Anyone know how to assign multiple genres to a track or set of tracks, and get them to show up under both genres, as opposed to a single genre?

For example (and this is only an example!), I want to assign "Jazz" AND "Techno" to a single track, and then when I go searching for that track or set of tracks on my MP3 player, I can find it filed under "Jazz," and then I can also find it when I scroll down and select "Techno," as opposed to filing it under a single, convoluted label like "Jazz-Techno" or "Techno-Jazz."

Anyone know how to do this, or if it's even possible?

Not possible with ID3 tags.

Damn. IS it possible at all?

ID3v2's genre tags are customly editable, so while you won't be able to combine several "standard" genres as separate tags you can introduce a custom genre entry for your personal use. Unless you intend to share this kind of data it should be perfectly fine.

Hehe! I would also like to do something like that. Like having internal section under "Soundtrack", "Party", "Psytrance" and "Electronic" all at the same time! Or "Shining the Holy Ark" under "Game", "Arranged Soundtrack", "Progressive Rock" and "Angry". Would be useful with VGM, as most tracks can also be considered belonging to a real genre.

It's possible to do something like this with foobar2000 and ape / ogg tags. If you / I bother. Add tags like... "Genre=Soundtrack" "Genre2=Electronic" "Genre3=Psytrance" and do some coding so they're put together as one genre variable... Well, at least it should be possible. I wouldn't bother though.

Oh geez...can I get a link for foobar2000, or some more information on ape / ogg tags? Never heard of those...are MP3 players even able to read ape or ogg tags?

I'd LOVE to see if I can trick my MP3 player into having a single album filed under two (or more!) different genres simultaneously...

There ARE schitzophrenic soundtracks in my collection that I like to listen to during BOTH Summer AND Winter, and there are some that are just as great to listen to in the car, just as they are to listen to at my desk...

....

I give up.

Seriously.

Maybe I should take up drinking.

Why? Just 'cuz I don't know about ape and ogg tags, or whether MP3 players can read them, or not?

I don't have any tips for getting past the inherent limitations of ID3 tags, but it definitely sounds like useful application.  Maybe someone can make a suggestion..

Speaking of a fairly cool development on playing MP3's, has anyone tried the new iTune's 'Genius' feature?  It's definitely cool!  Genius puts together playlists based on the current song you are playing.  After uploading an index of your MP3's to apple's servers, Genius can immediately recommend a playlist of songs that sound similar.

I was skeptical, but the biggest advantage I saw was getting exposed to artists I have rarely listened to, or even better, hearing those 'deep-tracks' for artists I may only listen or know of a couple of songs from....Admittedly this may be for those who have 'large discographies of music that they haven't completely absorbed but Genius also recommends songs to purchase online (a financial tie-in?  Of course!).  Standalone however, without purchases, it's pretty cool.  I honestly don't know if there is any 'genius' meta-data on VGM, but the idea should definitely be translatable.

I'm actually not happy with the latest version of iTunes and wish I didn't upgrade it... why did they ditch the list view? Urgh!!!!

List view?  Seriously?  I haven't upgraded to the latest yet (8.0.2 - right?).  May have to hold off.

Just to reiterate what's been said already, there's currently no effective way to file a song under two different genres in current media players.

You'd think one of the software players would have implemented a way to parse multiple genres listed in an MP3 tag (say separated by a slash or semicolon) and file them under different genres, but even if that were the case your standard iPod or other hardware player wouldn't recognize that system.

I noticed you said *album* genre... what I do is tag each track in an album under the same, broad category (game ST, film ST, pop, dance, etc.) and then use a different tag (the composer tag oddly enough, since iTunes doesn't support custom fields) for each individual track's specific genre (orchestral, fusion, power rock, etc).  That way I can navigate albums more easily by selecting a category first, and can also browse by specific genre by referencing its tag.

Now if you're still looking to file a certain track under multiple genres, the only other method I can think of is to use an MP3 tag for the primary genre, and create playlists for tracks that fall under other genres or moods (summer music, driving, etc).

Well for that sort of system to work, the first thing is to have a standard source for track titles, artists, and tags that is commonly used among the community, so that software will actually recognize when people are playing the same tracks.  There's Gracenote and there's also FreeDB when it comes to online CD databases, along with probably a few others, and I doubt that any of them are very authoritative when it comes to VGM track title translations.

oldversion.com is your friend (if you're a Windows user).

I tried that, actually...didn't work. Slashes, colons, semi-colons, backslashes, double slashes, double colons, double semi-colons, double backlashes...

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing...seeing as how I just often list the artist's name in the Album Title, preceding the actual title of the album ("A Colores" by "Tristeza" becomes "Tristeza ~ A Colores"), the separate "Artist Name" field ended up being redundant, and since my player jumps from a genre selection to artist selection, and THEN to albums, I can also customize the artist field to further help me find what I'm looking for.

Thank God that ID3 tags are customizable like that...

Not to crap on Apple's technology, but I dearly decline "Genius" works with game music. The idea probably works well with recognized pop and the like. I like total freedom so I make my own lists. None of these auto features lure me.

To be clear - what is List view exactly?

Actually, I was fooling around with this today and - my bad - it's still there. You can disable the column with the cover art to make it a pure list now.