I’ve seen a few people over the past few days talking about the way that genres are classified on the likes of Traxsource, Beatport and probably elsewhere. Typically, they find it a complete mystery how things are categorised.

Or to put it another way, I had long suspected that Traxsource and the rest employed a angry, disgruntled monkey that would make the decision by bashing buttons at random whilst occasionally throwing shit at its owners.

Conversations I’ve had over the years have not totally discredited this theory that I once conjured up after all of four minutes deliberation on the subject. I once spoke to the boss of 3rd Way Recordings about this, and he explained that the labels can submit a category in the metadata.

However, the final say lies with the stores. This means he might tag something as soulful house, but the aforementioned angry disgruntled monkey might decide to press a different button in a fit of temper, having not been given its smorgasbord of bananas at the right time.

Ultimately, I think you just have to cast your net wide. Search through new music, don’t bother too much with the preset categories you see on these sites and if it really bothers you that much, relabel what you’ve bought to your own taste.

Let the stores worry about the angry, disgruntled monkey.