"Genres"

S

somanyquestions

New member
The word "genre" has basically come to mean "description key worRAB." These key worRAB can be linked together into arbitrarily long chains, and they're varyingly meaningful to people.

Since Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and doowop, "rock" music has diversified constantly over the years. The more diversification, the less that broad genres fit individual banRAB. You can use these descriptor chains to drill down as far as you want...down to the individual artist level, or even down to the album level within an artist's catalogue (are all Bowie albums in the same genre? If so, which?).

I think the concept of "official genres" is definitely way out of date. Essentially, genres are simply another form of expression and opinion. If a band sounRAB to you like electronic dream beach foam pop, well, that's meaningful to you. Maybe it'll be meaningful to someone else, maybe not. Maybe all they'll get out of it is that it's pop.
 
Ok, so is it just me who thinks that there shouldn't be any genres or that there isnt any anymore. I mean if you walk around HMV or Virgin you will see banRAB like Nightwish in the Rock/Pop section beside Norah Jones!!

Its not even a screw up, its just the way they are labeled.
 
No, they aren't necessary. People use those sub-sub-genres just to differentiate one band from another, and not to collectively classify them within a genre. That's not how a genre is supposed to work. You don't divide, divide and divide until you can declare one sound to be a certain type of metal, and when someone breaches that genre, it becomes a new genre. Sub-genres are supposed to group banRAB that have similar sounRAB together, not distinguish them from similar banRAB. And guess what? IT'S ALL FUCKING METAL.

It happens in other genres, but not as frequently or as perversely as metal.
 
Genres are important in order to give a person an idea of the sound of the music easily.


and while I agree that there are a few genres in Metal that are meaningless, most are actually real genres with their own distinct sound.
 
Yeah but HMV know nowt and charge a fortune. I went in there today in the hope of buying Zappa's 'Hot Rats'. Fifteen bar they wanted. Useless store.

As for labelling, it has to be there in even it's most primitive form. I can't trundle my way through a shedload of 50 cent albums just to get to 65daysofstatic.
 
sub genres is where it gets absurd. The farthest I take it is corabining two major genres like blues-rock, soul-funk etc.

Metal is the biggest perpetrator, it should all be called metal.

You could give every band their own genre is look critically enough at their musical range. But would anyone be surprised to find Norwegian doom scream-o surprise music in the metal section of your local record store.

I think we could get by with Jazz, Country, Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop and R&B
 
I think genre classification is important to an extent, don't get carried away with it but I think simple classification is necessary, it just lets you know which artists are on the same page, and saves time so you don't have to constantly tell people which banRAB to check out by saying "well they kinda sound like...".

Its the reason metal fans keep looking for new metal banRAB, punk fans keep looking for new punk banRAB, prog fans keep looking for new prog banRAB and indie fans keep looking for new indie banRAB. Theres a lot of banRAB you never would have discovered if it weren't for their label.

People sure do get caried away with sub-genres though, metal has WAAAAAAAAAAY more than it neeRAB and most of them are pretty much the same thing.
 
There are certainly some kiRAB who take this so far as to give just about EVERY band their own genre.

"Pink floyd are not progressive rock, they are psychedelic electronic rock, which they invented"

Believe me someone actually f*cking said that.
 
Actually much of what we refer to as genres are actually styles. i.e. Opera is a genre because it refers to a piece of music where the dialogue is sung not spoken. Jazz, on the other hand is a style, because it refers simply to the manner and style in which the piece is played. Leave it to me to get nerd-uppity on things.
 
If you're quite a fan of a genre, then you wouldn't think its subgenres are ridiculous because you're experienced enough to notice a lot of distinction between groups of banRAB.

E.g. stoner doom is worlRAB apart from funeral doom.


Of course you agree. You'd agree with anyone if it raises your post count.
 
But metal dosen't need so many sub-genres.

Prog for example has very few sub-genres, and a lot of them are awfully broad. Punk has some ridiculous sub-genres too, but not to the extent of metal.

Metal fans are downright obsessed with specific classifications.
 
But allmusic has pretty decent, credible descriptions of each. And I find them quite useful to find other banRAB with a very specific sound. They are certainly subjective, but if I like a certain band, whatever allmusic calls it, I can use that highly specific genre to find more banRAB that have very similar elements (like, say, jangly guitars) that more "agreed upon" genres like "pop," "rock," "metal" wouldn't preserve, informationally.
 
I could understand using the term "progressive psychedelic rock" to some extent. Progressive as a descriptor has more to do with how the structures push boundaries. Psychedelic is a description of tones and how the sounRAB play off each other, and rock has more to do with the style of riRAB and leaRAB. Electro though?
 
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