Multiple Genres in MP3 ID3 Tags

Multiple Genres in MP3 ID3 Tags

I know that ID3v2 supports adding multiple genre tags to a file but does any software support this? I have not seen any that does and I don’t understand why. Most music belong in multiple sub genres, take Fleetwood Mac for instance, it belongs in Rock, but also a sub category of Classic Rock. Most people just classify it as Classic Rock, but what if you want to here a mix of all Rock songs, then you would have to select each subgenre of Rock. Also imagine the issue of a song that people can not agree on what the subgenre is.

I know I am not the first to talk about this problem, but for some reason I have not seen a whole lot of activity in this area. I know most of us do not have our music classified with subgenres, but if no software supports them then how are we ever going to start.

I know that there are other technologies such as smart playlists, but until we incorporate the use of the ID3v2 tag the way it was meant to be used I don’t think it will be a mainstream feature. Does anyone know of a player/library that uses this technology? I have not tinkered with what happens on my iPod yet but I imagine it will only see the first genre and not the others.

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