A conversation overheard on the train (paraphrased a lil’) …

mouth 1 – “Dude … emo blows, those shoegazers are worse than goths with their self-pity. I’m not talkin about industrial metal goth, I mean that new wave goth.”

mouth 2 – “Yeah … well it’s better than that hair metal you played for me yesterday.”

mouth 1 – “Shut up, that was a sick-ass comp full of street punk, glam, proto-punk, stoner rock, grindcore and a lil Screamo just for you.”

Ok … I could go on but I think you get the point … the amount of genres +/or sub-genres has become ridiculous. I mean, look at the “genre menu” when you adjust an mp3’s tags in itunes or similar program … there’s well over a hundred genres listed – WTF!

Now I don’t know exactly when “music genre” became so important – but I’m pretty sure it had somethin’ to do with sales. If your product is easier to categorize then it’s easier for a retailer to display & sell which of course means more money for the label. I figure it started sometime in the 60’s because of stickers on some of my records that say File Under “whatever genre” the record company wanted to push an artist as.

Or maybe it started with Jazz and the different movements within Jazz. Big Band, Ragtime, Be-Bop, improvisational … I don’t know. To me those names mark growth in Jazz more so than applying marketing terms to a product.

Regardless of when it started, it’s here and it’s getting worse. Ask someone who is in a band, “Hey what kind of music do you play?” and 85% of the time you’ll get a long winded combination of genres because they don’t want to be pigeon-holed as one thing. Well either that, or they’re tryin’ to impress you with their wide range of influence – and majority of the time, when it comes down to it, they’re just in a rock band. But anyhow … if you’re a punk band – say it! If you play metal – throw up those horns! If you play jazz – cool … but I don’t need to know what bizzare syncopated time signature your latest jam was in. It’s not that difficult a question to answer.

I realize there is Country influenced Punk and Jazz influenced Rock and Rock influenced Funk and yadda yadda yadda. But those are influences or aspects … not a whole new genre!