beets-multigenre 1.0.2

Beets plugin to read all GENRE tags from audio files into a queryable field

beets-multigenre

A beets plugin that reads all GENRE tags from your audio files and stores them in a queryable flexible attribute.

The Problem

Beets only stores a single genre field per track. When taggers like Lidarr or MusicBrainz Picard write multiple GENRE tags to your files (e.g. Industrial Metal, Neue Deutsche HäRte, Alternative Metal, Electro-Industrial), beets discards all but the first one.

This means queries and smart playlists based on genre are unreliable — a Rammstein track tagged with 5 genres including Neue Deutsche HäRte would only match on Industrial Metal.

The Solution

beets-multigenre reads all GENRE tags directly from the audio file using mutagen and stores them as a semicolon-separated string in a flexible attribute (multi_genres by default). You can then query against this field using beets' regex query syntax.

Before:

$ beet list -f '$genre $album' artist:Rammstein
Industrial Metal Mutter
Industrial Metal Sehnsucht

After:

$ beet list -f '$multi_genres $album' artist:Rammstein
Industrial Metal;Neue Deutsche HäRte;Alternative Metal;Heavy Metal;Rock;Electronic;Industrial;Gothic Metal Mutter
Industrial Metal;Alternative Metal;Neue Deutsche HäRte;Rock;Industrial;Electronic;Metal Sehnsucht

Supported Formats

• FLAC (Vorbis comments)
• MP3 (ID3 TCON frame)
• OGG / OPUS (Vorbis comments)
• M4A / AAC (MP4 atoms)
• WavPack, Musepack, AIFF

Installation

Via pip (recommended)

pip install beets-multigenre

Manual

git clone https://github.com/abstract/beets-multigenre
cp beets-multigenre/beets_multigenre/__init__.py /path/to/your/beets/plugins/multigenre.py

Configuration

Add to your config.yaml:

plugins: multigenre

multigenre:
  field: multi_genres   # flexible attribute name (default: multi_genres)
  separator: ";"        # separator between genres (default: ;)
  auto: yes             # run automatically on import (default: yes)

Usage

Run manually across your library

beet multigenre

Run on a subset

beet multigenre artist:Rammstein
beet multigenre album:"Mutter"

Query by genre

# Regex match - catches any track with "Neue Deutsche" anywhere in multi_genres
beet list multi_genres::"Neue Deutsche"

# Exact substring match
beet list multi_genres:"Industrial Metal"

# Multiple genres (OR)
beet list multi_genres::"Neue Deutsche" multi_genres::"Industrial Metal"

Smart playlists

Use with the smartplaylist plugin:

smartplaylist:
  playlists:
    - name: 'Neue Deutsche Harte.m3u'
      query: 'multi_genres::"Neue Deutsche"'

    - name: 'Industrial Night.m3u'
      query: 'multi_genres::Industrial multi_genres::EBM multi_genres::"Neue Deutsche" multi_genres::"Electro-Industrial"'

    - name: 'Gothic & Darkwave.m3u'
      query: 'multi_genres::Gothic multi_genres::"Dark Wave" multi_genres::"Dark Ambient" multi_genres::"Death Rock"'

Why not just use lastgenre?

The lastgenre plugin fetches genres from Last.fm and stores up to count genres as a comma-separated string. This works but:

• Last.fm genre data may differ from MusicBrainz
• Overwrites genres already written by Lidarr/Picard
• Requires API calls and an internet connection
• Still limited to a single concatenated string field

beets-multigenre reads what's already in your files — no API calls, no overwriting, works offline, and respects the work your tagger already did.

Crontab / Automation

If you run beets imports on a schedule, add beet multigenre after the import:

0 * * * * (timeout 3600 beet import -A -q /music; beet multigenre; beet splupdate) > /dev/null 2>&1

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome at github.com/abstract/beets-multigenre.

License

MIT