I am fine with the basics (e.g. classical vs rock/punk vs pop based on instruments) but there’s loads of other terms that aren’t very intuitive.
What is the difference between “alternate” rock and I guess “regular” rock? What is the difference between rock and punk? What is post-(insert subgenre here, like punk)? What is pop rock (the music subgenre, not the fizzy candy rocks), and how is it different from rock pop? What makes music “progressive”? What on earth are the “blues”? What is the difference between rock, metal, hard metal, heavy metal, etc. aside from an increasing level of angriness and decreasing level of clarity? etc etc
The best way to learn this is by listening to music.
This is what happens when you pay too much attention to any kind of taxonomy. Even scientific and rigorous taxonomy disintegrates into subjectivity when you look too close.
The idea of precisely labeling and categorizing things appears to be a human desire imposed upon an uncooperative universe.
In this case, I think it’s not so much human desire but the need of music journalists to fill column inches.
It’s a language so that people can discuss varying levels of nuance with each other. You probably don’t care about the difference between industrial metal and folk metal, but metalheads certainly do. And even that’s a pretty top level example.
Same goes for every other genre/subgenre. Indie pop and bubble pop can be very different, and just because someone likes one doesn’t mean they’ll like the other.
There is also a historic factor in all this because genres are always influenced, derived from, or mixed with other genres. Triphop was born this way, as a mix of hiphop, jazz, dub, electronica, and many others
Tldr: Think of it as painters describing colors
I can understand asking the difference between different metal sub genres cause metalheads do like to go a bit overboard with them. But the definition of punk and blues? Cmon man those are pretty well defined. You’re not gonna convince me that after listening to a guns and roses song, a dead kennedys song and a BB King song that you’d be unable to say which one is generic rock, which is punk and which is blues.
I’ve actually been looking into how music genres/subgenres are defined for the past few months due to the fact that my favorite genre “doesn’t exist” (I’m not joking someone wrote a research paper on this)
I think there are research articles on this if one wants to go into details… Like how certain genres separate. Sometimes there are strict definitions (most techno I think are quite well-defined). But practically I think most ppl tend to enjoy ranges of genres that are close to each other… There are also plenty of genre-blend songs too so there’s that
Also I second for Every Noise At Once, they have some really obscure genres too for detailed comparisons
All that really matters to me is where they put them in the record shops that I tend to visit, so that I can find what I want, or similar stuff. This can vary shop by shop though - but usually not too much. If in doubt just ask the shopkeeper.
If the shop didn’t have enough stuff to warrant a subdivision, then the term doesn’t matter. If you’ve started using more specialist shops, then it may start to matter.
If you’re trying to understand music ‘journalism’ / marketing/PR bullshit instead of listen to music then I have no advice. I’d rather spend more time listening to some music/radio or just randomly going to concerts than reading 90% of the shite that people write about music.
The only real issue comes for very new groups where they don’t even have a bandcamp to listen to or any half decently recorded youtubes. In those cases I’d expect ticket price to be just a few quid, so just risk it and go to the show. You can always leave if it’s unbearably shite.
If you want to get an idea about a genre , try to pick up a cheap compilation or samplers, or find a radio show that might play it.
The labels and categorisation of everything can get tiring, and be utterly useless or confusing for anyone unfamiliar with a particular genre (it all sounds the same!), however these can still be handy when you find a particular sound you like, you can use that to discover other bands with similar sounds or style.
As bands in that genre experiment and evolve their sound, they may cross, mix it create all new genres that can lead you down a new list of bands to explore - or perhaps it’s not your flavour so you stick with what you like.
Most hobbies have depth to them like this, I guess music is so variable that we need a thousand ways to describe all the various possibilities.
Think of them not as means of differentiating musical style for you, but as historical ways of explaining how a band or musical movement differed from the norm.
Take a band like The Beach Boys. In the 70s, what they were doing was alternative rock — that is, they took the dance/music genre of classic rock and roll, and re-imagined how it would sound on a sandy beach at a surf party instead of in a dance hall.
Enter the 80s, and their music became part of the cultural norm, so they were popular/“pop” music.
And yet, as a band, they kept adding new techniques and writing new music right into the 2000s, often drifting back out of popular culture while doing so.
The point of this is, see what the subgenre tells you about the musicians; it isn’t really a useful way to clearly divide musical works themselves into subcategories.
It come down to this: what is the sound pallet and what is the beat pattern?
A jig is different from a reel or a waltz
Neuro Funk is different from trap house.
I’m an avid music listener and don’t really get it either. The main thing is that I don’t view genres as rigid categories, rather as general descriptions of how music sounds. Bands can have albums or even individual songs that don’t fit the genre of their other albums/songs.
With metal and all of its sub-genres in particular, sometimes it feels like splitting hairs.
I love isekai anime but there are lots: the old ‘technical’ isekais that just involve going to another world, then there are reincarnation isekais, videogame isekais (& subsub genre of otome villainesses isekais), alt-history isekais, reverse isekais, death game isekais, … (Etc) there can be a ton of overlap where they sometimes borrow tropes and themes or are influenced by one another. Each has a history and a sort of genealogy, but there all isekai. The nuances, or even the very existence, of the subgenres can often be lost on casual viewers.
It’s sorta like that. Less well defined, and often relational. Borrowing sounds and ideas, or tones and themes. Blues rock is rock than uses elements of blues music, like like how blues jazz is to regular jazz. It’s an independent dimension from the main genre in that case, like punk rock… I wonder if punk jazz is a thing? Punk classical? Hmm…
Each subgenre has it’s own themes, history, and identity. For example, give the punk rock wiki a read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock
Might also check out https://everynoise.com/
Does it play on the oldies station? Then it’s an oldie.
Does it play on the rock station? Then it’s rock.
Does it play on the pop station, and sound like the most manufactured, fake, and passionless bullshit you ever heard? Then it is most definitely pop music.
Does it play on the rock station? Then it’s rock.
My local rock station started playing what is clearly pop music a couple of years ago. I think they still call themselves a rock station.
Pop Rock is a thing. Or was a thing, once. 🤷♂️
I can tune to the oldies station these days and hear Linkin Park. 😭
Trust me, I’m not talking about tracks that could reasonably be called “pop rock”. They were already playing pop rock all the time anyway, there’s a local group in that style that is (or was) so popular nationally that rappers from other cities were making fun of them.
I don’t think we have those kinds of oldie stations yet, oldies are for the 70+ generations here and they don’t want to listen to any rock music that’s fresher than Elvis Ü
You’re still doing a lot of glossing.
My parents listened to Roy Orbison, Chubby Checker, Buddy Holly, and some of the very early Elvis. Would they consider Elvis “oldies?” Probably not — he was pop music to them. Roy Orbison? Yeah; he’d be oldies.
To me, Madonna and Prince are oldies.
Your parents have much better taste in music than my grandparents or the oldie stations in my area.
I don’t think anyone understands ALL of them.
As you become familiar with a certain style, you notice differences between them. The deeper you dive and the more you listen to, the finer details you can recognize.
I could probably name at least 25 different genres of rock, and explain how they are different, but styles I’m not familiar with, I can usually only recognize the broadest category. Bluegrass all sounds like bluegrass to me, but an expert could identify 25 different subgenres of it.
In other words, this meme is actually accurate:
Bingo!
You call flowerviolence and rootbop the same one more time and I’m gonna gnome yo ass
This is one of the cooler websites I’ve found over the years
