Splitting Genres
Emo-core. Hard-core. Scream-o. Thrash-core.
These are all genre labels I have come across while surfing for new music in the last few weeks. They all fit broadly under some kind of rock or post-rock category but the differences between them are apparently enough to warrant separate labelling.
Part of me wants to laugh because I wonder how thinly you can slice any one cake.
The reason it's been bugging me is because I've just finished re-reading the chapter on genre in Simon Frith's Performing Rites. He argues, convincingly, that music genres serve to integrate “a conception of music (what does it sound like?) with a notion of the market (who will buy it?)”. Genres bring efficiency and clarity to the complexity of musical styles; they represent a record company’s assumption about what listeners like and why they like it. Genre labels are thus crucial in organizing the processes of music making, music listening and music selling.
But what happens when the number of genres splinters to the point of a thousand niches? In a physical store (like HMV) shelves can only contain a certain number of genres. When you start talking MySpace and other online retailers, there's no need to limit the number of genres. MySpace, in fact, allows bands to choose between over 75 genres to describe their sound.
From a record label’s standpoint, music itself may only be important in so far as an audience for that music can be created. In a new media context though, there may be little benefit to having genre categories at all since users are probably employing search engines and other metadata to locate their music.
Obviously, genres are more important than simply the marketing functions they serve. For audiences, genres help listeners sort out which bands they should like, and more importantly, which bands they definitely shouldn't like (maybe this is why I haven't picked up any new country). Genres build community and help structure tastes and preferences. The mixing of genres by musicians combined with distribution methods that can accomodate a greater number of genres means even further splintering of familiar categories. This is sure to cause re-adjustment, if not problems, for music marketers.
So if thrash emo rock hop is your thing, go ahead. I'm sure there is a band out there making it, communities of listeners listening to it and more than likely, someone somehwere trying to figure out how to package and market it.
These are all genre labels I have come across while surfing for new music in the last few weeks. They all fit broadly under some kind of rock or post-rock category but the differences between them are apparently enough to warrant separate labelling.
Part of me wants to laugh because I wonder how thinly you can slice any one cake.
The reason it's been bugging me is because I've just finished re-reading the chapter on genre in Simon Frith's Performing Rites. He argues, convincingly, that music genres serve to integrate “a conception of music (what does it sound like?) with a notion of the market (who will buy it?)”. Genres bring efficiency and clarity to the complexity of musical styles; they represent a record company’s assumption about what listeners like and why they like it. Genre labels are thus crucial in organizing the processes of music making, music listening and music selling.
But what happens when the number of genres splinters to the point of a thousand niches? In a physical store (like HMV) shelves can only contain a certain number of genres. When you start talking MySpace and other online retailers, there's no need to limit the number of genres. MySpace, in fact, allows bands to choose between over 75 genres to describe their sound.
From a record label’s standpoint, music itself may only be important in so far as an audience for that music can be created. In a new media context though, there may be little benefit to having genre categories at all since users are probably employing search engines and other metadata to locate their music.
Obviously, genres are more important than simply the marketing functions they serve. For audiences, genres help listeners sort out which bands they should like, and more importantly, which bands they definitely shouldn't like (maybe this is why I haven't picked up any new country). Genres build community and help structure tastes and preferences. The mixing of genres by musicians combined with distribution methods that can accomodate a greater number of genres means even further splintering of familiar categories. This is sure to cause re-adjustment, if not problems, for music marketers.
So if thrash emo rock hop is your thing, go ahead. I'm sure there is a band out there making it, communities of listeners listening to it and more than likely, someone somehwere trying to figure out how to package and market it.
posted by wade at 2:08 PM
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