Pointless sub genres
 

TO MAKE THINGS CLEAR: I mean the name of the genre, the distinction of it being different music. Not the music itself, usually it just fits another genre already.

I love finding info about genres, but there's many sub genres that are just pointless and probably shouldn't even exist. Or ones that just go way too specific. Bands should still be able to have a different sound, or lyrical themes or have different lifestyles in the same genre. You know, sub genres that just make things more and more confusing. What are some you know of?

Here's one to get us started:
Bandana thrash. Can't we just also call it Thrashcore or Powerviolence? Why Bandana Thrash? Because they prefer to wear a type of headgear? What? Do we really need yet another name for sped up hardcore punk?

Major pet peeve of mine.

List of popular music genres - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of popular music genres - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Agreed. That's just nitpicky bullsh*t.

The proliferation of sub-genre labels seems a bit extraneous. But it can be useful sometimes. It can help one to learn about a trend in music by looking it up by sub-genre name, or help search for bands similar with a similar sound. I don't mind too much, not if you going to use a label correctly.

What annoys me is when people (especially on youtube who) mislabels things, e.g. saying something is Rockabilly when it sounds like Surf music. It's as bad as calling California beaches "Appalachia." Another thing that is annoying are genres that are actually retronyms and weren't used during the time-period e.g. "proto-Punk."

Sam Dunn does both such non-sense and takes the cake with his Metal Genealogy chart. :usehead:

I don't think the sheer volume of sub genres bothers me really; I think theyre more useful than not. Tho pigeonholing bands into super specific subgenres does seem like a negative outcome of it.

A couple genre names do bother me tho. "IDM" and "Krautrock". I use them both (and enjoy both them generally as well) but god what stupid names. One of them is literally a slur and is basically meaningless in terms of having common sounds within the genre. The other uses the word "intelligent" for some reason. so ya that's my biggest genre related pet peeve.

I don't really try to categorize music, but when I'm thinking about trying a band, if any of their listed genres include one or more of the words "indie", "folk", or "psychedelic", I'm on it.

I heard Mastodon referred to as whalecore once, because of an album cover. That's where I draw the line.

I bet it being a concept album about a whale helped

I guess dogcore and catcore could be a thing then.

If its a title that only refers to a small handful of bands, or one band, its a useless genre. The system is in place to assist in finding similar music, not to reward every unique band with their own exclusive category.