Point of Discussion: Genres - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

RockyRaccoon
Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Maryland

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POINT OF DISCUSSION

This is Point of Discussion, a thread for people to discuss issues and topics related to music in a thoughtful and productive way. The goal of this is to make you think, to make you take a look at what you believe, why you believe it, and what others believe. Good discussion is the key to any society, and this is a place where, hopefully, that can be fostered. If you would like a certain topic to be discussed or question to be posed, PM me and I'll toss it in when I can.

All of that being said, there are a few guidelines.

The Guidelines:

Don't be a dick

All opinions are welcome

There are no wrong opinions

The conversation can go anywhere

The Topic:
Just a couple fairly simple prompts. What are your feelings on the idea of genres? Do genres matter? Are genres subjective or are the objective ways of looking at a piece of music and saying "It is part of this genre"? Do you believe genres to be a fluid, always-changing thing, or fairly defined? Do you think we should just be rid of genres altogether?
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zdwyatt

Gender: Male
Age: 45
Location: Madison WI

I find genres helpful only broad application (i.e. rock, pop, country, etc). Beyond that, there is too much fluidity between genres to be so strict about classifying music. If I limited myself only to certain sub-genres, I'd miss out on some good music. Metal is a good example. It has so many sub-genres (and sub-sub-genres) that is stops having any real meaning to me. Ultimately, a well-written tune can speak to me regardless of what genre it supposedly falls into.

Applerill
Autistic Princess <3

Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago

I believe it's Myke C-Town that explained this really well for me. It's completely natural to catalog things, and it's nothing we should be ashamed of. Sure, genres blur together in many new releases, and Present Shock will keep people from looking past the superficial. But the way genres help us find exactly what we want more than makes up for that, and I think the poptimist movement does a great job of keeping us from falling into these traps.

Also, if you want to use the "car" critical model of judging an album's success (where you judge it on "how it gets you to the destination), then genre is a great starting point for that.

And of course, genres often are at least somewhat subjective; I consider I'm Not a Fan to be a sort of black metal, but I completely understand that most others don't see it the same way. But a genre voting system like the one on RYM makes it shockingly easy to classify most releases.

JMan

Personally, I think we have a few too many genres. It's amazing how broad the whole of music is, but I think anyone who tries could really create a genre. We have some names for genres that don't even qualify as genres to most people, like world fusion.

Of course, that's not to say I'm against genres. In fact, I think "grunge revival" could be a thing. Just combine grunge with more post-hardcore elements and add some shoegazey production. It makes for something really interesting.

http://tideland.bandcamp.com/album/asle...-graveyard

There ya' go. Personally, I do think genres help, but there may be many cases where genres are just made up for the heck of it.

sp4cetiger

I have no problem at all with genres, I just think it's a case of the usual chunking that humans do when they try to process and communicate complex ideas. Of course, genres can be abused, most often for marketing, but I think the idea of doing away with genres entirely is not only unreasonable but also impossible. There will always be people trying to describe music in terms of other music they've heard.

I view genres as subjective for most purposes, though I'll admit that there is an objective element to it. If you're a music historian, you might spend time tracing particular musical and lyrical patterns through our recorded history, but there will always be some ambiguity in which patterns are the most "prominent" for a given piece of music. This judgement is necessarily subjective and really, I think it's the judgement that matters most for those of us not writing a thesis.

Probably my biggest complaint about genres is the actual names they end up getting. Unfortunately, it's usually the ignorant who end up naming the "biggest" genres. This is probably because it's the ignorant that are the most likely to view the spectrum of music in such a coarse-grained way. Examples abound, but a few that come off the top of my head are "grunge", "IDM", "emo", "hair metal"... it's funny how many of our genre threads start with an apology or complaint about the genre's name.

Patman360
Serenity Now

Gender: Male
Age: 31
Location: Cork, Ireland

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I was going to make a post, but sp4cetiger pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned.
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Happymeal

Don't care much about the topic, but I do think that the complaints about the names of genres are fairly irksome. They're not accurate/well thought up (the names of genres that are commonly complained about), but something as small as a name is something I've never seen reason for being hung over. So long as people comprehend what that name encompasses, then that's what matters.

sp4cetiger

Happymeal wrote:

Don't care much about the topic, but I do think that the complaints about the names of genres are fairly irksome. They're not accurate/well thought up (the names of genres that are commonly complained about), but something as small as a name is something I've never seen reason for being hung over. So long as people comprehend what that name encompasses, then that's what matters.

That's the problem, though, is that these names often result in confusion about what counts as part of the genre. "Grunge", for example, is actually a description of the way that some of the genre's most famous bands appeared on stage and has nothing to do with the music itself, or even the mentality that led to it. You and I have a pretty good idea of what it means, but the term is very widely used and often causes confusion among people who aren't music geeks.

Of course, none of this really matters much in the larger scheme of things, so if you're losing sleep over it, you might want to re-prioritize your life. But then if you're getting irked about people expressing opinions you agree with, that could also point to a problem...

Happymeal

sp4cetiger wrote:

That's the problem, though, is that these names often result in confusion about what counts as part of the genre. "Grunge", for example, is actually a description of the way that some of the genre's most famous bands appeared on stage and has nothing to do with the music itself, or even the mentality that led to it. You and I have a pretty good idea of what it means, but the term is very widely used and often causes confusion among people who aren't music geeks.

I really never saw misconceptions of genres due to names among the general populace as a problem though. I mean, it's also something I feel people should attempt to improve upon, but we do have to remember that not as many people are as passionate about music as we are. In the end, there's not exactly a way to redo certain genre names to give 100% clarity to what the genre encompasses. It's something people need to delve into to understand fully. I'm not stating they shouldn't, but it's rather unfair to hold people up to fairly high standards in regards to topics such as this one when all they want is something to chill to, relax to, dance to, do work with, etc. Some people may not be as lax as myself in this regard, but that's whatevs.

JMan

sp4cetiger wrote:

That's the problem, though, is that these names often result in confusion about what counts as part of the genre. "Grunge", for example, is actually a description of the way that some of the genre's most famous bands appeared on stage and has nothing to do with the music itself

I'd say grunge is an OK-ish name for the genre. Grunge's music and scene are about dirtiness, and grunge means dirt (site: google).