(Re)-Naming genres decades after the bands peak

[middy]

I never cared for "the possum" one bit, at all.
There, I said it.
All booze-soaked moan/whine, and not in a good way either, to me
Now there's a guy who shoulda stuck to rockabilly


however, Johnny Cash would never make it today, and neither would Hank Wiliams
and that speaks to me about what a sham country music has become

Just country music, though?

 

[Dan German]

I realize I did not actually respond to the OP’s question. I can certainly see where, in some cases, how a band defines itself might be altered by what comes after, assuming the band is in some way ground-breaking. I don’t think there is very often an obvious signal that a genre is being created, much less a narrow-definition sub-genre.

 

[middy]

since we've got lots of metalheads chiming in here, are you guys familiar with the NWOTHM movement? Being a fan of pre-thrash and pre-cookiemonster vocal metal, i dig a lot of it

What Is NWOTHM? 12 Must-Hear Bands from the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal

NWOTHM is an exciting revival of 80s traditional heavy metal music. These 12 bands provide the perfect entry point to the genre

www.prestoncram.com

Euro trash cosplayers with no roll in their rock?

 

[Nogoodnamesleft]

I struggle with genre names. Starting with dance music in the 90s where everything with a different kick drum or snare seemed to have a unique genre name. There's a very good chance I've always been just oblivious to it but that seems to have spilled over into every other facet of music.

I was talking about this recently with a friend. I was talking about goth, and he used punk as example of another genre that seems to be different things to different people. Some people appear to be on the verge of a holy war if something they don't think should be included is included by someone else under a certain umbrella.

Where I REALLY get confused is when one artist is subdivided into several genres. I told someone I was big fan of Buddy Holly. They asked which and listed about 4 genres. It seemed weird to me because it's ALL Buddy Holly and I never thought about it.

 

[2HBStrat]

I never cared for "the possum" one bit, at all. There, I said it.......

There's no accounting for taste. There, I said it!

 

[ReverendRevolver]

I struggle with genre names. Starting with dance music in the 90s where everything with a different kick drum or snare seemed to have a unique genre name. There's a very good chance I've always been just oblivious to it but that seems to have spilled over into every other facet of music.

I was talking about this recently with a friend. I was talking about goth, and he used punk as example of another genre that seems to be different things to different people. Some people appear to be on the verge of a holy war if something they don't think should be included is included by someone else under a certain umbrella.

Where I REALLY get confused is when one artist is subdivided into several genres. I told someone I was big fan of Buddy Holly. They asked which and listed about 4 genres. It seemed weird to me because it's ALL Buddy Holly and I never thought about it.

Punk is very much regoddangdiculous about the subgenre- ization. I understand there's punk, horror punk, pop punk. You branch out deliberately and can hit cow punk. But gutter punk, crust punk, speed punk, goth punk, techno punk, emo punk, skate punk, thrash punk, popcorn shrimp, shrimp stew, shrimp gumbo, shrimp scampi....

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about the hardcore thing since it's close to punk and metal, and that's a nonsensical mess of elitism and genre splicing.

What burns me is I've been into punk since I was like 13, which is longer than some of these labelers/definers have been alive. And I'm young. Can't imagine how people a decade or 2 older than me feel about it.


But Buddy Holly? He only had a handful of records, as he died at 21. He's one of the most important parts in the story of rock n roll becoming mainstream.

What genres is he? Dub step?

 

[ReverendRevolver]

Metalcore, hardcore, screamo, post-hardcore, hardcore punk...really? Has anyone outside of these "genres" even heard these terms before?

Yes?
I first read "Screamo" in Guitar world. I thought all these bands were decidedly hardcore they mentioned.
Metalcore, as mentioned, was on an online article (that Google fed me)
Post hardcore and hardcore punk were mentioned in interviews on vh1, and commentary tracks on documentaries.
Those 2, specifically, were just lumped in as punk or hardcore until I heard people talking later.

If this was just another insider quarrel over who counts as "real psychobilly " life would be simpler, and I'd be less confused.

But probably closer to what you're asking, I don't think anyone who wasn't into that kind of music then, who it's not in the wheelhouse of now, has any reason to care. At all.

However, the fact that the overnamedness phenomenon occurs outside of that specific genre cluster is more relevant to more people. For sure.

 

[Fiesta Red]

I get *why*—but it gets a bit ridiculous, too…because when you start doing sub-sub-sub-genres of a style that all sounds alike anyway (death metal, Norwegian death metal, Finnish death metal, Siberian Dwarf death metal, death core, death emo, death country, death jazz, death polka) that’s just stupid…it‘s all death metal…just because a band adds one tiny wrinkle to their music doesn’t justify a new genre.

But I’ll admit I fall into the over-naming trap on occasion—even when classifying my own band.

We play blues, outlaw country and classic rock…but that doesn’t fit underneath our name, and we’re not purists of any of those genres, so we call it Texas Roadhouse Music…

Which (believe it or not) is a real genre, named because of the taverns, dives, roadhouses and honky-tonks up and down Jacksboro Highway, near Fort Worth.

It was classified as such because there was a real blending of styles—the bands in those joints weren’t playing “straight/pure” anything…they had to be ready to change gears (genres) on the fly, depending on which crowd showed up or what was requested of the band…so they might be playing a George Jones tune, followed by a Chuck Berry tune, followed by a Slim Harpo tune, followed by an Otis Redding tune, and so on.

These were the types of places that had chicken wire protecting the band from flying bottles, etc.; they better be able to “bring it,” otherwise there could be serious bodily harm or equipment damage.

Anyway—the reason I chose that label was just as much trying to accurately describe our band as it was trying to make sure we weren’t grouped in with some other bands.

We could just as easily be called a blues band, because we play more blues than anything else—but we didn’t want to be lumped in with the 1000 other white boy blues bands who play nothing but loping “dunt-duh-dunt da-dunt-duh-dunt” twelve-bar rhythms or SRV covers all night long…we play the gamut of electric blues stuff, from Muddy to John Lee to Lightnin’ to Fabulous T-Birds, and everything in-between…and 70% of our set list are originals I wrote or co-wrote—most of which are not “pure blues.”

We also could have been called a rock and roll band, because of our influences ranging from Chuck Berry to Buddy Holly to 60’s/70’s rock bands…the Stones and ZZ Top seriously influence me…but we don’t do that all night long, either. We play some Stax/Volt/Muscle Shoals type stuff, too, but we aren’t a soul band.

Same with our country songs—I am influenced mostly by outlaw country guys like Waylon and Willie and Billy Joe Shaver, and I’m apt to rip out a Johnny Cash or Hank Williams or Dwight Yoakum tune if the mood hits me and that’s what the crowd wants…but if we advertised as a country band, a lot of people would be expecting George Strait or (God Forbid) Florida-Georgia Line or Lady Antebellum (aka “Crap”).

So I stumbled upon that classification (Texas Roadhouse Music) and stuck with it…so if a country crowd shows up, we’ll go heavy in that direction during the first set; after they get enough beer in them, they suddenly like blues and rock…if a blues crowd shows up, we’ll lean that direction; but most blues crowds dig Johnny Cash or Billy Joe Shaver, so that flies, too.

Somebody described my band as “ZZ Top and the Fabulous Thunderbirds playing with Waylon Jennings”…another guy said we were like “Joe Ely with a blues band”…I took those descriptions as a compliment—not just because I like those artists, but because it was pretty accurate, too. They “got” what we were trying to do.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . When did motown get lumped together? . . .

Good thread. I learned some things from you and others. But I'm wondering about your small-m motown. Lumped together with what?

Motown was a record label, like Chess, Stax, Sun, and Atlantic. I've never noticed it lumped together with anything else. Then and now, its music was called soul, a rebranding of what had formerly been called rhythm 'n' blues — R&B.

The soul groups the Temptations and the Supremes were Motown. Soul singers Aretha Franklin and Sam & Dave weren't.

The word soul isn't used much now except in the trendy revival sense and in talking about the music that labels like Motown and Stax used to put out. The name R&B has stuck around. It sounds different today, but the industry meaning used in publications like Billboard — Black pop music — remains pretty much the same.

Again, interesting thread. Glad you started it.

 

[Fiesta Red]

But I also understand creating a new name when a musical genre has evolved…

Chuck Berry has very little to do with Kiss, which has very little to do with Nirvana…so yeah, I understand the name going from Rock & Roll to Rock and then going to Grunge…

Country and Western does it differently…and wrong.

Hank Williams has very little to do with Glen Campbell, who has very little to do with Alabama, who has very little to do with Lady Antebellum, but they’re all called “country”…to the detriment of the genre, IMO…

If I want to hear a country song, I’m sure as shootin’ not wanting to listen to that Lady Antebellum, Florida-Georgia Line or Montgomery Gentry, all of which have nothing in common with Willie Nelson.

Alabama was like Loggins & Messina with a fiddle, compared to a more traditional country singer like Randy Travis.

So if a genre evolves that much, it probably needs a new name.

I would like to suggest a name for most of the newer, slick pop-country junk, but I think the mods would probably ban me for typing it here.

 

[yegbert]

Rare Earth was on the Motown label, but I don’t know of any other artist that isn’t R&B on it. Every once in a while I’ll play the full 21 or so minutes of the song and album side that is their version of Get Ready. The 45 of that was one of the first records I bought at my hometown RexAll drugstore.

 

[yegbert]

When I was young, it seemed to me country rock was good rock that had just a little country flavor, but was still good rock. I don’t much care for the newer country that tries to be rock, it fails both ways for me. I didn’t like any country as a teen, but now like some country that was popular back then and before.

 

[jrblue]

These so-called classifications are both pretentious and unhelpful. They lead away from, rather than towards, any fact/detail-based knowledge about a band or piece of music. They're used for journalistic, marketing and other purposes -- that is, parasitic, non-creative, "sponging" profit-making. As the OP suggests, does anybody think that the musicians involved talked about making a niche in a genre? They want to stand out, not fit in. Some acts, created by marketers and managers might have that approach in mind, just to make money, but even they would just do the "imitate there guys" thing, and not use these idiot labels. Dos anyone here on TDPRI actually write about these categories as though they're significant? Almost never.

 

[Tricone]

I have always used two labels: good and bad. Under what I consider "good" music can be classified as:
1.THC Tunes for mellow, thoughtful,exploring music
2. Caffeine Tunes for the tunes that get you moving.

All the other stuff is decorative dressing. I keep it simple.

 

[thesamhill]

A buddy and I were putting a track on Spotify etc through Landr and they wanted us to indicate the genre. I think we talked more about what genre to label it than about any other decision in the entire process. It's hard.

I definitely kept wishing I could create my own genre. It wouldn't even have to be silly, more like a combination of other things. "The rock end of Americana but with distortion, swung a little."

I think we ended up just putting "rock" or "alt rock." I actually thought it was pretty solidly in the "alt country" category (or wherever Old 97s are). My buddy barfs at the mere mention of the word "country" because he didn't have an old time fiddler for a dad and thinks country means Nashpop. Poor guy.

He thought it was "post punk." I didn't like that term because whatever we were doing did not in any way need to reference "punk" (which to me is Minor Threat and Black Flag).

I think we ended up just putting "rock," lol. Is nice to have meaningless genre terms sometimes.

I'm not sure about the issue of labeling genres afterwards. I don't know if many bands would have a sense that they're a specific kind of band unless they do it intentionally, like Steel Panther.

And sometimes it's just like, "wow, that's pretty cool. But like... Can we just think of a genre name some other day? Thinking is making my head hurt and I'd just like to listen to some music for the moment."

Now please enjoy some of my favorite tunes from the "instrumental tapping on guitars with too many strings over a vaguely Montuno-sounding chord progression" genre

 

[charlie chitlin]

I like the term "Djent".
I knew a guy who played it before it was named and he was so glad that somebody came up with an appropriate name for it.

 

[teletail]

One man’s opinion but the razor-thin slicing of already pretty well defined genres is kind of dumb. Really common in both EDM and metal (or harder genres) since the early 90s; hilariously pretentious and adds nothing except impressing/arguing with other genre nerds.

That’s what I was thinking, but you put it so much better than I could have.

 

[Killing Floor]

Adult Contemporary Jazz s now called Country. Is that what you’re asking?

 

[ping-ping-clicka]

dissecting the politics of the music business , how very droll,
What is an example of droll?
droll. adjective [ -er/-est only ] /droʊl/ amusing in an unusual way: I always loved his droll sense of humor

New wave as a term didn’t age well, same with Microsoft‘s NT.

I always though that French New Wave Cinema worked well , I mean
This was apparent in a manifesto-like 1954 essay by François Truffaut, Une certaine tendance du cinéma français, where he denounced the adaptation of safe literary works into unimaginative films.[5] Along with Truffaut, a number of writers for Cahiers du cinéma became leading New Wave filmmakers, including Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol. The associated Left Bank film community included directors such as Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy and Chris Marker.
In a 1961 interview, Truffaut said that "the 'New Wave' is neither a movement, nor a school, nor a group, it's a quality"
The movies featured unprecedented methods of expression, such as long tracking shots (like the famous traffic jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film Weekend). Also, these movies featured existential themes, often stressing the individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human existence. Filled with irony and sarcasm,

 

[Alex_C]

Micro slicing genres is silly. Where would they put Primus? I generally think of things as rock, metal, prog, fusion, jazz or classical.