Bash one-liner: List mp3 music ID3v2 tag genre stats
Brett TolbertID3 is the language of the metadata in your mp3 (or m4a) files. There are two major versions of ID3 tags: ID3v1 and ID3v2. ID3v2 has many features such as custom genre tags. Gone are the days of ID3v1 which limited users to a small set of predefined genre tags.
I got frustrated with putting effort into playlists only to lose them, so I have decided to redirect my effort into getting my ID3v2 genre tags set to my liking in my offline library of some ~8000 tracks. Having the genre tag set to the specific sub-genre makes my library much more navigable. I don't really need playlists any more, but I can now easily create them by adding one or more genres in their entirety.
Some older tools like mp3info can´t read ID3v2 tags, and id3v2 can't read ID3v2.4 tags, so I recommend ffprobe. Demo:
$ find /data/Music -type f \( -iname "*.mp3" -o -iname "*.m4a" \) -exec ffprobe {} \; 2>&1 | egrep "genre" | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn -k1.4,7
1182 genre : Indie Rock
915 genre : Classic Rock
586 genre : Classic Prog
475 genre : Alternative Rock
426 genre : Funk Rock
330 genre : Country
326 genre : Post-Hardcore
214 genre : Electronica
206 genre : Classical
204 genre : Indie Folk
173 genre : Electropop
173 genre : Brett Tolbert
158 genre : Alternative Metal
149 genre : Post-Punk
145 genre : Pop Rock
138 genre : Emo / Pop-Rock
127 genre : Britpop
124 genre : New Wave français
108 genre : Post-Grunge
100 genre : Electronic (Instrumental)
89 genre : Hip-Hop
83 genre : Post-Punk Revival
79 genre : Folk Punk
78 genre : Desert Rock
76 genre : Other
76 genre : Funk (Instrumental)
72 genre : Grunge
69 genre : Pop-Punk
65 genre : Folk
61 genre : Rap Rock
56 genre : Southern Rock
55 genre : Post-Industrial
54 genre : Neo-Psychedelic Rock
51 genre : Pop
46 genre : Progressive Pop
44 genre : Punk français
42 genre : Soft Rock
41 genre : Post-Rock
41 genre : Electronic w/ vocals
35 genre : Indie Pop
26 genre : Punk
26 genre : Psychedelic Rock
26 genre : Industrial Metal
26 genre : Industrial
24 genre : Soundtrack
22 genre : Progressive Metal
21 genre : Punk Rock
21 genre : Math Rock
20 genre : Pop française
17 genre : Reggae
17 genre : Metal
16 genre : Heavy Metal
15 genre : Blues
14 genre : Indie
13 genre : Industrial Rock
13 genre : Dub
12 genre : Dream Pop
12 genre : Blues Rock
11 genre : R&B
11 genre : New Wave
10 genre : Reggae Rock
10 genre : Chillwave
9 genre : Rock français
8 genre : Experimental
7 genre : Progressive Rock
7 genre : Post-Black Metal
6 genre : Joey Buxton
6 genre : Funk Metal
5 genre : Folk Rock
5 genre : Backing Tracks
4 genre : Post-Metal
3 genre : Soul
3 genre : Gospel
3 genre : genre
3 genre : Folk Pop
3 genre : Drumline
3 genre : Comedy
3 genre : Bluegrass
2 genre : World
2 genre : Ska Punk
2 genre : Nu Metal français
2 genre : Nu Metal
2 genre : Metalcore
2 genre : Hip-Hop français
1 genre : Surf Rock
1 genre : Sports
1 genre : Miscellaneous
1 genre : Jazz
1 genre : Heartland Rock
1 genre : Grindcore
1 genre : Glam Rock
1 genre : General Country
For editing the ID3 tags of your files, I recommend Gnome EasyTAG. Gnome Rhythmbox also works.
For ripping CDs, I recommend K3b.
Addendum: Ignore my first attempt below using the id3v2 command, as you can see, it was not counting most of my tags (id3v2.4?). ffprobe is the way to go, even though it's much slower.
$ find /data/Music -type f \( -iname "*.mp3" -o -iname "*.m4a" \) -exec id3v2 -R {} \; | grep TCON | sed "s/TCON://" | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn -k1.4,7
668 Classic Rock (1)
568 Classic Prog (255)
344 Funk Rock (255)
287 Country (2)
173 Brett Tolbert (255)
131 Classical (32)
99 Indie Folk (255)
76 Other (12)
54 Folk Punk (255)
54 Folk (80)
50 Electronica (255)
35 Alternative Rock (255)
30 Hip-Hop (7)
28 Pop (13)
26 Industrial (19)
23 Soundtrack (24)
19 Alternative Metal (255)
15 Metal (9)
15 Blues (0)
14 Indie (131)
12 Progressive Metal (255)
9 Punk (43)
9 New Wave (66)
6 Grunge (6)
5 R&B (14)
3 Soul (42)
3 Gospel (38)
3 genre (255)
3 Comedy (57)
3 Bluegrass (89)
2 Reggae (16)
2 Punk Rock (121)
1 Sports (255)
1 Miscellaneous (255)
1 Joey Buxton (255)
1 Jazz (8)
1 Heavy Metal (137)
1 Heartland Rock (255)
1 General Country (255)
1 Electropop (255)
1 Dream Pop (255)
1 Chillwave (255)
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