In the 90's, I was into Breakbeat Hardcore and then later Jungle, which transformed into Drum & Bass, which was subdivided over time into Ragga, Neurofunk, Tech Step, Hard Step, Jump-Up, Clown Step, Liquid Funk, Ambient Drum & Bass, Drumstep and so on.
Of course, what I understand under "Drum & Bass" is very different from a 18 year-old teenager who thinks late-period Pendulum is the greatest thing on earth.
Now, during the early 00's a lot of the old-schoolers were annoyed with the direction drum and bass took. The tracks became cheesier and cheesier, and a lot of the old vibe was gone.
They turned to Garage, Grime and Breaks and found a fertile playing ground in the fledgling Dubstep scene. Lo' and behold, there it was, the fat dubby bass of their youth.
Alas, again, an 18-year old teenager today has a very different picture of "Dubstep" compared to that of the people who originated the sound. No more dub, a lot of cheese. Somewhat similar to the entire drum and bass story. The genre has been appropriated by the masses.
And well, the circle goes on and on. The same thing applies to older genres such as "Electro", which in the 80's meant something entirely different from what it is now.
That article reads exactly like one written today about dubstep or whatever, except with less pessimism. Which is understandable I guess, it must have been hard to be miserable writing about hardcore rave music in 1992.
Makes me think of the Clash dissing Paul Weller and the Jam for not being punk ("they got Burton suits, they think it's funny, turning rebellion into money"). That tension between style and righteousness.
This is on Wikipedia, but there's no source:
"...a jibe at an unnamed group who wear Burton suits, taken by many to be The Jam (though in an NME article of the time, Strummer claimed the actual target was the power pop fad hyped by journalists as the next big thing in 1978) and the lyric concludes that the new groups are in it solely to be famous and for the money."
I also thought it was aimed at the Jam, as it was right after they (the Jam) announced they were voting conservative.
However, looking back... well, the Clash also turned rebellion into money. They of course kept themselves more real, and they were way less packaged, but still.
I see the same thing happening in metal. When I was in highschool, there were a few genres -- mostly 'thrash/speed', 'death', 'black', 'progressive' and maybe a couple more. In college I kind of got away from metal, and in my late 20's got back into it. After getting back into it, I thought "what the hell happened?!!?" There are now so many genres, I don't even know where to start. The hardcore punk of the 80's and 90's was now a legitimate "metal" genre, and every band that had even a hint of hardcore in it got "-core" added to their label. So now you have 'thrashcore' 'deathcore', and my favorite, 'metalcore'. Hardcore was originally supposed to designate a band that was a punk band that incorporated metal aspects into their songs. So it was already a mix of metal and punk, so what the hell is 'metalcore' supposed to be?? A metal band with aspects of punk, I suppose, but I still think the label sucks.
Then you have 'progressive' added to anything that isn't consistently in 4-4 time. Or the even dumber label, 'math metal'. There are even subgenres of prog now, including the dumbest sounding name ever, 'Djent,' which is supposed to be the sound that an extended range guitar makes when palm muting a low string through some shitty digital distortion.
I don't even want to get into the "post-" prefix either. The first time you see a redditor talk about the "post-hardcore progressive deathcore" band they love, you feel like shooting yourself in the face.
No offense, but your comment reminds me all too much about the elitism that surrounds music criticism. I listen to a wide range of metal. I, for one, encourage the experimentation and the cross pollination with other genres.
Who really cares whether this, for example: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry0dHtwD4TU) is metal or not? Mostly people who care more about being "fucking metal" than music. Is it such a surprise that liking a kind of music can be about more than just social capital?
Yes, as genres get more complex, genre labels also become more complex. And sometimes the defining characteristics aren't clear. So what? This isn't a bad thing. If all "prog" was the same, then it'd be boring. There'd be no point in having yet another prog band. You'd be constrained by the label into doing a certain thing. People rightly chose not to do that. A genre gets you 80% there in terms of guessing what a band sounds like, and that's okay.
Seriously.. that's not metal. Just because a metal band once made a song that sounded a little like something on that album (when they crossed over to general acceptance) doesn't change the objective FACT that it is a sad version of some prog rock crap from the 70's.
Javascript is not strongly typed. Nothing can change that fact.
Genres in music aren't more complex now. They are becoming more meaningless. When the new set of kids come through and don't understand the historical context and meaning to the way the same term lumped music tone and song structure together, it puts on display how much "music" IS just fashion. Metal implies a certain set of social perceptions that the listener wants to evoke, but the correlation to the music is all gone.
Maybe someone wants to wear the metal coat of armor instead of being labelled a pansy light-alt-rock fan, but that link is more the latter than the former.
So many times, the genres' names sound more like how someone wants to present themselves philosophically vs. what is actually engendered in the production of the sound being labelled. Minimal house, neurofunk, metal, death metal, etc.
And there is no point in ever having another prog band or song. Same with jam bands and songs.
I'm sorry it came off as elitism, I definitely didn't mean it as such. I listen to bands from pretty much all the genres I mention, I mainly have a problem with the labelling itself.
You are so right about this. I think the only thing worse is that through it all, whatever band you like is NOT METAL. Only the three sub-sub-sub-genres that I like are true metal.
They're useful on a personal level but not on a broader level.
When you want to listen to some Drum & Bass, you already have a personal classification of the music style and artists that you're looking for. It's going to be different from someone getting into that genre right now but if you wanted to listen to what they wanted to listen to, I'm guessing you already have some personal term for it (Nu, progressive, modern vs classic, ect.).
When talking to other people and using music services, that all breaks down and you usually start going by similar artists or meaningful tags. Similar artists is an inefficient way to classify your music (both in your mind and in your folders) and meaningful tags works but requires significant effort
to actually keep them 'correct' (and if they're not correct and just for personal use, you might as well use genre's).
Super fucking useful, especially with a chronological qualifier. I would pay $1000 to listen to "90s dance" versus "Contemporary Country", and I don't even love "90s dance".
Philosophically, an answer is probably is above my pay grade. That said, time has always been a factor to how we understand and label music. Rock today is very different from Elvis, but that doesn't mean we need to throw out genres as a classification system.
Practically speaking, as paying a Spotify user, I really dislike their "browse new releases" tool. Browsing by genre, even some basic ones, would be a HUGE improvement. And, I'd love to follow a micro-genre or two.
I've noticed that electronic music seems to really embrace these extremely granular genres, compared to other types of music. Any idea why this is the case, or is my perception (as someone not really familiar with electronic music) inaccurate?
Not to mention the examples given for some old genres I used to know are horribly misrepresented here... genres are totally useless - then hindered a bit more by the newest wave of genre name factory music critics/writers.
It seems like tags might be a better solution to classifying music than over-broad categories like "rock".
Making genres more specific and granular just makes categorization more confusing and contentious. But use of multiple tags to categorize a song could allow different people to simultaneously apply the labels they prefer.
Or perhaps a better solution would be "x sounds like y, z, etc."
It seems like tags might be a better solution to classifying music than over-broad categories like "rock".
Very much so; I've lost count of the number of times I've wished that players would recognize more than one genre tag; heck, even allmusic.com had multiple "styles" for their listings.
Of course, the real problem is human language, it's subtleties, and how people (ab)use it.
These genres come from people talking about music using whatever organic / natural words they use to describe music. We've done the work to map those into single-term "genres," as it's been shown many listeners appreciate the flat categorization. There are similarities between genres in the API, so you can quickly see which genres sound like others.
But Genres already are, effectively, tags. Depending on implementation, artists, albums or songs are given one or many genres.
If by tags, you mean user-driven categorization by arbitrary text, that's an even harder problem. Tags can be spelled differently and mean the same thing. Or they can be spelled the same and mean completely different things. What you mean by "punk" and what I mean by "punk" are different. Possibly radically different. If tags are to be useful at all, you still need one authority who decides specifically what each tag means.
Some bands cross genres quite comfortably. One of my own bands does some material that is basically "If Lilith Fair had a prog band" (so both progressive rock and "Lilith"), but other material that is straight up parody in the Weird Al style ("filk" or "dementia", neither of which I found on the list).
The problem isn't with genres, it's with trying to put bands in them.
They pretty much nail the limitations of "genre" in the second paragraph. It's a blunt way to organize a record store, when you can only group physical products one way.
Genres are deeply ingrained in people's heads, but they're a vestige from record stores and radio stations with limited playlists targeted at specific mass-market demographic points. The more you listen and explore on your own, the less meaningful they are.
Sure, people say things like, "well I'm listening to a lot of jazz these days." They might even specify "bebop." But those tags are only slightly meaningful, and as others have illustrated in the comments, it's still limited and misleading. And whatever tag you decide to use has a different meaning for everyone who uses it.
Listen to serious record collectors or music aficionados talk about music... nobody really talks about genres. They talk about bands and musicians and songs. And many of the relationships between the bands and musicians and songs they're talking about span or confound most notions of "genre."
When it comes to products which use music genres, I think they serve best as boot-strapping discovery tools for people who don't know much about music. They're good for the person who comes in saying "I don't know anything about Country music." Having a section that presents some "definitive" (yes scare quotes) Country music might be helpful. As people develop their own tastes, genres become not so useful.
I've worked at three different companies, one concert promoter and two streaming music services, where "genre" was deemed to be an important component of the presentation or the product. And 3 out of 3 implementations I've seen only resulted in contention and dissatisfaction. It always came down to one person or small group of people defining categories so hopelessly inadequate that nobody who cared about music was really happy with them. In the end very few customers used features which depended on grouping things by genre, and algorithmic suggestions ended up being much more highly favored.
Anyway, my general opinion is "genres suck." I'm glad EchoNest is tackling it dynamically and providing an API for it. Maybe it will improve the experience for products which have focused on the experience of browsing Genres.
This is my experience with movies as well. I find the use of genres (a la Netflix style of taste profile builder) annoying. Why should I be shoe - boxed as a comedy movie watcher or a horror movie watcher? Maybe, I only watch specific comedy movies that are made by Judd Apatow? Is there a genre for me then?
On the other hand, this ingraining of genres is everywhere. Fiction for example. Why are you supposed to be into Fantasy just because you read Tolkien?
According to this 'Moombahton' (a 9-day wonder that emerged about 18 months ago after someone deliberately played a Reggaeton record at the wrong speed) accounts for more music than 'Techno'. Sorry but 'LOL no.'
discogs.com is a much better resource for the music taxonomist.
Music Popcorn reminds me of a favorite idea I'll never use: a self-organizing mp3 dj. It simply makes a weak link between any two songs that get played in order, makes an anti-link between a song that gets skipped and the previous song, and then makes stronger links for awhile, presuming the user is paying attention if she's skipping songs. It gives some weight to playlists, but not too much: if you want the playlist you play it, so we have to be careful not to burn grooves in the network that way.
This would make the 'random' mode function better, so that when I'm listening to relaxing music in the evening and get served bass music, skipping it makes that less likely to happen in the future. The player itself doesn't know what 'genres' are, though it knows albums, artists, and playlists.
If you look at the history of music as a whole, rock is not ill defined. It's a pop music movement from the last 60 years, with a lot of similar characteristics. Of course, it sells itself as a myriad of subgenres, because part of it's idea as a musical movement and as a commercial product is to be very specifically tailored to it's target audience, but "Asking for Rock is only slightly better than 'Play me some songs that are music.'" it's not true, from 'Play me something done in the last 2200 years from anywhere on earth' to 'Play something done from 1960 to 2013 that identifies itself as some subgenre of the Rock family' there is an enormous difference.
I was all prepared to be cynical about this, but their big genre diagram both included our household's favorite obscure genre ("nl folk", ie Newfoundland folk) and started off playing a track which was clearly in the genre but not in our very extensive collection. Cudos to them!
I found it interesting that they having "Video Game Music" listed as a genre. I'm not sure you can classify video game music under a single genre.
I listen to video game music quite a bit (some sub-genres more than others), but you can find pretty much every genre listed here in at least one video game.
Sure, there may be a few video games that feature music that doesn't fall into any other "genre", but if somebody told me to describe what video game music sounded like, I couldn't do it, like I could with most other genres.
I don't really care, I know this is just someone's interpretation of a genre. I just found it interesting and thought it was worth mentioning.
So I used the Echonest API on my final masters project, which created a shared music taste profile based on people in a given location, and used Echonest's built in smart playlist to play music in the space.
As a part of the application, I also built a D3 visualization quite similar to the one in this article for the tastes of the individuals and the tastes of the location.
It's amazing how much you can learn about a person's taste, given the combination of their genre tastes. <hipsterbash> For instance, you can safely assume that if the person likes hipster-electro-pop, their love for old western twang country might be out of irony.
</hipsterbash>
Interesting to see, as I've been working to break out the traditional "dozens of" talk show genres into "hundreds of" with Player FM's podcast directory (https://player.fm).
This visualisation is way cooler than my side menu though :).
I see tags are mentioned in the discussion here. Tags/keywords are great for power users, but most people just don't think "I want to listen to X and Y without Z". They just think "I want to listen to Electrohouse" etc.
we're adding j-core now, thanks for the suggestion!
sxsw is why this is special, we will be adding and changing these over time. It's clear that genres don't have to directly correlate with musical style.
In the 90's, I was into Breakbeat Hardcore and then later Jungle, which transformed into Drum & Bass, which was subdivided over time into Ragga, Neurofunk, Tech Step, Hard Step, Jump-Up, Clown Step, Liquid Funk, Ambient Drum & Bass, Drumstep and so on.
Of course, what I understand under "Drum & Bass" is very different from a 18 year-old teenager who thinks late-period Pendulum is the greatest thing on earth.
Now, during the early 00's a lot of the old-schoolers were annoyed with the direction drum and bass took. The tracks became cheesier and cheesier, and a lot of the old vibe was gone.
They turned to Garage, Grime and Breaks and found a fertile playing ground in the fledgling Dubstep scene. Lo' and behold, there it was, the fat dubby bass of their youth.
Alas, again, an 18-year old teenager today has a very different picture of "Dubstep" compared to that of the people who originated the sound. No more dub, a lot of cheese. Somewhat similar to the entire drum and bass story. The genre has been appropriated by the masses.
And well, the circle goes on and on. The same thing applies to older genres such as "Electro", which in the 80's meant something entirely different from what it is now.
So in a sense, how useful are genres really?