Have Genres gone too far?
Do we over-categorize music?
Have you ever considered how many music genres there are? There are currently 1445 genres listed on Spotify alone. Just let that number sink in for a minute. As we grow as a society, as a culture, music is also growing ever more diverse. But have we created too many kinds of music, or are we just coming up with unnecessary labels?
This whole genre thing was all well and good back when all we had was Jazz, Blues and Classical, we now have to deal with Pornogrind, Moombahton and Neo-traditional Country… It seems like almost everyday someone will suggest this “sick new band bruv, they’re Deep Power-pop Punk”, whatever that may be. For every legitimate genre like Southern Soul Blues we have to deal with another Deep Gothic Post-punk. Has it just gotten too much?
Surf music is considered an entire genre in an of itself but in reality, it is just a sub-genre of rock with just a few elements tweaked. This happens a lot with genres, where two artists might have all the same elements bar one and that constitutes a new genre. Apparently, it’s not always clear-cut. A genre like Post-Rock contains an extremely wide variety of styles and sounds but it’s all considered under the umbrella term. Is this because people who listen to Post-Rock are super chilled and don’t care for classification? Unlikely but it does bring up an interesting question: How come some genres can create many slightly different variations yet some don’t? This is due to how the genre was coined. With the term EDM it is a blanket term to refer to all electronic music with a dance-y beat. Britpop on the other hand is a term given to a specific type of band, and there are less sub-genres to prove it.
It isn’t all bad though, because of genre it’s that much easier for you to describe what something sounds like. The problem arises when people take them too seriously and it’s all they can think about when looking to consume new music. Some people will instantly not listen to a band because they are part of a genre they don’t like even though that band might be their favorite given the chance.
Sometimes you can have an artist that doesn’t stick to one genre, and it becomes hard to classify them. An easy example of this is Lady Gaga. Having started her musical journey on Broadway, she made her transition to pop music where most people knew from. And finally after “quitting” the music industry she is now performing Jazz. Some bands like Sikth in particular, have created a genre that they don’t necessarily want to be a part of. Its impossible to know who is right in this situation and it can lead to confusion on how to label them.
Briefly suggested earlier, one of the problems with using genres are the negative connotations that sometimes attribute themselves to a genre. How many artists have you dismissed because you didn’t like Jazz? How many artists haven’t been discovered because of the blanket term of EDM being the most annoying thing ever? Probably too many, would you listen to a genre called Pornogrind? Probably not (if you were interested though, here… you might want to use headphones). Have you ever turned down listening to someone because of what you’ve heard from their name but never having heard any of their music? Its probably likely as it its only human.
To open our minds beyond genre is to open our minds to music, and only positive things can happen from there. The next time you listen to music try to forget about genre and just listen to it for what it is. Because that’s what it’s all about. #sharemoremusic
Thank you for reading. What is the most ridiculous genre you have ever been submitted too? comment below, let us know. We are developing a new app that is currently in its beta stage, sign up here.
