Genres - Unavoidable Necessity or Absolute Meaningless Bollocks

 

Sorry for the radio silence, I've had some real-life shite to deal with. Anyway, no review today, tho' there are some in the pipeline. At this moment in time I feel the need to rant, specifically about music genres.

Back in the day, when I were but a lad there were only a handful of music genres and life was so easy. When you read the NME (yeah, I know...boo!) the normal record review would state, in no uncertain terms, that this record is punk (or prog or rock or jazz etc).. it was unambiguous and to the point. Of course you really needed to read the review in full to ascertain whether it was your 'thang' but that is good - surely better to describe the nuances of a record than to attach a meaningless tag to it. It was the onset of the rave generation that changed everything - 'House' music was split into happy house, handbag house, Chicago house, nosebleed gabba and other meaningless words. To be fair I am guessing that these words meant something to aficionados but the everyday punter would be left scratching their heads. 

Today, this trend has bled over to every conceivable bit of music. "This record is a fine example of Skwee (yes, that exists) or Cute Metal (ditto) or Simpsonwave (yup, a thing) or Scary Art Pop (again, yup) or Blackened Samoan Screamo Folk (nah, doesn't exist...yet!) " ... this tells me NOTHING but it is fodder to music snobs and hipsters - "Oh, I haven't listened to any Tibetan Chamber Punk since it went mainstream" - I may well like some of these but I would have to listen to it and make up my own mind, and that is the point. A review may well describe the music and have me hooked but until I listen to a track or two, which is soooo easy to do in this interwebby age, I won't know for sure. 

Now, I'm pretty sure that someone is going to say that this proliferation of  new genres is merely a reflection of the global music arena and the unbounding creativity out there - yes, I agree, but my problem lies with the needless attaching of tags. These days some of these genres are so specific that just one artist meets the criteria, in which case that is not a genre, it is merely a lazy descriptor. I come back to the point that yes, please describe the music but do not needlessly create a new genre in which to fit it. Take Black Midi for example, one of the best new(ish) bands around...they have been  described as (and I actually saw this) "Experimental math progressive noise post-punk jazz-rock" .. what the actual fuck?!

There is, of course, a flip side to this. Genre tags that have existed for some time are overused and have become redundant. I have 2 particular bugbears:  'Indie' - what the fuck does that mean? It is a term that was initially used to refer to records not released on a major label, which is why you were just as likely to see Kylie top the Indie charts as you were The Smiths. Now? I'm guessing it is just someone that sounds a little bit different to the bland, faceless pop that saturates TV, radio etc. (see also "Alternative"). Don't get me going on 'Psych' .. it means nothing now. Any band that uses reverb pedals is lumped in with psych, and that is doing some them a huge disservice, there is much, much more to their music than that. Again, back in the day 'Psychedelic Music' was used to describe music influenced by the whole Psychedelic underground scene, informed by heavy use of mind-altering drugs (sigh, those were the days) but now? Throw in a bit of reverb or wah-wah and you are called psych. True Psychedelic music transports you and this is many things to many people (I am just as likely to be 'transported' by the Kitchen Cynics as I am by Brainticket) but with many so-called psych bands nowadays the only place to which I'm transported is back to the turntable to turn this unimaginative shit off . It is lazy labelling and is redundant and meaningless. To give you an example: a friend recently turned me onto The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol (if you don't know them then that needs fixing)...this friend described them as a 'psych' band ... woah, steady there, there is a whole lot more going on there than just 'psych'. In the same breath this friend also mentioned another band (I won't name them as I want to keep everything cool), also described as psych... bland, uncreative and just an excuse to show off a collection of guitar pedals...wouldn't give it houseroom. 

And that, my friends, is sort of the crux of the problem - many of these 'tags' are meaningless and lazy and inevitably tell the reader/listener nothing at all. To describe something as just "nu-wave avant-garde pop rock' is lazy journalism and aimed at impressionable suckers who like to bandy terms around like badges of honour. 

There is one other negative aspect to all this and this the rise of the 'gatekeeper', the people who appoint themselves as 'experts' on a certain genre and vehemently naysay anything that transgresses the parameters that they think contain a genre. Join any Facebook group related to a certain genre and there will be at least one gatekeeper amongst the members...the people who post "Admins, please remove this post as it is NOT xxxxxx". At the end of the day music is there to entertain not be the cause of some sort of musical sectarianism. 

Now, here comes the hard bit. How do you describe a jazz record without stating that it is a jazz record? Well, you can't of course. How do you review a new UK Subs album without using the word punk...again, you can't. So it would seem that the old, trusty tags do have their uses and have become a vital tool to music description. So I suppose to answer the headline question genres are both unavoidable necessities but most (especially in recent times) are absolute meaningless bollocks. Now if you will excuse me I need a lie down and to listen to some ace Underground Carpark Lo-Fi Acoustic Metal that I have just scored. 

LISTEN AND MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND!