The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Happy Pi Day.

QotD: What is your feeling on musical genres? Do they need an overhaul? Do you feel that your music fits in a specific genre?

i like genres, but i feel like i jump around too much to say my band(s) have genre. songs can have genre, though.
how do you suggest overhauling genre?
-bill

How I would overhaul genre is by tightening up the definitions. Some current genre titles are very broad like Alternative and Hard Rock. What kind of music falls under alternative? At what point does hard rock become metal? How do you define either of those genres? Better definitions would make genre more useful in my opinion.

I am not certain if I have a genre. I feel my music is really feminine, but in kind of a vague and persnickety way. I don't often arrive. I'm not very purposeful. I even manage to girl up my collaborations, I'm afraid. Genres mostly confuse me. I alphabetize my music according to composer &/or performer

Today is the four-year anniversary of the "The Proposal" song fight, and a momentous day in my life.

http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=the_proposal

Congrats JB! It's not just a great day in your life, it's a wonderful piece of Songfight history!

jb wrote:Today is the four-year anniversary of the "The Proposal" song fight, and a momentous day in my life.

http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=the_proposal

So what, you won a fight...big blah...

And you also won the song fight.
And it was also the last Raised by Wolves entry...wait a minute! Two others since...wtf? ahhhhhh...

Genre are mostly only relevant within a particular taxonomy, and thus very relative. "Alternative" and "hard rock" are good examples. These mean very different things in Seattle, Boston, Prague, Moscow, Tokyo. I don't think that's a bad thing. Like many other commenters, I feel genre applies best at the song level, not artist.

I hate it when new genres emerge and then quickly disappear again to become completely obsolete. Like my brief excursion into Papal Conclave-core:

(Who's Gonna Be) The New Pope

Maybe "Limited Shelf Life Songs" can be considered a genre?

jb wrote:Today is the four-year anniversary of the "The Proposal" song fight, and a momentous day in my life.

http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=the_proposal

Christ, it's been 4 years already? Time flies.

Congrats,JB and Mrs B!

I think you can't really tighten up genres - because beyond broad strokes they are meaningless and getting any more specific, you ened up with so many sub-genres it becomes impossible to catagorize.

Buzzcocks, the Exploited and Minutemen all fall under the punk banner for instance, but if you played a random song by each one after the other they would sound like three different genres.

Genre are largely defined by an audience and the marketing groups behind an artist, so they are innately independent. It's more like crowd-tagging than applying any standard taxonomy/lists. And they evolve over time so hard rock of the 60s is very different than hard rock of the 80s. Almost like the indices to cook books, each are relevant to their own content (whether regional, method, ingredients, etc.) but they do help you find what you need once you become familiar.

Punk
Punk, Japanese
Punk, Post
Punk, US
Punk, Bartender

roymond wrote:Punk, Bartender

Can I have one of those drinks with the green stuff on the top, tastes really sweet?

I agree with you, Roymond, about genres often moreso fitting a scene than a sound. That's my feeling when it comes to genres like antifolk and grunge. I would actually prefer smaller subdivisions of genre than blanket terms. But the double edged sword of that is it leads to minute genres like acoustic lo-fi goth rock.

Caravan Ray wrote:I hate it when new genres emerge and then quickly disappear again to become completely obsolete. Like my brief excursion into Papal Conclave-core:

(Who's Gonna Be) The New Pope

Maybe "Limited Shelf Life Songs" can be considered a genre?

I think that is already covered under the "novelty" genre.

Ken

Caravan Ray wrote:I hate it when new genres emerge and then quickly disappear again to become completely obsolete. Like my brief excursion into Papal Conclave-core:

(Who's Gonna Be) The New Pope

Maybe "Limited Shelf Life Songs" can be considered a genre?

Ha! Not bad. When you finish more Papal Conclave-core songs, your album can be called "kiddie fiddler On the Roof" and just have a close up pic of the Vatican chimney spewing white smoke.

@genres. I don't care. "Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound, funny, but it's still rock and roll to me"

@jb. Congrats, you ol' romantic devil, you.