Tagging by Nationality

I saw this in the group description:
As for non-Japanese artists... tag them by their genre.
That doesn't make sense. If you're going to tag one country by it's nationality you should do it to others as well, not tag the others by genres.

I don't like the jpop and jrock labels either. Japanese is enough for nationality. If it's pop label it pop, if it's rock label it rock. Are we all such big of Japanophiles here that we actually think "jpop" and "jrock" are real genres? I mean come on, Japanese music is great and Japan is great, my favorite country even. But it's not the center of the universe. Tags like "jpop" and "jrock" make Japanese music fans look really bad.

You may say "but we also label Chinese Pop CPop and Korean pop KPop!".
Yeah..well..I don't like that either. Because then it's a form of occidentalism/asiaphilia. Which is just as bad.

You may say "but there's stuff like that elsewhere! What about krautrock and eurobeat?". I am being a bit picky I guess. I do absolutely hate the krautrock tag because it contains and ethnic slur. What if someone started calling Japanese rock "japrock"? Wouldn't make you too happy would it? And I'm not all that fond of the term eurobeat either. Oh, and I forgot USBM. That's stupid too. Just because people often think of Northern Europe when they think of black metal doesn't mean black metal from the US need some stupid usbm tag.

Anyway, my point is that nationality isn't a genre. While "Japanese", "German" and "Finnish" are perfectly good tags here on last.fm for people who have a certain love for music that's a certain nationality..nationality and genre shouldn't be melded together. Do you label American music as "Apop" or "Arock"?

The "Jpop" tag isn't any more acceptable than the anime tag.

Just for order porpouse, nothing more...as same as some ppl want or search for *german music* or *latin music*...even if is it pop, it isn't the same pop that in those countries, linguistic reasons, you know.

Is just to put some order on tags, carpets, stores, and the like.

altought, some ppl use it to form a new identity based on the j-pop =/= pop and the usual *music = style of life* thing...but nvm, Otakus, frikis, just ignore.

I agree with Aibom on this, though I'm guilty of it for the sake of conformity.

Using a term to distinguish that the band is somehow "separate" from others in the same genre, like j-pop vs pop, puts up walls around that band. I would love to see bands from Japan get more recognition abroad but pigeon-holing them into a useless and limiting box is just going to further solidify those barriers that so many have, especially in the wildly ethnocentric U.S. market. It perpetuates people's ideas of, "oh that's the Japanese and their thing, but My bands are REAL." I've even grown a distaste for saying "Japanese bands" and have replaced it with a less stereo-typifying "bands from Japan". A minor change that could make a world of difference if it were changed on the large scale. It puts the bands on the same playing field and still states their unique location, rather than placing some pseudo qualities onto the music itself ("the BAND is different, they're Japanese", as opposed to "this is another band that is like other bands in this genre AND they happen to be from Japan")

I won't hold my breath, though I'd love to see this change happen on a wide scale! I think it would allow the average casual mainstream music fan to be more open to bands from around the world (read: the dimwits in the U.S. that listen to Mariah Carey might not say, "Ew they don't sing in English? That's too strange for me!")

CF_JOPS, I agree with you also. Nationality doesn't help describe a band's sound. Not all "Norwegian" bands are Black Metal. I HAVE used the nationality tags to find new music that is related to the bands I like but aren't on the list, but that's all it's good for really. Well, and for discovering bands that are located in your area so you can see them live, perhaps.

CF_JOPS said:
Earlier i tagged japanese music with nationality, now i see, that has been totally stupid.

It really depends what you are looking for. I for example like to listen to music performed by an artist of a certain nationality. I often switch between Finnish, Russian, Swedish, American, Turkish, and Japanese music. Having the artists tagged by nationality helps in that.

But tags aren't harmfull if they are accurate. Tagging a band both japanese and rock does not take anything away; instead it allows the band to be listened by both 'japanese' and 'rock' tags. Or if you want to be more specific and listen to 'japanese rock', then it too is possible.

J-pop and j-rock tells nothing about the music, since I see people tagging heavy metal, punk rock, visual kei, gothic metal, pop rock, hardcore, etc. bands with the generic weaboo wapanese otaku j-rock tag, so it's not hard to find great absurds in bands' similar artists. And the sadest part is the isolation this tags cause, 陰陽座 is Iron Maiden with a front woman but still j-rock is there making them similar to L'Arc~en~Ciel.

I'm with the OP, using "japanese" and "heavy metal" with 陰陽座, for example, would be good for people interested only in japanese music and also for heavy metal fans looking for new bands.

EDIT: Since now I know tags are not the main variables used to calculate similar artists, lots of my points have no value, but I'll keep my protest there since these "tagging" affects the world out of Last.fm.

J-Rock is Jamaican rock. Or Jewish rock. Or Junkie rock. Or Jungle rock. Or... eh, forget it.

Yeah, it's a tag of Western origin. You can't find anything except the usual VK stuff under that tag anyways - so it's pretty obvious what people use them.

I think J-Pop is an appropriate tag, since it really is how the Japanese have labeled their pop music. If C-Pop and K-Pop are in use in their respective countries, then I have no problem with those tags either.

I believe Britpop is an appropriate tag too, since it's actually used in the recording industry and media.

As for tagging by nationality, the most accurate and agreeable way to do it is to tag artists and music as japanese, chinese, american, british and the like. This is the best way to do it. (Though it causes problems when we have someone like Esperanza, who is american but often sings in spanish! What a dilemma. :P)

@Liadz: "J-pop and j-rock tells nothing about the music, since I see people tagging heavy metal, punk rock, visual kei, gothic metal, pop rock, hardcore, etc. bands with the generic weaboo wapanese otaku j-rock tag" Agreed and I don't like the J-rock tag much either... but don't forget tags are not genres. I think of them more as umbrellas which groups of artists are under, and there's plenty of room for overlap. The Beach Boys are tagged as rock, which makes them similar to Nirvana. It makes sense and yet it doesn't.

If you're talking about "similar artists" as Last.fm defines them, they calculate them based upon users' listening habits - not tags.

And we all used to tag Paris Hilton as brutal death metal and she's still trash pop. :)

At the end of the day, tagging is purely individual and we can't be tag police or we'd forever be invading people's shoutboxes over details like these. :P

I actually understand that some people would tag it by nationality for convenience sake. It makes sense if someone is intending on listening to certain languages, they organize their library by nationality (if whatever the genre is doesn't matter) so its easier to find artists that sing in that language.

Same goes for LastFM, the tag makes it convenient for those looking for new music from a certain country.

The thing with labeling J-ANYTHING is that its extremely hard to do considering there are a lot of genre blends. Nothing bothers me more than seeing "J-Rock" on a band that sounds more like Noise Rock and Punk.

J-rock is a useless shit label that has no place near music at all.

I wish that those who use that tag would stick to their sugar sweet pink fluffy neko kawaii shitty bands and leave the few good Japanese bands/artists alone.

Also, when downloading a Japanese album, the latest was D's Vampire saga, the genre the ripper had entered was of course "J-rock", I raged so hard and when i calmed down I manually labeled each song of my own.

Fucking fangirlweeaboofuckwit-so kawaiifuck.