# How to work with (sub)genres in foobar? **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [April 23, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-work-with-sub-genres-in-foobar/17885 "2016-04-23T19:06:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aricley96](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@aricley96](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/aricley96)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-work-with-sub-genres-in-foobar/17885/1 "2016-04-23T19:06:14Z")
Okay, as the title says, how do you work with multiple genres? I'm a very detailed person and want my music to be categorized correctly. I'll give an example of my situation: I mainly listen to metal, so I'll use that as a good example, because it confuses me more so than any other genre. And the music program I'm using is foobar2000. The band "Red Fang" according to metal-archives is Stoner Metal and Rock. So initially, this is how I tagged it: Metal\Stoner\\Rock. This is how it shows in foobar: you can see how tagging other bands shows up as well ![](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/1X/42e66039561fd035eec96f1fdebd45678cfedae6.png) I don't find that to be correct [this applies to other bands as well]. I wanted them to appear as separate genres. So if a band has multiple genres (e.g., Doom/Sludge metal), they'd show up under each one individually --- not "Doom, Sludge" as one genre. It occurred to me that Rock is the umbrella genre and that things should look something like this: ![](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/1X/5da468e200292e4d548d58d5aaa818177a3fd258.png) How would I go about tagging bands this way in mp3tag and it showing correctly in foobar? can it be done? or am I better off just placing each band with one genre and going about it that way? A good example that also has me baffled currently is the band "Kadavar", they're Stoner Rock (metal), Hard Rock and Psychedelic rock. I'd rather them be tagged with each genre as I showed in the example. I don't know how to just... pick _one_ when they have more than one genre incorporated in their music. Is this even possible? Thanks for any feedback. ![](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/1X/42e66039561fd035eec96f1fdebd45678cfedae6.png) ![](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/1X/5da468e200292e4d548d58d5aaa818177a3fd258.png) ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2016, 9:31am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-work-with-sub-genres-in-foobar/17885/2 "2016-04-24T09:31:21Z")
It all depends on the player: it has to cope with the entries in GENRE. You can create multiple fields of the type GENRE (which, I think, you already did withMetal\Stoner\\Rock: here Rock should be separate from Metal\Stoner as MP3tag uses \\ as indicator that you have 2 fields of the same kind). Still, I think it is the track that belongs to a certain genre, not the band. So it should be easy to put "Sludge" into genre for one track and Doom for the other. Actually, I do not think that any player has a listing of Genre by Band. You will always see the genre and then all the tracks with that feature but never a listing of bands and a summary of all the genres. So try multi-value fields and see what they do for your requirements. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2026, 12:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-work-with-sub-genres-in-foobar/17885/3 "2026-02-09T12:26:13Z")
Closed on February 9, 2026, 12:26pm UTC