David Reed, in a February 11 review of Trouble Andrew's self-titled debut album, tags the album with the genre label ""douche-core."" This may be the greatest genre delineation I have ever read.
The problem with genres is that few artists, albums or songs actually fit perfectly in any genre. More often, music, especially great music, exists in the spaces between the conventional genre boundaries. The lines between the conventional genres have blurred to the point that often, the question isn't ""What genre is it?"" but rather ""Can you really place this in a genre?"" The response has normally been to simply add descriptors.
Some of these descriptors are bland and relatively meaningless, like ""hardcore"" or ""alternative."" I'm sure there was a time when the word ""alternative"" meant something in music, but when Billboard's ""Alternative"" Chart includes everything from Katy Perry to Metallica, I would question its significance. But other times, a genre name is quite specific and limited, like ""Celtic punk"" or ""folktronica.""
On the other hand, it is impossible to deny the similarities and relationships between music of the same broader style. Despite the fact that Fugazi's 13 Songs and Rancid's And Out Came The Wolves sound very different at first listen, there can be no doubt these albums are both great representations of ""punk.""
So, what really is the purpose of genre labels? Why do bands proudly display their ""Electronica / Folk / Hip-Hop"" genre label on their MySpace? Why is everyone that hypes a CD looking for a way to include the suffix ""-core"" onto whatever genre they claim? Why the hell would you describe yourself with some ridiculous phrase like ""hipster-core funk""? And how did we get to this point?
Genres and styles are a way to set expectations prior to actually experiencing the work of art. When you hear ""avant-garde"" or ""impressionistic"" as a descriptor for an art show, you automatically are given a set of expectations about the art. Genres are shorthand explanations of the artisitc style. When you hear ""gangsta rap"" or ""nu metal,"" you instantly expect certain things. ""Gangsta rap"" leads you to expect swearing, racial slurs, misogyny, drug references and violent imagery, but in a good way. ""Nu metal"" instantly leads you to cover your ears, change the station, or try to destroy the source of the contamination. If you are a fan of ""metal,"" you instantly expect not to enjoy an ""easy listening"" or ""popera"" song. Likewise, even if you don't know what ""mathmetal"" is exactly, if you know you don't like ""metal,"" you have a pretty decent guess about what you would think of ""mathmetal.""
The problem occurs when the expectations are wrong. If you listened to the Beatles' last album, ""Let It Be"" and expected to hear the same music as ""Please Please Me,"" their first studio album, you would be severely disappointed. But if the entire music culture lumped those two radically different albums into the same genre, the problem grows. This leads to splitting the main genre into smaller genres. Eventually, the smaller genres contain music that is too divergent to be painted with the same brush, and the smaller genre splits into smaller, more specific genres. The cycle continues, until eventually, the idea of the genre has been made ridiculous and entirely unhelpful.
That brings us back to ""douche-core."" In this genre characterization, David has found a way to provide a set of clear expectations for the listener, despite the mediocre ""hybridization of punk rock, electronic, and hip-hop."" Plus, he uses the suffix ""-core,"" and this is always appropriate.
Send Dale your band's new folkternative/adult contempermetal album at dpmundt@wisc.edu
