Allmusic's genres (especially in description) are vague and inchoate, and their coverage of representative artists in many genres is spotty at best. Their coverage of international genres (even well-known genre like Chanson) is typically American-- in other words, shitty.
Now, Gracenote's 1600 genre hierarchy, on the other hand...
Also:
My brother's done this already:
http://qntm.org/genres
And he's constantly adding to it. If you have any additions, drop him a line.
Could use more differentiation at international level, as the granularity's a bit spotty in places. For example, Neue Deutsch Valle is there, but where are other Alpine region musics Schrammelmusik or Alpunk? And where the hell is Portugal? And does it make sense to go into such detail as Nederhop when you so broadly apply labels to musics from other foreign countries, like lumping all traditional pop Japanese into "Enka"? Is "Top 40" even close to being a genre? Do you see the bias that has already been formed in this seemingly simple genre list?
My point is not to sound like a puffed-up asshole (though that's probably a side effect)-- I want to express that these are the kinds of concerns that pop up when people try to make an all-inclusive genre list and warn about the level of debate the construction of such a list could spur here.
