Why genres don’t matter

A record exec once told me that the reason they had to categorize music by genre was so people would know where to find it in the record store. He followed that up by noting that genres were needed so records could be pitched to the appropriate radio formats. That conversation took place 35 years ago. No wonder the old-school music business is on life support. Anyone who is relevant or strives to be has no idea what those things are anymore.

Except for one day a year in April ( Record Store Day is the 18th in 2015), the record store has yielded to the algorithms of Pandora, Spotify and their ilk. Streaming services finished the bloodletting that iTunes and illegal downloads started. Radio is the fourth part of an unholy quartet of streaming, social media and downloads. Fans get hip to new music through social media, then stream or download and, lastly, listen to radio to confirm their tastes rather than shape them. Radio listenership has declined by 13.3 percent between 2010 and 2013. Of course, being able to use your iPod/Pad/Phone in cars contributed to this decline. The decrease in the Contemporary Hit format (at one time known as Top 40 but now more like Top 10 in terms of airtime) has been the greatest. Younger listeners didn’t grow up with radio front and center. Country, which is the number one format as of 2012, owes its success to younger listeners. Why? Artist availability (greeting fans before live shows, offering perks for loyalty) and the audience’s belief in a culture that the music reinforces are a couple of reasons. For example, country fans buy more American-made cars that any other radio demographic group. I guess all those mentions of Chevy trucks have paid off. There will probably be an even steeper decline in radio listenership once streaming media and wi-fi are widely available in cars and trucks. Your favorite Pandora mix or Spotify setlist can now follow you anywhere.

Genres are a crutch for incompetent music writers. What do such vague terms as Americana, metal (which has more subgenres than most of us have had hot dinners) or country mean? Do any of those genres convey anything about how the music sounds? Not really. Of a piece with genre fail is the incessant comparison of fledgling artists to existing performers. This is not limited to the older, increasingly fossilized generation of writers. Look at Pitchfork. Their pool of writers contains a lot of millennials, and you see the same issue.

Genres don’t help artists either. Say the artist has a sense of curiosity. They don’t make the same album over and over. Calle13, the mercurial, restless duo from Puerto Rico, was originally identified as reggaeton artist. They sound nothing like Daddy Yankee or Don Omar, two of the genre’s hitmakers. There is an identifiable drunken-marching-band rhythm — identified as soca meets dancehall, which is of little help — that Calle 13 employs now and then. it’s the same that rhythm buttresses quite a few reggaeton records. However, describing the rhythm and other sounds is more precise than any genre label. Any band that works with Seun Kuti, Ruben Blades and Tom Morello has a lot more going on than reggaeton. This genre designation has been as much of a challenge as the fact that the band sings and raps in Spanish. Café Tacuba, the band from Mexico who has collaborated with Calle 13 as well as the Kronos Quartet, faces the same issue. They sing in Spanish. Their restless intellect makes them like musical magpies. They pick up items from Mexican regional sounds like banda and add something like electronica. That description is woefully inadequate for what this band is capable of.

As the late Townes Van Zandt once said, “All music is folk music, because it’s just folks makin’ it.” That statement drills down into another genre shortcoming, which is the lie of “authenticity.” For example, Arcade Fire (slightly multicultural; plays arenas; dresses with spirit and giant papier mache heads) is considered authentic. They are “heroes to a generation of indie rock fans,” according to Rolling Stone. Justin Timberlake, loathed by most critics but very reverential about the many strands of Memphis music that shaped him, is considered a cheesy pop star. The English critics took great delight in getting the boot in, describing the second part of “The 20/20 Experience” as “dragging on like a hostage saga.” The record’s not great, but really?

I hate to keep going back to Americana, but it’s the plantation most worthy of torching for the high regard in which it holds authenticity. Blues has its own entrance and and its own water fountain but the bus still arrives at the same station. There are very few African American acts identified with the genre. However, the New York Times said Americana is “the coolest music scene today.” Oh my.

Consider Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch, two of Americana’s more celebrated practitioners. Krauss came from a university town in Illinois — hardly the white-trash existence that leads to a first-hand understanding of bluegrass staple dying-time ballads such as ‘I’ll Fly Away” and “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Krauss began her career as a bluegrass fiddle prodigy, but has moved on to collaborate with Robert Plant. John Waite and Kenny Rogers, among others.

Welch’s parents wrote music for “The Carol Burnett Show.” They lived in North Carolina until Welch was three, and she claims that she remembers the rural, old-time music (mutations of Elizabethan folk songs that are not particularly blues-based) from then. I’m somewhat skeptical about her post-toddler musical memory being awakened by a collegiate encounter with the Stanley Brothers. Her musical leanings were more likely incubated at the famed Crossroads high school in Santa Monica before then.

But here’s the point: Krauss and Welch sought out music that had meaning to them and made it their own. This music wasn’t necessarily part of their lifestyle portfolio. Are they talented? Sure. Are they authentic? No, but does it matter?

Shelby Lynne’s story is more in keeping with the traditional “authentic” Americana narrative. Lynne saw her mom murdered by her dad before he shot himself when Lynne was 17. She and younger sister Alison Moorer — now married to Steve Earle — moved in with relatives. During her first decade in Nashville, she made a series of glossy but forgettable mainstream country records. When she fled the starmaking machinery around 1999, “I Am Shelby Lynne” was the result. It garnered an avalanche of critical praise. Fifteen years later, it’s about to be re-released. Lynne said the album came from a vulnerable, desperate place and she ought to know.

Lynne has a lot of the unofficial Americana bona fides. She’s from down South (born in Quantico, Va.; raised in Mobile, Ala.) She really knows from dysfunction. She escaped the soul-destroying machinery of Nashville. Does any of this make Lynne more “authentic” than Krauss or Welch? No, but I made the mistake of pointing out that Welch’s background wasn’t exactly hardscrabble on a Facebook friend’s timeline. The resulting flame war was breathtaking in its inanity. I wasn’t saying that Welch was unlistenable or somehow not capable of conveying great feeling. But my argument foe seemed to think that by bringing up her background I had told him there was no “authentic” Santa Claus. This is among the evils that genres can do.

Genres can oversimplify. What is world music? The short answer is “other.” It’s often not sung in English, but being colored and from below the Equator seem to be primary qualifications. So that covers Fela, Youssou N’Dour and Salif Keita. Fela’s sweaty, jamming Afrobeat was a Nigerian stewpot of sex, sax and excruciatingly fabulous percussion. Youssou N’Dour has blended the mbalax of his native Senegal with Western artists such as curious renegade Peter Gabriel, rock icon Bruce Sprinsgteen and eclectic jazz man Branford Marsalis, Keita has worked with guitarist Carlos Santana as well as members of Weather Report. He’s been described as Afro-pop, but that doesn’t tell you much.

So what does world music sound like? I haven’t a clue based on those three artists. Throw any other three performers saddled with the world music label such as the late fado singer Cesaria Evora, Tuareg singer Bombino and kora player Seckou Keita in that mixer. According to genre limitations, whatever comes out is world music, and mostly colored folks are involved. Imagine treating all music sung in English in the same fashion. So “Doctor Atomic,” the opera about the making of the atom bomb written by John Adams (“Nixon In China”) meets “You Really Got Me.” The opera features an aria sung by a general about his digestive tract which travels only a few notes away from a basic theme. The rest of the opera has moments of atonality, dissonance and complexity. “You Really Got Me” is a three-chord raveup about adolescent urges. Does those descriptions tell you anything helpful about music sung in English? I bet not.

All of which brings us to the leveling effect of streaming algorithms. I stream the Tragically Hip on Spotify. Thanks to that, a bunch of emails pop up in my inbox suggesting other Canadian bands as though being from Canada is enough of a throughline for my tastes. For Dan Mangan and Whitehorse, that’s fine. Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire (who are international but call Montreal home), not so much. All of the recommendations might be considered rock. Just about all of them are guitar-based. None of them get the universe I bring to listening, which includes the Pet Shop Boys, Italian operas, Sonny Rollins and Sylvester. I contain multitudes. I ‘m not alone. The algorithm dictates the way you explore music in a way that’s dictated by genre or, even worse, geography as though borders define music.

This is along the lines of what happens when books become movies. You cast the book in your head as you go; usually not even keeping existing actors or other public figures in mind. The movie is on its way to production, a cast is announced and you say, “Wait a minute. That’s not what I was thinking when I read this.” A recent example was the announcement of the cast of the movie version of the bondage-lite opus “50 Shades of Grey.” When Charlie Hunnam (“Sons of Anarchy”) was announced as Patrick Grey, fans went nuts (Hunnam withdrew, citing family and “Sons”). He was not their Patrick Grey. My Feist is likely not yours. You bring your whole self to music, and you want that self honored and understood.

Music critics of all generations are an enormous part of the genre problem. They rely on genre descriptions out of sheer laziness. Terms like “indie rock,” “alternative” and “college rock” don’t really mean much anymore and are often used interchangeably. The bands that are being lumped together under those categories are being done a great disservice. Bands like The Hotelier, Grizzly Bear and Girl Talk don’t benefit from any of those designations. They are all very different — The Hotelier features overtly political lyrics and are guitar-forward musically. Grizzly Bear comes off as ethereal and somewhat twee (as in the “pretty” subcategory of twee) Girl Talk is Greg Gillis, who takes samples and makes mashups that create entirely new work. In most cases, alternative/indie/college rock bands are usually comprised of white people. Guitars, bass and drums are usually present. Keyboards are possible. It’s unlikely that anyone is going to say, “You know that band? They’re, like, white- guy rock.”

Which brings to another genre failing. All of the music I’ve discussed so far except for maybe some old folk ballads derives from black music. But that phrase is used as though there’s an obsidian monolith like the old “race music” designation. Billboard caught some flak for eliminating the “black music” chart. However, they just changed the label to R&B/Hip-hop but kept the segregation for the most part. There are some white hip-hop artists like Iggy Azalea who have made the chart but this has not been typical in its history.

The recent example I can think of is Ann Powers’ NPR review of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off’ Where Powers said that Swift was appropriating “black styles.” (albeit more visually than musically).The video features Swift dressed like an old-school beat girl carrying a boombox. She also lies down under a line of women who are twerking madly. Is twerking uniquely black? Do the phrases “sick beats” and “good hair” automatically imply ownership by the black community? (“Good hair” is the fuse on a powder keg of racial identity issues.) Well, a lot of the black community thinks so and they’re pissed when all of this moves uptown. Me, I’m waiting for the royalties.

An even worse kind of shorthand is comparing emerging bands to existing bands. Neil Young and Wilco are especially twinned in this fashion. There’s a whole blog entry on Thrashers’ Wheat devoted to various Neil Young-Wilco comparisons. A Village Voice review states that Wilco “can’t get enough Neil Young.” The question is which Neil Young are you talking about? The gauzy yet powerful “Cinnamon Girl?” The guitar-based primal noise of Crazy Horse? The synthesizer-driven “Trans?” Band of Horses and the Figurines rate Young comparisons on Pitchfork — early in their careers no less. That’s the time when such pigeonholing does the most damage. You feel sorry for the bands, and you feel sorry for Young in that his career has become a lazy critical shorthand for writers whose descriptive powers are below average. They think they’re not falling into the genre trap. But, by making these facile comparisons to existing artists, they making things even worse.

So, if you feel compelled to cling to the hopefully soon-to-be-outdated genre tropes, let’s review some conventions:

Rock: Usually a band with guitar(s), bass and drums. Also usually white guys (Mother’s Finest, Living Colour and the Bad Brains are among the notable exceptions). The subsets of rock include but are not limited to:

• Alternative/College/Indie Rock: In many cases, same lineup but adding one quirky piece like a theremin or an odd keyboard. Wordy lyrics about being alienated and outcast and a sometime predisposition to musical hooks of the sort one associates with pop music (we’ll get to pop in a minute). Usually under 30 or lying about their age. Tour endlessly to make money or are supported by First National Bank of Mom and Dad. To me, the economic circumstances inform the music. You write differently from a place of comfort. The Strokes represent trustafarian rockers and their sloppiness and meandering career fit the bill perfectly. Any band playing on the third stage at just about any music festival is at the other end of the spectrum. See Grizzly Bear, who are critical darlings but still can’t afford their own apartments.
• Punk: Fast, loud, aggressive. Take “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone,” “Smoke on the Water” and “You Really Got Me” and speed them up and scream. That about does it. There used to be more to it. You know, politics. Feminism. A sense of humor. Strung Out, which is releasing a boxed set, is a perfect example. A punk boxed set? Really?
• Metal: Very loud version of rock with doom-and-gloom laden lyrics. As more doom and gloom is added along with some horror-movie stuff, you add other subgenres – death metal, NU metal, grindcore etc. Cannibal Corpse(death), Staind(NU), Agoraphobic Nosebleeed (grindcore). Collect ‘em all!
• Shoegazer: This term was associated with a group of British bands from the early ‘80s (Lush, Ride, Jesus and Mary Chain are some examples), but it could easily be applied to outfits like the Fleet Foxes, who have all the stage presence a roadie who got lost on the way to the bathroom.
• Jam bands: Bands that actually know how to improvise and play live. Keyboards essential. Patchouli and marijuana seem to be required of the audience. Often it helps to leave shows early because most of us have a low noodling (intricate pointless solo) quotient.

Pop: Any music where the producer is better known than the artist. Mostly sung by women. Full of creepy, Svengali implications. Male practitioners of pop are usually denigrated, sometimes for good reason (see Robin Thicke, Justin Bieber and all boy bands). They are often late to the style party; even if they have Pharrell in their corner.

Hip-hop: Used to be a culture. Rap was one of four elements, which also included DJing, breaking and graffiti. Now hip-hop and rap are used interchangeably, making purists irate. Hip-hop has effectively swallowed R&B whole, which is why they share various Billboard rankings. Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West represent opposite ends of the ego spectrum in hip-hop.

Funk: Greasy, get-down, booty-shaking music. The beat is identifiable as soon as your hips find the groove. May need chiropractic adjustment if done properly. Prince knows the funk well and is an expert practitioner.

Americana: A lot of singer-songwriters get tossed in this bin along with artists who might have leanings towards blues (a 12-bar song form about misery, sex or some unstable combination of the two), other American foundational music (bluegrass, string band tunes, folk songs) or new music that mixes some of those things together. Often seen by its fans as quite superior (read: “more authentic”) to everything else on the planet. The New York Times even says so as I mentioned earlier. We name-checked three of the women of Americana earlier so let’s add some male names — Marty Stuart, Rodney Crowell and Paul Horn. Horn said his goal was to be the “Americana Kool and the Gang.”

Country: Finding a good descriptor for what constitutes country music today is difficult so let’s go with a metaphor. Country is the big ol’ dog that your neighbor brings over. The dog’s tail knocks crap off the coffee table as it pads through the house. The dog also drools on some stuff and chews on other stuff. These days identifying what makes some music country is nearly impossible. But, like the aforementioned dog (or is that dawg?), it’s all over the place, welcoming George Strait, Toby Keith, Kacey Musgraves and Kelly Clarkson equally.

I realize those are highly biased genre descriptions. But if you insert your biases instead of mine, do we get any useful information about music you would or would not enjoy? Do you have any idea what the music in each genre sounds like? Didn’t think so.

So, if we eliminate genres, how do we describe and judge music? How about what it sounds like? If I think Talib Kweli, I think machine-gun-paced rhyming. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, shambling agreeable wordplay. Each description brings the music to an audience that may not know anything about hip-hop nuances. Perhaps those descriptions will pique the interest of someone who might dismiss them because they only know the genre stereotypes.

Also, shouldn’t a description makes you curious to hear more? After all, if you say something is “country,” doesn’t that automatically alienate a whole bunch of people who think they don’t like country? Life is too short to miss good music.

Let’s take a look at Kendrick Lamar, who is making some of the smartest, most complex music going. Classifying Lamar as a hip-hop artist does his music a disservice. The lyrical complexity, the dense and varied production and the melodies woven into snatches of phone messages find Lamar in a place where a conversation about race and class seems possible. Lamar could find many new fans if he wasn’t being trapped in the hip-hop box. This is dynamic and narrative-driven work. It’s also fantastic.

The best music not only holds up, but it rewards with each new listening. Maybe there’s a lyric you missed the first time around; a production trick that seduced before you could figure out how it was done. With Lorde’s “Royals,” the syncopation between the finger snaps and the drum popped out at me after about the 10th listen. Once I heard that, other layers of the song emerged. Even though the song is a critique of the crass materialism present in a lot of hip-hop, the song found favor at a lot of hip-hop radio stations even as it was being criticized for being racist. Lorde kept her distance from that whole discussion. The closest she might have come to any sort of criticism of hip-hop was when she sang in “Team,” “I’m tired of being told to throw my hands up in the air. So there.” However, she recorded that song before all of this came up.

Perhaps the only categories that matter are whether the music is good or bad. That doesn’t solve the genre problem, but it may strengthen a few more critical arguments. Just imagine how much listeners would benefit from coherent descriptions of music that don’t hobble along on the genre crutch.