Quote:
Originally Posted by swimintheundertow
All genres are generic terms.
|
I heartily disagree. Well, at least in the sense of "generic" that I had set out in the opening post. I think that with virtually all other broad musical super-genres, the music defined under those labels is, at least broadly speaking, significantly more stylistically predictable than the range of music classified as rock. For example - music classified under "rap" will without a doubt have some form of
rapping in it. Reggae music will have its regular chops on the back beats. Contemporary R'n'B will invariably use hip-hop inspired beats and be mellow. What I'm getting at is that something in the sound is generally predictable from the broad super-genre label given to a type of music.
But what is
predictable from the label "rock"? Very little, in fact probably nothing at all. Rock music needn't necessarily have drums. It needn't have a guitar. It needn't have a bass line. It needn't have a keyboard. Hell, it needn't even have any singing. Of course, it'll have to have ONE of the above, but what sort of a definition is that? "Rock: music that has at least one instrument playing."
I suppose a better question to pose might be: is there anything in music quite so unpredictable from the label alone as "rock"?