Genre Coverage Map: The State of the Lanes, July 2026
This is a working map, not an essay. It records which genre lanes in the
collection have basic essay coverage as of July 2026, what is queued, and
when to revisit. The lane list is provisional — it is assembled from the
essays written so far and the ratings data cited in the four-lanes
acquisition guide. The definitive list comes from the ratings parquet
itself: python -m corpus.music_insights_generator --coverage-report on
Harvey reads the live genre clusters and prints coverage against this
corpus directly.
The lanes¶
| Lane | Ratings evidence | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Hip-hop | 9,189 tracks, 726 rated (7.9%) | Covered — early-2000s essay, turntablism essay, four-lanes analysis |
| Reggae & dub | 4,203 tracks, 313 rated (7.4%) | Covered — late-2000s reggae essay; 1970s dub & roots essay added July 2026 |
| Jazz & soul | 4,327 tracks, 170 rated (3.9%) | Covered — first essay added July 2026 |
| Trip-hop & downtempo | 906 tracks, 91 rated (10%) | Covered — Bristol-scene essay plus four-lanes analysis |
| Post-metal & sludge | rated depth confirmed by two generator picks | Covered — two essays (turn-of-century, early 2000s) |
| Songwriters & folk | generator pick, late 80s/early 90s | Covered — one essay |
| Indie | generator pick, late 1990s | Covered — one essay |
| Experimental | generator pick, early 2000s | Covered — one essay |
| Classical | education track, minimalist targets | Thin — Beethoven guide only; twelve further composers queued |
What is on tap¶
- Weekly essay (Sunday 07:15, automatic): keeps deepening lanes the exporter's weekly pick surfaces.
- Coverage mode (new):
python -m corpus.music_insights_generator --coveragegenerates the next uncovered lane from the live genre clusters, so lanes the map above cannot see (anything in the parquet that has never surfaced as a weekly pick) get a first essay. Run it whenever a top-up is wanted; it is a no-op once every lane is covered. - Classical queue:
python -m corpus.classical_education --allgenerates guides for the top-rated composers (Mahler, Shostakovich, Bach, Pärt, Górecki, Richter and others already wired into the corpus search terms). Run one or two at a time and judge the dry-run first. - Film: six essays live (Kubrick, Loach, Dr. Strangelove, political cinema, discovery list, comparison). Generation lives in plex-music-system Phase 4; next batch should target the unrated directors flagged in the discovery essay.
Revisit¶
Review this map in October 2026. The check is one command on Harvey
(--coverage-report); if new genres have accumulated ratings since July,
they will show as uncovered lanes. Ratings run ~5.6% of the library
(6,178 of 110,644 tracks in June 2026) — if that figure has moved
materially, re-run the four-lanes style acquisition analysis as well.