Let’s play a game. I want you to invent a word for a genre that doesn’t exist until you create it and use it for generalizing music that has yet to be categorized in a way that makes one feel safe. It can only be one word and takes two steps to effectively create: the first part of the word must be an adjective, preferably abstract or otherwise absent from basic conversation, and the second part must end in either “wave,” “core,” “step,” “hop” or “trap” (for the relevant hipsters out there). If you’re feeling innovative, add “post” to the beginning for extra historical value. How many can you conjure from the recesses of your socialized mind?
In approximately 60 seconds, I got “LucidWave,” “Toxiccore,” “Undergraduatestep,” “Socialist-Hop” and “Post-Satyagraha Trap.” Yeah, like Gandhi. Look at how awesome we’ve become together.
Welcome to the game of digital convolution that devalues the audio we consume. The chokehold of the blogosphere has resulted in a continuous reshuffling of the names we pick from the genre hat. Essentially, there are too many genres around to even keep track of what sounds like what and to distinguish sarcasm from intent. We have entered the void of fabricated characters that assemble the elements we are accustomed to in conventional overarching genres and spin them in an infinite black hole that emphasizes being new or refreshing without putting in any of the actual work to create new niches. Thus, we fall into the inescapable, omnipresent grasp of trendiness.
At press time, critics of this column will call my writing “Post-Newsprint JournalWave” in an effort to downplay my efforts to bring this injustice to a screeching, post-sensibility halt. Little do they know I got it from something I read that you will never find in 1991. Checkmate.
The plight of the subgenre has attacked me recently upon discovering that the conventional genres I am accustomed to are expanding at a near-exponential rate. Hip hop, alternative, R&B and electronic are no longer sufficient beacons of classification for a listener to understand a basic-yet-functional framework of whatever they listen to. This began in small increments; from R&B blossomed neo-soul, from hip-hop blossomed TrillWave, from electronic blossomed “trap” and “brostep,” from alternative blossomed everything from post-punk to post-hardcore to post-Fred Durst-baseball cap. As the genres in one’s proverbial iTunes inflate from around nine general-enough classifications to approximately 20 or more depending on whose op-ed one is reading, music consumers become frightened pairs of animals on Hipster’s Ark in a sea flooded with nothingness.
Is it safe to assert that the Internet’s infatuation with the subgenre is essentially devaluing the concept of a genre classification? Furthermore, is this trend merely a sign that this concept we clutch so dearly should be abandoned altogether?
Those in concordance with such sentiment can utilize the idea of “not being into labels” in the means of a TeenNick cliché that doesn’t truly impress anyone. Once this layer is peeled back, the idea of not being into the idea of continuing to fill the void showcases how “not being into labels” can be a progressive and open-minded philosophy that does not seek to exclude or limit what music can be via any parameters. If we continue to validate our need for comfort by boxing everything into a genre and expecting it to stay firmly in place, the door for progressive innovation begins to shut itself in the faces of the visionaries that are desperately needed to keep all forms of music thriving regardless of what you can scroll to in your portable. Perhaps the fear to innovate and create music instead of one genre of music will eradicate itself.
Granted, I also note that a sheer abandonment of genres will open up the Pandora’s box that we do not need to further conflict the means of which we complicate our perspectives on music in the first place. Overarching genres such as the aforementioned are not mere letters; there are entire cultures and lifestyles formatted in the veins of the music that pumps life into humans and our emotions. Hip hop is not a word to me; it is life itself. This applies the same way metal can validate the moshpitter and religious music can complement the churchgoer. Plus, once you roam in this state of musical anarchy, certain actions can and will fall into place that will simply piss people off in avoidable fashion.
There are obvious reasons why Kevin Federline’s album is not freeform jazz. To call Flying Lotus a country artist is purely nonsensical. To call Gucci Mane an opera composer… may make more sense if you’ve heard the song “Classical” before, but that’s another column.
Genres are labels. Labels are used to oppress and validate on a case-by-case basis. Whether or not free reign is a sufficient answer is something I am unsure of. But I do believe it is time to eradicate the negligent nonsense that serves as a placeholder for our psyches to feel safe or innovative when nothing is being done.
Perhaps I’m too emocore for this topic. Meh.
Do you take great pride in your substantially prefixed and suffixed musical genres? Or do you think names are arbitrary in the face of what music is actually being produced? Talk to Michael about this (0r other music topics) by emailing mdpenn@wisc.edu.
