Menu Option 'GENRES' for Music, Music Videos and Audiobook Libraries displays ALBUM view. Change to ARTIST view

[unisoft 352]

17 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  I did not make a big "fuss" I simply pointed out that genres are assigned to Albums not Artists.  Therefore, any truly correct view of genres organized into Artists would have to be a virtually created view - or not really correct in that once you clicked into the Artist you would see all their content instead of just the albums of that genre.

That doesn't mean it cannot be done.  It just means it is more complicated or compromised than it may appear.

Surely its is just TRACKS tagged as a GENRE, that get grouped under ARTISTS for a genre?, i.e. all artists tracks that have the genre tagged on each track. Think of it as ARTISTS view then filter each album for that artist to match the genre selected. Anything not tagged as the genre is simply dropped from the view.

[unisoft 352]

17 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  I did not make a big "fuss" I simply pointed out that genres are assigned to Albums not Artists.  Therefore, any truly correct view of genres organized into Artists would have to be a virtually created view - or not really correct in that once you clicked into the Artist you would see all their content instead of just the albums of that genre.

That doesn't mean it cannot be done.  It just means it is more complicated or compromised than it may appear.

Genres are attached to ID3 tag for GENRE in my view. If the track is not tagged, then it has no genre. You should just sort by artist for the tagged tracks in albums in genres view.

Example for genre POP selected from list of available Genres:

GENRES > POP > Madonna > (albums/tracks listed that have any tracks tagged with the genre, any tracks in that album not tagged are dropped from view)

This can be implemented using a menu option for VIEW BY or SORT (and an option in settings for making a sticky view (persistence))

Edited January 15, 2024 by unisoft

[Luke 42077]

I think what we need is a genre screen that gives you categories so that you can see everything tagged to that genre.

[user24 313]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

I think what we need is a genre screen that gives you categories so that you can see everything tagged to that genre.

So, perhaps a Music Genre screen a bit like an Album Artist / Artist / Composer screen is now, e.g.

Genre Picture and Overview at top, followed by vertical sections of (e.g.):

• Artists
• Albums
• Songs
• Composers

Then the UI would be easy for everyone to select their own preference and would also match the existing style of other screens.

(I wouldn't be fussed about the order because I could potentially hide and rearrange in web app CSS to suit what I wanted for myself)

Also, and perhaps for a bit later on..?

If Music Styles (sub-genres) were incorporated into Emby (as per other Feature Requests) these could appear at the top of a specific Genre screen in the same place that the Genres appear on the Album Artist / Artist / Composer screens now.

 

Edited February 27, 2024 by user24

[Luke 42077]

6 minutes ago, user24 said:

So, perhaps a Music Genre screen a bit like an Album Artist / Artist / Composer screen is now, e.g.

Genre Picture and Overview at top, followed by vertical sections of (e.g.):

• Artists
• Albums
• Songs
• Composers

Then the UI would be easy for everyone to select their own preference and would also match the existing style of other screens.

(I wouldn't be fussed about the order because I could potentially hide and rearrange in web app CSS to suit what I wanted for myself)

Also, and perhaps for a bit later on..?

If Music Styles (sub-genres) were incorporated into Emby (as per other Feature Requests) these could appear at the top of a specific Genre screen in the same place that the Genres appear on the Album Artist / Artist / Composer screens now.

 

Yes exactly.

[unisoft 352]

4.8.3.0 needs a bit more work for GENRES please.

• When you click a GENRE from the list you need to add a VIEW menu, so I can select "Artists Only", "Albums Only", "Songs Only" or "All". And then be made "sticky" so you don't have to select each time you use the Emby app. Something along these lines anyway or a setting option in settings for view type.
• There is too much horizontal scrolling with a remote control if your library has many artists, albums and songs.
• I know if I click the top word "Artists" that the display changed to "Artists Only" view for the Genre selected and filled the screen, but that isn't clear to users, and is an extra click every time rather than being able to set a "sticky"/"Persisted" view. (same for Audiobooks library).
• When I clicked the ARTIST, I expected to see ONLY albums/songs TAGGED with the GENRE. I got all albums and songs listed.
• Also "MUSIC VIDEOS" library has lost GENRES??? Why??? It's valid there as well.

But great so far in that the Emby team recognise that a lot of customers go into Genres and Expect to then see relevant Artists, and then see album and songs. Just like you would going into a music store to buy a CD. Find the GENRE section, find the artist then find the album or single you want to buy.

 

Edited March 2, 2024 by unisoft

[user24 313]

From a very brief look, it's an excellent step in the right direction. Thanks Emby!

[MistD 32]

Never had time to try the new 4.8 but after looking at the screenshot above, i want to say a big THANK YOU for Emby's team ! Thanks for taking this into consideration and implement a great solution !

This makes browsing by genre simply SUPERB !  

[ginjaninja 605]

@Luke theres seems to be a gremlin in the genre lookup

Burt does not have britpop genre

 

 

Edited March 2, 2024 by ginjaninja

[unisoft 352]

45 minutes ago, ginjaninja said:

@Luke theres seems to be a gremlin in the genre lookup

Burt does not have britpop genre

 

 

I found another, I changed some GENRES using MP3Tag today. I did a scheduled task scan of all libraries, a refresh metadata on the artists too and still, the old metadata was there and confirmed by metadata editor in Emby and the fact I was still seeing the old genres in genres. Metadata was not locked either on GENRE field.

Only when I did a complete REFRESH METADATA on the whole music library did it resolve and everything was correct and updated.

No errors or anything in log files.

[ginjaninja 605]

12 minutes ago, unisoft said:

I found another, I changed some GENRES using MP3Tag today. I did a scheduled task scan of all libraries, a refresh metadata on the artists too and still, the old metadata was there and confirmed by metadata editor in Emby and the fact I was still seeing the old genres in genres. Metadata was not locked either on GENRE field.

Only when I did a complete REFRESH METADATA on the whole music library did it resolve and everything was correct and updated.

No errors or anything in log files.

delving deeper, there was a spurious britpop genre in Burts artist.nfo

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<artist>
  <biography><![CDATA[Burt F. Bacharach (born May 12, 1928) is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick. Following on with the initial success of this collaboration, Bacharach went on to produce hits with Dusty Springfield, Bobbie Gentry, Jackie DeShannon and others.
As of 2006, Bacharach had written 70 Top 40 hits in the U.S., and 52 Top 40 hits in the UK.]]></biography>
  <outline><![CDATA[Burt F. Bacharach (born May 12, 1928) is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick. Following on with the initial success of this collaboration, Bacharach went on to produce hits with Dusty Springfield, Bobbie Gentry, Jackie DeShannon and others.
As of 2006, Bacharach had written 70 Top 40 hits in the U.S., and 52 Top 40 hits in the UK.]]></outline>
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2023-01-18 15:17:48</dateadded>
  <title>Burt Bacharach</title>
  <sorttitle>Burt Bacharach</sorttitle>
  <runtime>569</runtime>
  <genre>Contemporary R&amp;B</genre>
  <genre>Soul</genre>
  <genre>Pop</genre>
  <genre>Lounge</genre>
  <genre>Rock</genre>
  <genre>Latin Jazz</genre>
  <genre>Pop Rock</genre>
  <genre>Folk</genre>
  <genre>Classic Rock</genre>
  <genre>Country</genre>
  <genre>Covers</genre>
  <genre>Soft Rock</genre>
  <genre>Synthpop</genre>
  <genre>Chillout</genre>
  <genre>Downtempo</genre>
  <genre>Hip-Hop</genre>
  <genre>Vocal Jazz</genre>
  <genre>Britpop</genre>
  <genre>Ballad</genre>
  <genre>Trip Hop</genre>
  <genre>Alternative Rock</genre>
  <audiodbartistid>112471</audiodbartistid>
  <musicbrainzartistid>2882ffa3-dec9-4055-a842-a950728bcb02</musicbrainzartistid>
  <uniqueid type="musicbrainzartist">2882ffa3-dec9-4055-a842-a950728bcb02</uniqueid>
  <uniqueid type="discogsartist">58359</uniqueid>
  <discogsartistid>58359</discogsartistid>
  <uniqueid type="audiodbartist">112471</uniqueid>
  <album>
    <title>Magic Moments: The Definitive Burt Bacharach Collection</title>
    <year>2008</year>
  </album>
</artist>

the gremlin was in the artist.nfo ...... at some point the nfo writer must of had a bad day...trouble is now the nfo writer is not writing anything to my media libraries....so i cant reset..

[ginjaninja 605]

it seems artist genres can come from songs they are tagged composer or writer on

should composer/writer credits contribute to an artist's genres?....not sure

but burt is definitely not well known for britpop or trip hop :-)...it wouldnt be an issue if it was obvious when entering the genre how burt was credited to these genres..

the song view could filter it but current song genre filters are tv genres

edit looks like a bug...the main song view can be filtered by music genres

Edited March 2, 2024 by ginjaninja

[unisoft 352]

"should composer/writer credits contribute to an artist's genres?"

No in my view. Track is tagged by id3v2 embedded tag for genre according to artist.

[user24 313]

2 hours ago, ginjaninja said:

should composer/writer credits contribute to an artist's genres?....not sure

Possibly the 'technically correct' answer would be no. 

E.g. a purely Heavy Metal Genre Artist may do a Heavy Metal cover version of a Country Genre Song credited to the original Country music Artist Composer/writer. This may then incorrectly associate the Heavy Metal Artist with the Country Genre. You may therefore see Metallica next to Merle Haggard when viewing by Genre, or get a rude shock when shuffle playing Country!!!

This is definitely an outlier case, but for large music libraries there would likely be many outliers that would 'appear' every now and again. Heavy Metal associated with Country is perhaps strange, but Rock associated with Blues much less so.

At a Song level, Emby somewhat mixes Artist and Composer together, so that may also be more noticeable now on the new Genre views?

With the new Genre view, the Song level Genres seem to be 'rolling up' into all of the higher level fields. All of my Decade Playlists now show up under the majority of Genres. It's not something that I need, but I think it will be possible to hide these using CSS? (Won't have time to explore it further today though.)

I'll be experimenting more with the new Genre options when I get some free time over the next few days...

 

P.S. Classical Genre and Composers is another whole different scenario though - we need the experts' opinions here!

Edited March 3, 2024 by user24
Added P.S. Section

[ginjaninja 605]

8 hours ago, unisoft said:

should composer/writer credits contribute to an artist's genres?"

No in my view. Track is tagged by id3v2 embedded tag for genre according to artist.

 

8 hours ago, user24 said:

Possibly the 'technically correct' answer would be no. 

I agree that separation would be helpful. So maybe the feature request would be the music genre page either

• shows a 2nd separate line/grouping for composer/writer credits and the first line filtered to artist/albumartist credits?
• has a page wide tabbed filter All,Artist(+Albumartist), Composer(+writer)...so the user can choose the lense/filter through which they wish to see the genre**.

** This option might be coherently extended to the 'artist' page (misnomer really 'person/band' page). if the database schema went in the direction of treating persons and artists as people....the page tab filter idea might even be coherently extended to all credit types for objects types of a person type..im thinking screenwriter, director, actor etc

as mentioned design needs to consider classical music, audio books and potentially all media types.

[user24 313]

1 hour ago, ginjaninja said:

I agree that separation would be helpful. So maybe the feature request would be the music genre page either

• shows a 2nd separate line/grouping for composer/writer credits and the first line filtered to artist/albumartist credits?
• has a page wide tabbed filter All,Artist(+Albumartist), Composer(+writer)...so the user can choose the lense/filter through which they wish to see the genre**.

 

The tricky bit with any of this (and similar type requests) is how to build in enough flexibility to suit all types of music enthusiast (minority heavy user) while still keeping the UI simple enough for the casual music listener (majority light user), across all apps.

• With separate line/grouping proposals you could end up with more and more vertical sections, e.g. Artists | Composers | Artist Albums | Composer Albums | Artist Songs | Composer Songs in order to solve all possible conflicting genre scenarios. This wouldn't bother me, I would just hide the ones I don't want with CSS. But this would potentially be far too complex across all apps and user cases. I think it would ultimately cause more harm than good for most users.
• A page wide tabbed filter has worthwhile merit. I think this could work well for all. I'm not 100% sure what the exact tabs should be BUT trying out a few Emby Search requests gives a reasonable feel for how this could work. Try doing a Search for anything that has several music categories in your library and then imagine this type of menu tab and filter functionality across the top of a Genre page. Therefore Emby Search filters and Music Genre filters would have essentially the same UI.

The new Genre pages are very good now, they have the potential to be really great!

[sonofshaft 0]

Thank you for making the changes you've already made regarding how a genre's contents are presented. The Genre --> Artist --> Album view, as it is currently, is almost exactly how I personally like to browse my music collection. However, because I use the Artist field to associate artists to specific songs in compilations, I prefer to sort the albums themselves using the "Album Artist" tag.

When selecting "Artist" after "Genre", I end up seeing a bunch of artists that only appear in one song in a compilation. That makes the list longer, which is not that big a deal, but it also means that some of the artist artwork can't be found in many cases. For example, when I've used the "Artist" tag to indicate a collaboration between two artists who only worked together for that one song, it's less likely that there would be artist artwork featuring both artists together.

Another example is a compilation album called "Dreams" by The Allman Brothers Band, which includes songs by artists and bands related to The Allman Brothers Band, such as the Allman Joys, The 31st of February, Allman and Woman, among several others. All of these related artists appear under the "Artist" view because I entered their names in the "Artist" tag, but I would prefer to only see The Allman Brothers Band, which I could easily do if I was able to sort by Genre --> Album Artist --> Album.

I realize that many users would probably prefer the Genre --> Artist --> Album view, so I was wondering if it would be possible to add an option that would allow us to tell Emby to use the "Album Artist" tag instead of the "Artist" tag when showing the contents of a particular genre. In MusicBee, I'm able to achieve this by telling it to "Group By" Album Artist under a genre's content. I'm thinking maybe an option to "Show Album Artists instead of Artists" or something like that could be added when viewing a genre's contents.

It doesn't seem like such a change would be too complicated to implement. If that feature could be added (or another one that would provide the same end result), it would make Emby the perfect solution to manage my music collection. I imagine other users would appreciate having the option to sort by "Album Artist" as well.

Thanks!

[unisoft 352]

11 hours ago, sonofshaft said:

Thank you for making the changes you've already made regarding how a genre's contents are presented. The Genre --> Artist --> Album view, as it is currently, is almost exactly how I personally like to browse my music collection. However, because I use the Artist field to associate artists to specific songs in compilations, I prefer to sort the albums themselves using the "Album Artist" tag.

When selecting "Artist" after "Genre", I end up seeing a bunch of artists that only appear in one song in a compilation. That makes the list longer, which is not that big a deal, but it also means that some of the artist artwork can't be found in many cases. For example, when I've used the "Artist" tag to indicate a collaboration between two artists who only worked together for that one song, it's less likely that there would be artist artwork featuring both artists together.

Another example is a compilation album called "Dreams" by The Allman Brothers Band, which includes songs by artists and bands related to The Allman Brothers Band, such as the Allman Joys, The 31st of February, Allman and Woman, among several others. All of these related artists appear under the "Artist" view because I entered their names in the "Artist" tag, but I would prefer to only see The Allman Brothers Band, which I could easily do if I was able to sort by Genre --> Album Artist --> Album.

I realize that many users would probably prefer the Genre --> Artist --> Album view, so I was wondering if it would be possible to add an option that would allow us to tell Emby to use the "Album Artist" tag instead of the "Artist" tag when showing the contents of a particular genre. In MusicBee, I'm able to achieve this by telling it to "Group By" Album Artist under a genre's content. I'm thinking maybe an option to "Show Album Artists instead of Artists" or something like that could be added when viewing a genre's contents.

It doesn't seem like such a change would be too complicated to implement. If that feature could be added (or another one that would provide the same end result), it would make Emby the perfect solution to manage my music collection. I imagine other users would appreciate having the option to sort by "Album Artist" as well.

Thanks!

Agreed. Id actually like to see a screen view option, that allows me to show just Artists or Album Artists - as current display shows a few artists before you have to scroll along. This is tiresome when you have a lot of artists under a selected genre.

 

I want to then see ALBUMS/BOOKS as the screen after selecting an Artist from a Genre, instead of SONGS thrown as the first upper part of the screen display.

If I am in a MUSIC VIDEOS library, and I select a GENRE then ARTIST, I want to see MUSIC VIDEOS from that artist for the selected genre at the top part of the display NOT songs or music tracks!!!!!!!!!!

[iflo 8]

Funnily enough, I found this thread because of the opposite: The way that it used to be with Genre > Album was exactly the way I liked it for how I listen to music and now I need an extra click to show all the albums. I do appreciate that the new screen will be useful for many people though. Perhaps a setting that could allow you to choose from "Genre overview page" (what you see now), "Genre album view", or "Genre artist view", allowing you to bypass that overview page, would be super handy.