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.

That made my day :rofl:

I hate using the different kinds of expiremental music sometimes it all gets so muddled I usually just go with avant-garde, or expiremental.

This reminds me, there's also useful genres with really stupid or odd names. How the hell did singer songwriter and indie turn into genres?
How are R&B and contemperary R&B even in the same genre? Easycore? What kind of name for a genre is that?

Also, how the hell is k pop and j pop a seperate genre? The country where it comes from is..the country where it comes from. I know the sound can be different, But that shouldn't be in the genre, the country is a seperate thing. Whats next, Afghanistan pop?

Gojira is more whalecore tho

I especially hate the ones that have more to do with the fashion of the bands that the music itself.

So is Colin Stetson whale minimalism?

along with David Rothenberg

Or Britpop? Sheesh.

One subgenre that I think has failed to split off into something more descriptive is post-rock. Initially it separated bands that used rock instruments in more inventive ways than traditional, such as Stereolab for example. Electronics were also a big part of the mix. Then post-rock was adopted for bands playing moody, atmospheric instrumental rock. Now you can't even call Stereolab post-rock because people will think they're atmospheric instrumental rock. And many of those bands aren't really experimenting or doing anything particularly innovative. It's fucking atmospheric instrumental rock! Why don't we have such a genre? There are many more recent bands that I think the label post-rock would apply to, but because they're not instrumental atmospheric rock, I don't and neither does anyone else.

On RYM, there are hundreds of metal subgenres and sub-subgenres yet we don't have anything to separate stuff that was originally called post-rock from the more recent post-rock. If anything, people have retroactively started calling original post-rock indietronica, which I think is bullshit.

No genre name should end with an 'a' anyway.

There are, as George Martin once so perspicuously stated, only two types of music: good and bad.

Post-Rock to me is a genre that needs someone to do something new with it I mean I love a lot of post - rock bands, but as you said bands like Tortoise, Stereolab, and Slint aren't really considered post-rock because they aren't doing what everyone else is which like you said is dreary usually melancholy atmospheric rock.

yeah theres like 2 completely separate parts of post-rock. the early Slint, Dirty Three, Tortoise, Talk Talk, etc (in fact you could probably separate this even further). and the crescendocore post-rock Godspeed, Explosions, Mogwai, etc.

I heard someone compare Godspeed to Pearl Jam in that they basically ruined a genre (unintentionally of course) by breeding a bunch of knockoffs that took over. Kinda seems right.

I love Godspeed as much as the next person but I have to agree and the knockoffs of course are all of decreasing quality it seems.

Believe it or not Yes spearheaded Whalecore in the 70s.
Moby and Moby Grape are also proponents of the genre Whalecore. http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/by...y-emoticon.gif

no no no youre confusing whalecore with whalerock

I'm pretty sure Moby was breakbeat whalecore.

My stance on this is simply that, sub-genre to me seem a bit pointless overall. Their can be various takes on say, Rock, Metal, Punk, Pop, or Country. But because some of those bands are artists have a bit different sound, they need a 'sub-genre'...? I think everything could be right at home under just Rock, Metal, Punk, Pop, Country or whatever...why confuse or jumble things up with variations?

whaletronic?

Hm...imagaine...

A type of music where it's whale sounds, with they bleeps and bloops, weird as electronic sounds to make the melodies and such. I think artists like Rhiana would be right at home there...

Because this



This



and this



Sound worlds apart but they're all still jazz.

I don't care what anybody says: Louis Armstrong INVENTED whalejazz

Sorry the proper genre for Kenny G is not Jazz but Waiting Room Muzak.

:laughing: He's Bass and Blow-hole.

It's smoov jazz.

So is diarrhea but it doesn't make him Jazz.

I disagree with you there, those are just too broad nowadays to have any kind of meaningful discussion. For instance, there are huge differences between:

A DIY indie rock band and something like corporate post-grunge (not suggesting a genre name here, just describing the sound)

80s pop/glam metal and death metal

Anarcho-punk and a sold out pop punk band like Blink-182

Old country and new/pop country

Speaking of country, what the hell happened to that genre? I never really listened to it, but as far as I know, nowadays it's just pop with a different accent, instead of what I imagined country to sound like. I guess that might explain why there's so many people saying ''I listen to everything besides country''(btw, most people that say that don't actually listen to everything besides country, same goes for people who say they listen to everything).

It's really the same as pop.

How to make a country song:

1. Find any pop song.
2. Sing it with a twang.
3. Throw in some background harmonies.
4. Alter the lyrics to mention the words "beer" and "truck" at least three times each.

But it used to not be :c.

And you're confusing both with CetaceaProg.

You forgot:

Be sure to have a fiddle or pedal steel player in your backing band.

He did play the trumpet very whale.

"post-rock" always annoyed me as a label. not that the style doesn't necessarily deserve its own sub-genre but **** the pretentiousness of that genre name.