These are the corresponding genres for each of the eight bit integers stored in an ID3V1 mp3 tag.
This may differ depending on who implements the tagger.
Byte  Description
--------------------- 
  00 - Blues 
  01 - Classic Rock 
  02 - Country 
  03 - Dance 
  04 - Disco 
  05 - Funk
  06 - Grunge 
  07 - Hip-Hop 
  08 - Jazz 
  09 - Metal 
  10 - New Age 
  11 - Oldies 
  12 - Other
  13 - Pop 
  14 - R&B 
  15 - Rap 
  16 - Reggae 
  17 - Rock 
  18 - Techno 
  19 - Industrial 
  20 - Alternative 
  21 - Ska 
  22 - Death Metal 
  23 - Pranks 
  24 - Soundtrack 
  25 - Euro-Techno 
  26 - Ambient 
  27 - Trip-Hop 
  28 - Vocal 
  29 - Jazz+Funk 
  30 - Fusion 
  31 - Trance 
  32 - Classical 
  33 - Instrumental 
  34 - Acid 
  35 - House 
  36 - Game 
  37 - Sound Clip 
  38 - Gospel 
  39 - Noise 
  40 - Alternative Rock 
  41 - Bass 
  42 - Soul 
  43 - Punk 
  44 - Space 
  45 - Meditative 
  46 - Instrumental Pop
  47 - Instrumental Rock
  48 - Ethnic
  49 - Gothic 
  50 - Darkwave 
  51 - Techno-Industrial
  52 - Electronic
  53 - Pop-Folk
  54 - Eurodance
  55 - Dream 
  56 - Southern Rock 
  57 - Comedy 
  58 - Cult 
  59 - Gangsta 
  60 - Top 40 
  61 - Christian Rap 
  62 - Pop/Funk 
  63 - Jungle 
  64 - Native US 
  65 - Cabaret 
  66 - New Wave 
  67 - Psychadelic 
  68 - Rave 
  69 - Showtunes 
  70 - Trailer 
  71 - Lo-Fi 
  72 - Tribal 
  73 - Acid Punk 
  74 - Acid Jazz 
  75 - Polka 
  76 - Retro 
  77 - Musical 
  78 - Rock & Roll 
  79 - Hard Rock 
  80 - Folk 
  81 - Folk-Rock 
  82 - National Folk 
  83 - Swing 
  84 - Fast Fusion 
  85 - Bebop
  86 - Latin 
  87 - Revival 
  88 - Celtic 
  89 - Bluegrass 
  90 - Avantgarde 
  91 - Gothic Rock 
  92 - Progressive Rock 
  93 - Psychedelic Rock 
  94 - Symphonic Rock 
  95 - Slow Rock 
  96 - Big Band 
  97 - Chorus 
  98 - Easy Listening 
  99 - Acoustic 
100 - Humour 
101 - Speech 
102 - Chanson 
103 - Opera 
104 - Chamber Music 
105 - Sonata 
106 - Symphony 
107 - Booty Bass 
108 - Primus 
109 - Porn Groove 
110 - Satire 
111 - Slow Jam 
112 - Club 
113 - Tango 
114 - Samba 
115 - Folklore 
116 - Ballad
117 - Power Ballad
118 - Rhytmic Soul
119 - Freestyle 
120 - Duet 
121 - Punk Rock 
122 - Drum Solo 
123 - Acapella 
124 - Euro-House 
125 - Dance Hall 
126 - Goa 
127 - Drum & Bass 
The choice of genres in the Id3 tag struck me as being not only incomplete, but largely unaware its own bias.

The first time I dropped down that dropdown, I was prompted to distinguish between goth, industrial and goth-industrial. We can, in this byte distinguish between techno, euro-techno and trance. I find some of those boundaries hard enough to distinguish when listening.

But we cannot distinguish between baroque and romantic. Both are presumably gouped as classical, desipite the classical music scholars having long-ago agreed where to place each composition. The inclusion of duet, symphony and sonata is also a category error. This describes the form not the genre of the music. One could imagine a Punk sonata, a rock and roll fugue or a drum & bass duet.

When it came to categorising other material, they did not even have the catch-all cop-out term of world music. I wasn't expecting the makers of that listing to have the wherewithall to distinguish marabi from kwaito from kwela from mbqanga, but they could have at least grouped them all under, say african-jazz-pop.

It seems that their musical experience didn't even stretch to acknowledging the existence of this family of genres, but does dwell on the differences between techno-industrial, industrial and goth-industrial. A portrait of the list-maker emerges.

The whole concept of genre is problematic. Assigning genre to creative works is at best a form of historical hindsight or labelling. At worst it is an arbitrary guess. Many artist do not like to be pinned down to a particular genre, or reject the tag that they have been given.

The boundaries, for instance, between goa and psychedelic trance or between psychedelic trance and techno and trance are fluid and open to interpretation Anyway, new genres surface every year.

IMHO the genre is best represented as a string not a numeric code. I am informed that later versions of the tag support this as an option.

But ariels points out, this introduces a whole new set of problems in the form of vauge, missing, mispelled or wrong clasifications. But what else can we do?

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