They're not very descriptive and the marketing departments of record labels always end up getting behind them, regardless of who coined them. I just don't really care about the sub-genre labeling system because there's so much overlapping that it's not very practical. There are so many different genres within metal, which isn't very distinct from rock or punk to begin with, that people are just making them up now to describe their band because it's become satirical to do so.

This is where I stopped reading. Subgenres make it easier to communicate elements of music for discussions and exploration, even if people do go over the top and coin genres that only apply to one band or apply to too many bands to meaningful. I'm very much pro subgenre.

They literally communicate a brand or a style, and that's pretty much the extent of it. You can communicate elements of music in ways that are more descriptive, and you won't end up limiting your results to terms like "psychedelic".

No ****. Doesn't devalue subgenres.

Then you can go for more esoteric psychedelic genres like krautrock, zolo, or molam. It seems like this point actually goes with my pro-subgenre stance more than yours.

What's the value in that? So you know what kind of clothing you're supposed to buy to look like a krautrocker?

I thought by style you meant musical style. Like hey I want to listen to black metal right as opposed to I want to listen to metal with fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emphasis on atmosphere. It saves time.

It really just sounds like you need to stop getting your music from the television. What you say holds up for something like grunge, but it doesn't really apply to something like, idunno, izlan.

Yes, as a tag the sub-genres work okay, but so does looking up by artist and searching for bands that are similar. It's more precise and just as effective at saving time.

Eh it can and can't be since (at least online), "similar artists" are just artists that are a common denominator amongst fans. There's a lot that can potentially be left untapped if you don't use every way that you can to dig deeper. I don't see why you can't do both.

I think sub-genres get in the way of the "similar artists" feature, because you'll see bands from the black metal genre when you look up Venom, and one or none of them will sound like Venom.

No one method will be one-size-fits-all. I still have yet to see you demonstrate that subgenres are without value beyond misconceptions and goalpost moving.