This user's frustration is the quiet alarm that signals a much larger opportunity. When we see someone manually typing the genre for each new song into a spreadsheet of thousands, we don't see a problem with the user, we see a problem with the tool. The request is straightforward: "If I know the artist, and the artist has a consistent genre, just fill it in for me." That instinct is correct, and it reveals a fundamental truth about how data work should feel.
The practical challenge here is the "artist with multiple genres" scenario. A simple lookup formula would fail the moment you enter a band that crosses genres. This is where the conversation gets interesting. Instead of asking how to build a complex nested IF statement or a clunky VLOOKUP that requires a separate mapping table, the real question is whether your spreadsheet should be doing the heavy lifting at all. Excel 365 offers dynamic array formulas like XLOOKUP, but even that requires you to manually maintain a genre reference table. It is still a manual process dressed up in automation.
What this user needs is not a better formula, but a smarter relationship with their data. The spreadsheet already holds the answer; it knows that every time you typed "Radiohead," you typed "Alternative Rock." The tool should learn that pattern without requiring you to build a lookup table first. This is exactly the kind of repetitive, pattern-recognition task that AI-native tools handle effortlessly. The solution is not to write a more clever formula, but to adopt a system that watches your data as you enter it and offers the correct genre based on historical context. The technology exists to make this feel like magic, but it only works if the tool is built to learn from you, not the other way around.
So let us be direct: stop trying to make Excel into something it was never designed to be. If you are maintaining a spreadsheet that requires you to write a formula for every repetitive task, you have outgrown the tool. The most efficient approach is not to find the perfect formula, but to explore a spreadsheet that understands your data as it grows. Your music library deserves a system that learns your patterns, not one that forces you to teach it the same lesson every time you add a new song.