? But combined with other tags from
Mood-tags it'll shed quite a lot of light on the soundscape in question:
Dark,
Cold,
Hostile,
Intense. So the music is dark, cold, hostile and intense. Informative, isn't it?
When you click a tag, you'll see a list of album reviews that contain that tag, enabling you to find similar albums rather easily.
Unfortunately searching will list all pages with the words, and not just the albums that are tagged with them. The search engine isn't ideal but it will do the job. Searching for example "Acerbic Jaded Metal" would provide 95% accurate list of of albums & bands with those tags, along with few extra pages that aren't really all that relevant.
Brief Explanation Of The Four Tag Categories
Genre
A loose collection of different musical genres, the list is a short one which is testament to the author's token efforts of trying to curb in the overly complex structure. Like all tags, clicking the highlighted tag will take you to the page that tells you what the tag stands for in this website, and also shows a list of all reviews that contain the tag, thus enabling you to easily find (possibly) similar albums.
Mood
Category that is rather useless on its own, and many of the Tags are easily considered pointless or the use of them contested. However, this category comes useful when one wants to describe something of the music that you would need review for. In a way the list of these tags (accompanied with other more informative ones, like genre tags) reads like a mini review. It will give a quick and rather accurate image of what to expect.
Style
This category contains tags that mostly help to define the
genre tag further, or additional information, like the gender and singing style of the vocalist. It also gives some further insight to the type of the music, whether it is loud or quiet, or concerned with technical skill.
Other
A very small category containing some random tags that might, or might not, be relevant. Like the language of choice of the vocalist, for example.
Information Worth The Trouble Reading
- All Tags can be found from the Browse By All Tags link. There you can see at a glance all the possible tags that a review might have. The list is not static and is subject to some change and revision.
- Many Tags are subjective, and subject to some argument. In these cases Jyri's word is law. This is his CD collection and website, after all.
