I was having a nice discussion with some friends the other day about music, and one of my friends commented about how we perceive music and how we frequently group artists into specific genres. Genres are helpful, but when are they too specific? Or when are they not specific enough?
Here are the "general" genres that we have had: jazz, classical (meaning orchestral music), country, rock 'n roll, rhythm & blues, folk, show tunes...I think that's most of them. These categories were probably last applicable in 1955. Things have changed dramatically since then. We had to categorize specific styles of rock 'n roll--bubblegum pop, psychedelic rock, country rock, folk rock, punk rock, stadium rock, etc. And other genres followed: cool jazz, fusion, bluegrass, Christian, modern classical (paradox), rap, soul, etc. And then these sub-genres developed their own sub-genres: nu-metal, alternative rock, spiritual jazz, etc. The lists go on and on. Why does it have to be so complicated?
Have we gone too far? Isn't Janelle Monae's music simply R&B (instead of saying "new soul")? Isn't Korn simply rock 'n roll (instead of nu-metal)? I love listening to music, but half the time when I'm shopping for it I need to know the sub-category that the artist belongs to, or I'm not going to find it. Music is music. I think at times, too, we pigeonhole ourselves to specific categories and/or sub-categories and don't even consider music outside of that category. I'm trying not to do that anymore. There is so much good music out there, so many interesting artists with interesting things to play or say, to limit myself to one style would be detrimental to my maturity. I try to do the same thing with my everyday profession, but that's for a different blog in a different time.
Genres have their purpose and can be of great use. But let's not go crazy with sub-genres here. Keep it simple. At least keep it simple for those of us buying our music.
