Most Varied/Least Varied Music
 

What genres of music do you think have the most variety: lyrical, musical, etc? What genres have the least variety?

I don't mean 'which type of music has the most sub-genres'. A genre might have a lot of sub-genres, but if those sub-genres are just the result of hair-splitting, then it might actually have less variety.

I confess that I might be biased, as my favorite genres are metal and jazz. I am trying to expand my musical horizons.

Metal has a lot of variety: doom in all its flavors, upbeat power metal, folk metal, raw black metal, Christian metal, industrial, viking metal, stoner, glam (if it counts), nu metal, etc. There's quite a large stylistic range present in metal.

Lyrics are quite varied as well. How many single genres contain songs about: Moby ****, Oliver Cromwell (Reverend Bizarre), Vikings, love, dragons, politics, depression, monsters, saviors, gods, trolls, aliens, demons, suicide, partying, and marijuana?

Jazz has a fair amount of styles: ragtime, dixieland, swing, stride, cool jazz, bebop, hard bop, free jazz, fusion, smooth jazz, latin jazz, jazz mixed with classical, jazz mixed with world music, etc. On the other hand, jazz can't really be said to have lyrical themes, as most jazz doesn't have vocals.

I also know that classical has a lot of variety, but I am less familiar with it.

I would think that pop has the least variety. I don't think I've ever heard a pop song that wasn't about love or partying. (I take pop in small doses.) Is this a misconception?

I won't claim that the above is gospel. I'm sure there are other genres with much variety I don't know about, and pop might surprise me with it's variety.

If this has been done before, I apologize. I used the search function with various permutations of 'genres' and 'varied' and found nothing similar in the first few page results.

In my opinion you somewhat contradicted yourself by saying that you didn't mean just sub-genres then you went off naming sub genres of metal. I Like metal and all but to be honest there isn't much variety, metal is metal to me, well, lyrically i guess it's different.

Anyway I think Folk is probably the broadest genre. But you know what I consider Folk could be something totally different to you due to (my opinion) genre being in the eye of the beholder.

If I wanted to go out on a limb I could say Grunge, but I'm sure that would spark some hate. Lyrically it's all the same for the most part but musically it's pretty broad. Lke what do these two bands have in common (Other than them both being from seatle)?

Well, it isn't that metal has a lot of sub-genres that indicates that it has a lot of variety. If a sub-genre describes an actual divergence in style, then it is a marker of variety. Even without the sub-sub-genres, metal still has a fairly diverse range of styles. I think one could legitimately subsume most metal into 4 huge categories: fast, mid-paced, slow, and extreme vocals. But where's the fun in that?

I'm not familiar with folk. I guess that makes sense, as there are tons of folk cultures in the world. In what specific ways is folk diverse?

Well grunge contains some of my favorite bands (AIC, Tad, and Melvins), but you are right. There is no real connection except that they're from Washington state. Maybe one should consider grunge a form of folk music originating in the Pacific Northwest?:laughing:

Rock and electronic are pretty varied. There, I win. :)

well alot of rock, jazz, alternative and metal that i have is fairly varied. but that's just me i guess.

Pop music should never be judged on the pap in the charts and it can encompass a huge array of sounds. Artists like Saint Etienne, Early Talk Talk, Crowded House, Shop Assistants, Prefab Sprout and Metric providing pop sensibilities whilst assimilating other sounds into their make up.

Another genre with huge variety is Electronica. You can go from downtempo to bone grating Breakcore and still class it as Electronica.

Metal does have a lot of variety but not as much as people think with endless subgenres melding into very very similar sounds. It's only when bands step out of their comfort zones that the genre generally becomes more than the sum of it parts.

I agree. I think pop has the most variety, but I don't think it should be included in this debate for the reasons Lee gave.

I think 'Pop' is the most maligned of genres unfortunately and is a catch all for many bands that are not what you would call mainstream. Divine Comedy are a case in point. Ridiculously good band who deserve a lot more credit for their unique sound.

Genre-wise i may have to agree with pop unless you go for a vague rock tag, as rock is absolutely bloody huge and can encompass pop as well.

Style wise the reason i like a lot of noise rock is because it's so varied, i very rarely find two bands that are the same.

90% of what is deemed pop is criminally poor. The dross that is churned out these days from what appears to be a soul destroying, endless conveyor belt of prefabricated piss poor tunes, shames what used to be a respectable type of catch all music populated by people who could (generally) play their instruments.
There ought to be a new genre of music called 'sub-par pop' for these latter day abominations.

Like Jackhammer mentioned in his post, electronica has got to be one of the most varied. It can be smooth or abrasive, dancy or ambient, poppy or experimental, and because of the wide range of sounds that can be generated electronically it has an extremely broad pallet of textures.

Also one of the most neglected on MB which is a damn shame methinks.

The only pop I listen to on a regular basis is the Beatles, Stone Temple Pilots, and Nirvana. I listen to the radio sometimes, and most of it is pretty generic.

But I'm curious. I didn't expect anyone to say pop had the most variety. I'd expect that there would be more pop than any other genre, as it is, well, popular music. I expected classical, jazz, metal, and electronic to be common answers, but not necessarily in that order.

In what sense does pop have the most variety? I'm open minded, and intend to check out some of the pop bands jackhammer mentioned.

Agreed

If you look at things from the perspective of how limiting a gwnre's criteria is, then you get a more accurate answer to the question.

The most common criteria for metal is heavily distorted guitars, minor key signatures and a dynamically heavy beat and usually brooding or somewhat angry vocals. Obviously there are some exceptions to this. That puts a lot of restrictions on the amount of diversity within the genre.

Contrast that with pop music, which essentially is almost solely defined by it's formulaic song structure, which is ubiquitous in the world of modern music, and somewhat by it's lyrical content, which is also ubiquitous in modern music, and you see that the genre is not nearly as exclusive. You can have a pop song in a modern key or a minor key. You can have a pop song with distorted guitars, or clean guitars, or no guitars at all.

I think the confusion comes from the fact that the word "pop" has become a catchall term to mean "mainstream", and while most mainstream music does fit within pop's formulaic song structure, not all pop is mainstream, not by a long shot.

Metal on the other hand given the amount of criterial restrictions does have an insane amount of variety, but it cant compare to pop, which is virtually a blank canvas as far as composition goes.

I agree with everything you just said and because of that I'd say electronica is even more varied. There are are no structural restrictions at all and no lyrical restrictions, in fact it doesn't even have to have lyrics. The only restriction is instrumentation and even that is fairly open-ended and can include conventional synthesizers, sequencers, samplers and even a mix of more traditional live instruments.

Indeed! Another thing is that Pop is made to be mainstream and accessible whereas electronic music is a free for all. I don't see any terrorcore songs entering the Billboard top 100 anytime soon

Yep. I mean, rock is such a vague term that hardly anyone I've encountered who knows their music has told me 'I'm a fan of rock music', at least from my experience. So that's definitely up there with the most varied of them.

True and of course electronica can be very poppy sometimes too, a dichotomy that makes it extremely varied.

That's an interesting way of thinking about it: how stringent are the restrictions. I hadn't thought of it that way. However, does pop in fact display the variety that one would expect, given that it has fewer restrictions than metal (and I presume you would also include jazz as having more restrictions)? Or could this be just unrealized potential?

I'm not saying that pop does not have the most variety. I may just not have heard it. I'm not very familiar with it. Can someone give more examples of how varied pop is?

A question for the people voting electronic or jazz. (Classical can have vocals.) I suspect that not having vocals is somewhat limiting. Why or why not?

That could be limiting if it was a requirement of a genre, sure. But jazz and electronica can both have vocals or not so that's not a restriction on either form of music.

Most of the electronic music I listen to is instrumental and it is still very varied.

Ohh yes that is indeed true :D

I should have said few vocals. I know jazz has vocals sometimes, but they are few and far between. It seems they are mostly a part of older jazz styles: dixieland and swing. It doesn't seem as if more modern styles have them, except for smooth jazz. Then again, just because it's less prevalent doesn't mean it can't be done.

I did not know that electronica could have vocals however. I don't recall hearing any with vocals, but my experience with it is quite limited.

A lot of electronica has vocals. Here's one great example: