So I’m sure there’s at least a few people here that know I’m pretty anal about correctly naming music genres, etc. and I was wondering how you guys/girls/geeple narrow it down. I’m talking what you make, what’s on the radio, that random edit you heard (maybe even the song you heard in the elevator the other day)… How do you find those tags when you’re posting it on SC?
Me personally, I have a few categories to do it.
First of all, Rhythm.
#/4 (Anything /4, because not everything has to be in 4/4, no?)
2-Step (Drum and bass and some garage tracks)
Swing (Mostly for garage)
Hat Roll (Drill, Trap, etc.)
Latin (Encompasses stuff like Reggaeton, Dancehall, Brazil Funk, etc.)
Half-time (Usually bass music)
Then it’s instruments/instrument categories
Synthesizers (melody)
Synthesizers (heavy bass)
Guitars & Drums (so like rock type stuff)
Brass/Woodwind (i’m talking like saxophones or trombones)
Orchestral (strings, clarinets, y’know)
And from there I kinda shove them into a specific group depending on the previous categories, such as:
Bass music
Guitar music (Like standard drummer rhythm lead bass singer type shit)
4/4 Dance
Pop
Ethnical (So like, country specific music like Reggae)
Breakbeat Dance
etc.
And then to find specific genres, you just look for the specific bits that define it within those groups, like the specific rhythm of jersey club.
I don’t listen to a whole lot of electronic music, so whenever I’d sort those subgenres I’d usually just end up with a few in each category, with most of them ending up under the IDM umbrella. Lately I’ve been able to throw everything into an ‘electronic’ folder and just be done with it. My neuro-tarded brain hates this, but I have to move on or else get stuck here.
Metal and hardcore on the other hand, I kind of need a few restrictions for (since some of them can’t really be mixed in playlists unless you’re just that scatterbrained), but I’ve still had to stop the relentless categorization and move on. Black, death, doom, grindcore, melodeth, power, hardcore, melodic hardcore, thrash, speed… oh god, I still do it, don’t I?
Not trying to be overly arguementive, but my personal outlook on this is that there’s very little value in trying to categorise music into hyper-specific genres. Especially to the point where people are trying to put dubstep with slightly different/specific bass sounds into different genres, etc. Most of the time I think that’s a case of people trying to make their music more special or unique. I tend to just think nah you’re just making dubstep with a specific style/sound that isn’t actually all that unique we don’t need to all start calling it dogstep or whatever every time you make a new serum preset.
This may be more more of a cultural thing also though because this is something I’ve noticed is way more of a thing within north american audiences than it really is in the scene here in the UK. There’s a lot of labels and artists that are putting out music with so much genre-bending and grey area that it’s not even worth trying to compartmentalise it and I think think that’s way more interesting and cool than everyone being desperate to find hyper-specific niches.
Just as a specific example, check out ‘Pressure Dome’, a label from Bristol where I’m from, none of the artists on there really can describe what it is they’re making and they tend to just say like ‘kinda leftfield sort of techno adjacent stuff idk’. Because if you tried to figure out a sub-genre for all that stuff you’d go crazy. A lot of the music that is popular here in the underground nightclub scene is along these lines.
Like what would you call this or any of that release ? I’m using this example because in this case I know the artists don’t have an answer for you, but there’s so much music now that doesn’t fall into any pre-determined genre neatly.
I understand why you’d want to find the “right audience” for your music. But at the same time, limiting yourself based on someone’s tag of the day seems like a rather bad idea, because you’re only going to shut off people who may enjoy your music (the algorithms will push traffic to people with your niche term tags and miss a good chunk of potential listeners).
Also, this is fodder for misplaced elitism (when you’re 16 or something).
“I don’t listen to electronic music bro, I’m into Vektroid Skweee Turbofolk”
Dance (EDM – Electronic Dance Music – see Electronic below)
Some of those genres have like a coalition of 5 musicians on streaming social media platforms that are working to bring their obscure genre mainstream.
I categorize the music that i make into this
Bullshit for my experiments
Idm+breakcore
Dubstep+idm
Edm
Dubstep+breakcore i failed so many times trying to combine the genres of dubstep and breakcore.
Idm+hiphop
Glitch
And
Electronica
I include idm in some of the music i make in order to describe the attempt to focus on sound design.
As for the music i listen to
I just go by the main parent genres… like
Jazz
Blues
80s rock
70s rock
60s rock
90s rock
2000s rock
[Insert decade] rock
Ambient rock aka post rock
Metal
Edm
Techno-house
Dubstep
Dnb
Breakcore
Idm
Pop
Trip hop
Hip hop
Gangsta rap
All the other obscure subgenres i dont pay any attention to all the made up labels.
In my mind all these subgenres are just experimental variants of the main parental genres…
That’s just some website that appeared when I typed something like “electronic genres and subgenres list” in the DDG search. Note that it’s from 2012, so there are probably hundreds more stupid subgenres that have appeared (and disappeared) since then
I got two categories: sounds I want to hear again and sounds I don’t. Given any broad genre or style, I can usually find something to like and a whole lot I don’t find worthwhile. I don’t really give a shit what the genre is if I enjoy it, and I don’t find describing art in terms of a category helpful. That applies to stuff I make as well - most of it gets deleted, the stuff that resonates with me sticks around.
I get your point, you’re trying to say that music shouldn’t be forced into certain areas just because of how it sounds, right? I totally dig that. I mean, especially with newer music you really can’t slap labels on it, because there’s always going to be similarities.
I can’t help myself when it comes to categorising and making sense of things, so I usually just find a wider term to slap on top of it, or take whatever the artist calls it and sprinkle some other labels on it. Partially enjoy tagging music because it makes looking for similar tunes much easier… That’s to say if the other person knows how to tag it properly as well.
Also, if you push your music towards the correct people, then you can probably build a large fanbase very quickly.
To me, that song you showed me sorta fits into 2 step garage and techno at the same time… It’s all about knowledge to me.
Ouch, man. (Joking)
Yes yes yes! My dad always messes with me by playing a random song and asking what genre it is, and I always listen for like 2 seconds and say something like “house,” because it doesn’t matter if it’s hypercore bassfart house, it’s still house music…
Can’t go too far though, because all genres of music are music. So I’d just be saying music all the time.
Also, when people ask what music I make, I just say “electronic dance” or “rave” because nobody knows what the fuck rawtempo hardcore is
It’s a sub-sub-subgenre of Hardstyle
The ordering goes
Hardstyle
Rawstyle
Rawtempo
So it’s like a blend between rawstyle and uptempo hardcore. The main defining thing is the tempo (160 bpm) and use of Zaag (Saw) kicks that originated in the Uptempo hardcore scene. I made a thread somewhere here about the genres of hardcore, you can read up on that if you want. The drop kick is unique. It has no transient, a monotone and super bassy tail, and quite often no punch, or a “beep” sound.
It’s a bit of an acquired taste, like most Hard Dance.
