diff --git a/beets/autotag/mb.py b/beets/autotag/mb.py
index 3e0658317..122723db5 100644
--- a/beets/autotag/mb.py
+++ b/beets/autotag/mb.py
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ from __future__ import division, absolute_import, print_function
 import musicbrainzngs
 import re
 import traceback
+from collections import Counter
 from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 from beets import logging
@@ -458,9 +459,17 @@ def album_info(release):
         first_medium = release['medium-list'][0]
         info.media = first_medium.get('format')
 
-    genres = release.get('genre-list')
-    if config['musicbrainz']['genres'] and genres:
-        info.genre = ';'.join(g['name'] for g in genres)
+    if config['musicbrainz']['genres']:
+        sources = [
+                release['release-group'].get('genre-list', []),
+                release.get('genre-list', []),
+                ]
+        genres = Counter()
+        for source in sources:
+            for genreitem in source:
+                genres[genreitem['name']] += int(genreitem['count'])
+        info.genre = '; '.join(g[0] for g in sorted(genres.items(),
+                                                    key=lambda g: -g[1]))
 
     extra_albumdatas = plugins.send('mb_album_extract', data=release)
     for extra_albumdata in extra_albumdatas:
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index b438e29ec..c02fe455c 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -14,6 +14,12 @@ For packagers:
   be necessary.
   :bug:`4037` :bug:`4038`
 
+Major new features:
+
+* Include the genre tags from the release group when the musicbrainz genre
+  option is set, and sort them by the number of votes.  Thanks to
+  :user:`aereaux`.
+
 
 1.5.0 (August 19, 2021)
 -----------------------
diff --git a/docs/reference/config.rst b/docs/reference/config.rst
index aabe732c2..f300bd982 100644
--- a/docs/reference/config.rst
+++ b/docs/reference/config.rst
@@ -753,9 +753,10 @@ Default: ``[]``
 genres
 ~~~~~~
 
-Use MusicBrainz genre tags to populate the ``genre`` tag.  This will make it a
-semicolon-separated list of all the genres tagged for the release on
-MusicBrainz.
+Use MusicBrainz genre tags to populate (and replace if it's already set) the
+``genre`` tag.  This will make it a list of all the genres tagged for the
+release and the release-group on MusicBrainz, separated by "; " and sorted by
+the total number of votes.
 
 Default: ``no``