Talk:Music genre/Archive 1

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Since when has country music become primarily known as honky-tonk?

Spoken Word
Err... Spoken Word? Music? Are you sure about that one? Lezek

Experimental subheading
Suggest we create a subheading for Experimental music inside this list, move Noise Music and Free Music to it, add possibilies of Industrial Music and Free Jazz - Greg Godwin


 * I don't see why not. Go ahead!;-) -- WojPob

Sorry about reverting your edit, Lezek - I just wasn't paying attention. It was a perfectly good change you made. --Camembert
 * NP. It seems a bit out of place tho...
 * Yeah, as I said before I noticed I'd messed up, I was tempted to just take it out. I might try to trim it down a bit later - there's no doubt that a lot of people think these labels do more harm than good, but I'm not sure we need a pretty lengthy quote from Zorn to make that point. --Camembert
 * It's much better now... yay :) Lezek

---

Musique concrète
I would suggest musique concrète be shifted to the heading of experimental music. I have doubts that many of those concerned in its early production ever classified it as "classical" music. Although I could be wrong - Greg Godwin


 * Well, I guess nobody really classifies themselves as "classical" (or anything else) do they? And there's a problem in defining what "classical music" is anyway (something of a problem in defining "musique concrète" as well). But I think musique concrète is generally seen as classical, inasmuch as its practitioners were working in traditional musical institutions, had been given more or less traditional music educations and generally wrote conventional classical music when they weren't writing musique concrète (Varese, Xenakis and so on). They were also quite theoretic about what they were doing (Pierre Schaeffer wrote big books on the subject). It's experimental as well as classical, I guess - it could be listed under both. --Camembert

Prehaps the problem lies in the actual classification of "experimental music" then. Minimalism could also fall under this heading, as could forms of electronica and free-jazz. I'll leave it as is for now. All talk of genre is going to be quite controversial, especially in this day and age where a hodge-podge of hybrid forms is the norm. (hearing concrète in Bjork, free-jazz in Radiohead) -- Greg Godwin


 * Yeah, "experimental" is a troublesome label as well (they all are, as you say) - John Cage wrote an essay just about what experimental music might be, if I remember correctly. Anyway, if you want to shuffle things around this article, then by all means feel free - I certainly won't change anything back. --Camembert

List Reorganization
I just wanted to note that, if anyone was waiting until I was done reorganizing the list to say anything, I'm done so feel free to excoriate/lavish praise upon me as you see fit. Tokerboy

First, good job on the list. It's very well laid out.

I wrote the article for synth pop and would like to see it on the list. You would know better where you would want that than I, so I'm letting you decide where you want to put it. --Two Halves
 * Synth pop added and, as a crazy-whack-chaos-theory result, punk is moved to its own section. Tokerboy

(Lezek's comments moved from top of page)

wtf?! Why are all those types listed as subcategories of black metal?! utter, utter nonsense. Gothic metal is not a subcategory of Black metal, it is closer to Doom metal but not a subcategory of that either. A lot of people think that Cradle of Filth are Gothic metal, but they aren't. They're more symphonic black metal, which is probably what has led to Gothic metal being listed under Black Metal. Industrial Metal, Nu Metal and Rapcore(!!!) bear absolutely no relation to Black Metal whatsoever, and not Thrash Metal either IMO. Rapcore is a fusion of Rap and Hard Rock, and sometimes Hip Hop. Listing it under Heavy Metal is skating on thin ice in many cases. Listing it under Black metal is just wrong. --Lezek
 * Maybe the article should explain what the list means -- the placement of gothic metal under black metal does mean that it is a subcategory, it is meant to show the genealogical origin of the genres. I did such using a variety of web pages, but I have not been into much modern metal outside of Tool and System of a Down, so I may have misinterpreted some occasionally very badly written prose.  No offense intended.  Also note that such a structure can never be wholly accurate because of the constant give and take between genres, even wholly unrelated ones -- a complex discussion of the origins of any form of music needs to be done in paragraph form in an article on the subject, so don't worry too much about trying to communicate meaningful information through an outline format, as it can't be too informative, it is merely a collection of links and broad generalizations to organize the links in a meaningful way. Tokerboy


 * Hmm no offense intended here either, but some of that did seem extremely odd :). Anyway the genealogical origin of a genre comes pretty close to defining what I would call a subcategory. The vast majority of metal genres seem to have developed either almsot independently, or from a fusion of several pre-existing metal genres so in many cases I think it's best to leave them at the top level. If you can't accurately show the genealogical origin of a genre or subgenre in this format then it at least makes sense to put them in a place where they will be located easily. I hope I've improved that situation. Feel free to revert if you disagree. (The placement of Rapcore under Hip-Hop &gt; Alternative Rap is almost certainly incorrect in this light however. You might also want to move Heavy Metal back under Rock &amp; Roll; just keep in mind that it is a bad idea to have it both there and as a top level category). --Lezek
 * I think heavy metal should both be under rock and roll and as a top-level hierarchy starter. If the focus of the outline is on expressing genealogical derivation, that makes sense because heavy metal definitely arose from rock and roll, but also has dozens of subgenres that deserve to be mentioned.  Putting all of them under heavy metal under rock and roll would be difficult to look at, hence placing just the parent genre there and putting the subgenres in a separate domain.  I won't fiddle around with the genres within heavy metal, as you seem to know a lot more about that than me -- my system may have been an oversimplification. I don't like rapcore as alternative rap, gangsta rap or old school rap, nor as its own category, so I'll just ignore that for now.Tokerboy


 * Okay, that partly answers my comments below. I wonder if tracing a "family tree" of music shouldn't be a seperate article.  Something to say "see below" when you've taken a genre to the head of another branch would be useful too. Bagpuss 00:03 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)
 * I agree, I've thought about adding something to the effect of "see below" for styles of heavy metal where heavy metal is first listed under electric blues and then British Invasion (BTW, I wouldn't have much of a problem if that was changed to British blues, to make it less Americ-centric, though also somewhat more misleading since some of the groups included there are blues only by the most bizarre stretch of the word possible) Tokerboy

More categorization issues
I don't want to diss your hard work Tokerboy, and I may not be up to rewriting it myself, but some of the subdivisions seem odd to me. Firstly, "Rhythm and Blues" seems an odd place to put Garage, Merseybeat and British Invasion (the latter is a very American term for British music as well, so although it's fine to link to the article, I'd rather it wasn't a category). Secondly, Britpop under Dream Pop (what is this?) under New Wave under Punk Rock? I'm not sure about listing influences as genres. Britpop is not punk. Bagpuss 23:56 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)
 * For the record, dream pop is something like the Cocteau Twins. Tokerboy


 * Agree with the statement about the influences. List an entry under the main one or two influences; if there are too many move it up a level and repeat until the position makes sense. Example: Gothic Metal may have Black metal influences but they aren't significant enough to list it under Black Metal IMO. Just listening to Gothic Metal should confirm this. There are many other influences to Gothic Metal and it certainly isn't possible to list it under all of them. If a genre's parent doesn't make up a significant part of its sound you should consider moving it up a level, or else end up with either a highly bloated or highly misleading list. --Lezek
 * Agreed -- my intention was to place genres within parent genres only if its reasonably uncontroversial to do so (most of them are, I think). If there is a controversy, the most NPOV fashion to deal with it is to place the genre at the highest level in which there is no controversy and discuss its origins in the article itself. Tokerboy

Lezek, did you mean to move black metal et al to come from rapcore? That doesn't make any sense since black metal appeared a good couple years before rapcore was even dreamt of. Tokerboy


 * No I didn't intend that at all, just pasted Rapcore in the wrong place. --Lezek

As for putting rapcore under hip hop, I don't really care -- I'm much more into hip hop than metal, and I can assure you I've not heard any rapcore that sounds anything like hip hop, (though I haven't heard much beyond Limb Bizkit and the like) and I'm told such groups do (or did) exist. If the consensus is to organize the list by sound instead of influence, I can go along with that, but I think it will be too confusing and difficult and will probably end up being a bland list of links in alphabetical order, and I don't want that to happen. Tokerboy


 * Really? Suggest you listen to Senser. --Lezek


 * I'll give it a try. Tokerboy


 * Coolies. I recommend Parallel Charge as a good introduction. --Lezek

I don't know quite where to talk to you now, so I'll go down the bottom here. I'm afraid I don't know who the Cocteau Twins are, so that didn't help. Now that I understand your method, I've put in Madchester, which everyone goes on about as having been a big fusion, but I've left it under dream pop. Hope it's okay. Bagpuss
 * I don't know much about Madchester, but I think that's right. It occurred to me today that the only reason I wanted to make an organized outline was because a disorganized one already existed. There's no reason each of the top level domains can't have a small paragraph that can give these more difficult genres the attention they deserve. I'm thinking something like the below: (ignore the facts as they are made up where I don't know/can't remember - what do you think of the presentation?) Tokerboy
 * Heavy metal music originated in the mid- to late-1960s by bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Most of these original bands were playing blues mixed with rock, and they developed a dark, bombastic sound, with cryptic and often unintelligible lyrics.  Heavy metal during the early 1970s was a cult phenomenon, with only a few bands (such as Blue Öyster Cult) achieving success with one or two mainstream hits. At the time, hair metal began evolving, influenced by glam rock musicians like David Bowie and Mott the Hoople.  By 1983, hair metal was the dominant sound in heavy metal in terms of sales, though metal fans were largely listening to less popular thrash metal bands like Metallica or black metal bands like Celtic Frost.  After the success of grunge rendered hair metal unhip in the early 1990s, there was an explosion of metal genres. Stoner metal, doom metal and death metal developed but never achieved widespread popularity.  Later in the decade, some nu metal bands like Tool had achieved great mainstream success.
 * This is a bit longer than I wanted, but someone who knows more about the subject could probably tighten it a bit. This format probably wouldn't take up much more space than the current list, and would be easier and more effective at summarizing the development of different forms than using a strict hierarchical outline. Tokerboy


 * That'd work pretty well. We'd have to leave some genres as mere lists until someone who knew about them came along, but hey, Wikipedia's expected to be incomplete.

Hip-hop categorization
Question: Is there a better way to differentiate hip-hop? "Most Populare" and "less popular" seem highly arbitrary and could easily change with different audiences; I think there's got to be a better way to divide the two. Even 'Mainstream' and 'alternative,' no matter how wrong/rude it is, might be a better title. Atorpen 02:28 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)
 * The only problem is that "alternative rap" refers to a specific type of rap. Christian rap, for example, is alternative (to P. Diddy) but not "alternative rap".  I'll see if I can think of a better way.  Tokerboy

Disco --> ambient ? This needs some serious rearranging! Gene Poole

It's still rock 'n' roll to me -- Billy Joel ;-)

-

Acid Jazz and Jazz Rap
I reverted the change of jazz rap to acid jazz because they are not the same thing. See a What is acid jazz FAQ, which describes acid jazz while barely mentioning the occasional existence of rap in it. They are related, and there is a lot of overlap, but they are not the same thing (acid jazz should be mentioned, maybe under hip hop or maybe not). The sentence wouldn't even be correct with acid jazz in there, because I don't think 3 Feet High and Rising was acid jazz. Tuf-Kat

-- I understand...though 3 Feet High and Rising cannot even be associated with Jazz Rap either. The samples are so diverse that you can't even nail the album into any kind of box. mGee
 * True. It's commonly considered the start of jazz rap only because they were the first (? - maybe) to sample any jazz.  If it came out today, it would probably be considered some bizarre kind of alternative rap.  Don't let me stop you from placing acid jazz somewhere -- I have no idea where, but any term commonly used to describe a genre should be somewhere in a paragraph (eventually, for now many are still on one of the lists). Tuf-Kat

Genre descriptions => Genre pages
Why does this page contain mini-descriptions of some of the genres mentioned? I suggest that information is better on the specific pages - I think 'musical genre' should give a description of how genres are defined and then jump straight to the list of genres... readers can find their way from there to the specific genre that interests them.

I'd make the change straight off, but it's quite a major alteration, so I thought I'd put it up for discussion first.

Basswulf 11:25 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good idea to me.


 * Magnus 11:39 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've removed all the information that I considered extraneous - copied below for reference, in case anyone wants to double check any of the individual genres to make sure the information is represented there.
 * Basswulf 11:51 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

(I deleted the stuff moved from the main page cuz it takes up space. It's in the history for the talk page or the main article.  I wrote it, and won't be mad.)

I disagree with the removal from the main article. At the very least, the styles that had been converted from a list to prose aren't mentioned at all anymore and should be re-added. See the above conversation for the reasons why the list was changed to paragraphs -- I doubt it will take up much more space than a list, and it more effectively conveys more information than a list. Relationships between genres aren't binary, as a list implies. Does emo go under punk rock in a list? Either way, it's a POV assertion that many will disagree with. In a sentence or three, we can neutrally describe how hardcore punk split into multiple genres in the late 80s and that purists don't consider them punk anymore. Tuf-Kat

Purpose of this page
Musical genre is a pretty POV subject anyway - it's a lot more fuzzy than the periodic table of elements ;-)

I think one solution is to allow the same genre name to be mentioned in more than one place in the list (and to clearly state this is the case at the top of the list). The related article can then upack the history, development and boundaries of that genre in more detail.

We could also have each major heading accompanied by a short, overarching description, without getting into too much detail or history. What I didn't like about the previous version of the page was that the overall layout seemed to be:


 * 1) Discussion of 'genre' in the context of music
 * 2) Background details on a limited range of genres
 * 3) A long list linking to a wide range of specific articles

2 and 3 seemed to be working at cross purposes and seemed somewhat disjointed. I guess that's also coloured by my perception of this page as more of a junction leading to lots of specific articles than a fully fledged destination in it's own right (bar point 1, the general discussion of the topic).

Basswulf 13:51 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
 * 3 shouldn't exist, as it was being phased into 2 (slowly, I know, but in theory...). While I suppose listing genres wherever appropriate, even multiple times, would be an improvement, I think it would still be longer, less useful, more inacurrate, unwieldy and misleading than paragraphs.  If there was no #3, would you have a problem with using prose?


 * Perhaps our disagreement lies in the purpose of this page. I don't see it primarily as a a junction to other articles -- that would be list of musical genres.  Maybe we should have both.  Thus, if one wants just a list of genres to check out, one can go there, but if one wants some concise information on the differences between them and the nature of generic classification in general, then this would be the place. Tuf-Kat


 * I would see #1 and #3 as the basic purpose of this page. While having more information about some genres is ok, I think trying to fit them all on one page is potentially very limiting - either you don't cover many genres, or you have very little information on each one, or you end up with an extremely big page (or probably a mixture of all three).  Surely the advantage of a hypertext format is that you can break the information up into manageable chunks?  Certainly I agree that there should be on this page some discussion of the nature (and problems) of classification, but to my mind any more comprehensive information on specific genres or the difference between them would be better on separate pages. Magnus 14:27 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)


 * Okay, how about we create a list of musical genres page, which is clearly linked to after the introductory text about genres in the context of music (#1). That would contain all the information from #3 and placing it at this point in the page makes it easy to find for someone who would just like to deal with a list (that's me - I can cope with one more load time to get to the information ;-)


 * The other information can come back, but after an explanatory paragraph that makes it clear that the rest of the contents of the page will be succinct descriptions of the relationships between different areas in overarching genres and referring readers to the specific genre pages for more detail.


 * That way we're using the benefits of hypertext to give the reader a range of choices and avoiding any one page from becoming too large, while still giving the slightly more extensive information that Tuf-Kat is after. It would also be useful to encourage people to link back to this overview from each article on a specific genre.


 * Basswulf 15:30 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

Accomplished. The info about genres still needs tidying up to make sure it's not replicating too much of what is on the individual pages but I've performed the major surgery discussed above. --Basswulf 16:10 Apr 22, 2003 (UTC)

I like your Zorn quote. Seems to me that anyone with an interest in selling T-shirts has an interest in contriving a new musical genre.

Let's talk about an electronic music section
I'm new around here and I've been surfing around filling in the blanks in the electronic end of the music pages... I'd like to add a paragraph about electronic music, like the others with a short history and a bunch of links. Where should I put such a paragraph?

...Pema


 * Wherever you like, I'd say. The genres don't seem to be in any particular order, so I suppose it doesn't much matter. --Camembert

Esthetics vs spirit
I've removed this paragraph:


 * Most music lovers would agree that the quality of music is not in its estetics, it's sound and texture, but rather in the spirit and character that goes into its composition. Because genre classification ignores this important musical principle, it could be argued that it even encourages music of poor quality to be made simply for its esthetic qualities.

What it seems to be saying is that "most music lovers would agree that it doesn't matter what a piece of music sounds like so long as it's been created in the right spirit," - this is probably true in the case of certain live performances (particularly in punk, for example, where attitude counts) but I doubt that "most" music fans feel this way about music in general. --Camembert

Hi Camembert. I put that paragraph in. Hmm I think you're right, I went too far with generalizing the opinions of the creative community. But I still think that the fact that genre classification ignores the content of music is still a really valid point, and can be fit in there better. Pema


 * Actually, genre by definition pays attention strictly to content and ignores both quality and intent. That said, most of what's on this page is actually puiblicists' medial labels, rather than genres at all. dunerat 04:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Techno
OK I'm glad somebody added the paragraph on techno because I was too timid to do so, and would have not done as good a job of it. I made some minor edits to the paragraph, replacing Drum n Bass with Jungle, since Jungle is kind of a parent of drum n bass and some other genres, and I added "dance music" to the paragraph title, and made some other minor edits and spelling things.

Then I added the "outside electronica" paragraph. I felt this was a better idea than to try and fit the genres mentioned there into the techno section, where they really don't belong and don't get along. It makes it look like they're offshoots of techno, when in fact techno/dance and outside electronica, I feel, are two ubergenres that have developed in parallel and influenced each-other.

I also added the sentence about how all these genres have constantly-developing subgenres with subgenres of their own. The wording at the end of that is kinda messed (help!) who can say it better?

The call has been made: please add links and stuff to this. And dates. And artists :D

Pema

- I've never understood techno genres, and the section here didn't really help. I'd like to propose replacing it with the below, which I wrote by modifying what was there and using allmusic -- the goal, I think, should be to link to all the genres of techno with a brief explanation of how each evolved and how they differ from each other. I removed the reference to the Giorgio Moroder album because the year given was 75, allmusic claimed 77 and gave earlier disco albums from Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer. If this early disco isn't considered techno, but later disco is (as the article originally implied), then this should be explained, because I'm confused. The vast majority of musical genres shouldn't be capitalized, so I kept them all lowercase. Tuf-Kat

Electronic music
Techno is a catch-all term for several types of electronic music, most of it intended for dancing. But rather than using techno as an umbrella term, the correct term to use is Electronic Music, or as many use, Eletronic Dance Music (EDM). Purely electronic music existed as far back as the 1950s, though the birth of techno is generally considered to be in the early to mid-1970s. Earlier influences include avant-garde jazz, rock, musique concrète and funk experiments from David Bowie, John Cage, Stockhausen, Brian Eno, Tony Scott, George Clinton and Faust.

Electronic music has its roots in disco, which peaked in its commerical interest by 1979 (after the release of the movie, Saturday Night Fever). After the popular demise of disco, the music form went largely underground and survived in clubs such as the Paradise Garage in New York, The Hacienda in the UK, surviving in the form of hi-NRG before splintering into dozens of subgenres. In the early 1980s, the use of the 303 and drum machines helped progress the music beyond instrumentals and into sample-based songs. This was the birth of house music, which remained an underground phenomenon centered in cities like London, Detroit and Chicago for most of the decade.

House music fractured into subgenres including:
 * Hip house - Chicago-based formed by adding hip hop influences
 * Electro hop - An originally Los Angeles-based mixture of hip hop and techno
 * Acid house - distinctive form that uses the Roland 303 synthesizer or another with resonance/cutoff control; a slower, Belgian version is called newbeat
 * Deep house - specialized form featuring heavy use of the cutoff filter on musical samples
 * Garage - a highly polished disco-influenced sound centered in New York City and New Jersey (a.k.a the Jersey Sound)

The 1980s saw the birth of other forms of techno as well, such as trance, which has complex chord progressions and melodies and its close relative, Goa trance, which incorporates industrial music to inject psychedelic sounds. In addition to trance, jungle (also drum n' bass) added reggae influences and sampled break beats (such as the amen break and the funky drummer) and tribal techno married advanced electronic instrumentation with rhythms from Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East.

In the 1990s, techno saw its first mainstream success since the demise of disco, primarily in big beat and funky break, very complex and highly produced forms of techno, trance and jungle popularized by artists like The Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers. In addition, a Dutch form called gabber added lots of overdrive and distortion to incredibly rapid tempos and mutated into a more accessible version called happy hardcore. By the end of the decade, the term techno had come to apply to a specific, extremely minimalist, melody-free version of techno. House music was no longer cutting edge through most of the 90s, though progressive artists at the end of the decade (like Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx) reinvigorated the genre. By the turn of the millennium, drum n bass had evolved into nu breaks, drill n bass and 2-beat (a.k.a. speed garage, underground garage and British garage).

Styles of electronic music that are not dance music are not generally considered techno. They are called electroacoustic, outside or left-field instead and are distinguished by an atmospheric, progressive quality and slower tempos. These styles include:
 * Ambient - a mixture of trance and techno that reached a large cult audience in the early 90s with Aphex Twin and The Orb; the style also mixed with other forms to make ambient breakbeat, ambient techno, downbeat, illbient and ambient dub
 * Trip hop - a form of hip hop beats mixed with acid house and ambient instrumentation, popularized by bands like Portishead and Massive Attack
 * Intelligent dance music (IDM) - a progressive form of electronic music that is both dance-able and enjoyable at home, a mixture of house, ambient and synth pop

I think it bears pointing out at this stage that electronic music is such a bloody large genre, and it's edges are so transparent, it's like rock n roll. It's affected every type of popular music.

That having been said, by means of disclaiming any effort at comprehensively categorizing electronic music, I think your rearrangement makes sense for the most part.

I agree with putting Techno and Left-field electronica under the Electronic Music category. Maybe the best way of organizing this kind of stuff would be:

Early electronic music (stuff about cage, stockhausen, old synth stuff, tape delay stuff, musique concrète, that kinda thing)

Electronic Dance Music (I think Techno is too wide a term, a lot of techno isn't meant for dancing, like a lot of Plastikman's downtempo stuff... this category would include all the stuff about trance, dance techno, house, stuff that's meant for dancing to)

Electronic Listening Music (downtempo, trip-hop, illbient, stuff like that. stuff that's meant for sitting around and grooving to)

Jungle (I don't know where else to put stuff about jungle, drum n bass, dancehall, that kinda stuff. it may be dance music but i'm not sure. 'cause there's ambient drum n bass too :D)

Electroacoustic/Left-field/IDM

then maybe ambient music should be a totally seperate, maybe small, genre on its own. 'cause ambient isn't really much more connected with electronic music than it is with rock or new-age or anything else. maybe the ambient section could refer to ambient as something that stands on its own, and also gets applied to everything else.

I also have to say the article you put in has a lot of weirdness about it. What's hip-house? electro-hop? i've never ever heard of these genres. and obviously the list would have to be filled out.

anywayz. i've put a lot out on the table here. what do y'all think of it?

pema
 * Electro-hop is more hip hop than anything else, which may be why you haven't heard of it, and hip house is similar but more house than hip hop -- might not have heard of it because its popularity was brief and limited almost entirely to the Chicago area.
 * With regards to the other sections, I'd be inclined to keep them all in the same section, divided into subsections because that is how they are perceived, right or wrong -- they'd all be found in the same section of the record store, I think. The text could make it clear that they aren't very related, but they should be together, IMO. Tuf-Kat


 * I think a lot of people here have the wrong definition of Techno. Techno is a very specific genre of electronic dance music originating from detroit and with a 4 on the floor beat and usualy with industrial/electronic/non-melodic samples on top. It is really a sub-genre of House music. The section labeled Techno should be labled Electronic Music or something.

More discussion of descriptions vs list

 * This page in general suprised me, why are there descriptions here. I agree with an earlier comment, this page should just be some kind of ordered links page, with a description at the top of how the LARGE musical genres are broken up.


 * Don't be supprised if this page gets RADICALY redone!


 * user:AudioPervert


 * OK, but note that we already have a bare list of genres at List of musical genres. --Camembert


 * Thanks for that Camembert, yeh, i saw that list. It just feels to me that this page is a bit big, and that a lot of the information would be better on the individual genre pages. there is more written here about the specific genres than on some of the pages!


 * I would much rather see the definition of genre as a whole explained, and then a well laid out links section to all the genres, with sub genres underneath, like a family tree.


 * I suppose this is a big undertaking. Does anyone fancy helping me?


 * user:AudioPervert

Missing Genres
It seems this page is missing some fairly major genres like jazz and Classical Music, for example. I understand that a complete list of genres isn't here, but these two deserve categories as least as long as "country" and "hip-hop". Will try and add when I get the time. -- Lexor 09:00, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * I added these two genres, mainly cribbed from those articles just as a "stub" within the article. Please reword/expand as appropriate. -- Lexor 06:19, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Video Game Music
Added this because it's probably the most unique type of genre out there. It's defined by its media, but its not restricted to that. I could hear a piece of music being played regardless of knowing its origin and be able to say "that sounds like video game music", as much if it tends to have a special melodic and instrumental style. And yet, video game music has such a wide variety, that it can be described as everything from rock, to jazz, to electronica, to classical, and then some. It warranted mentioning, but didn't fit anywhere else except in the paragraph at top, wherein genres were described to be vague. --Kaleb.G 02:26, 2004 Jun 16 (UTC)

I think video game music is defined by being interesting without actually taking up people's attention. I mean, the point is make gaming less boring without taking away from the game.Sir Akroy 20:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Slowcore
Slowcore isn't exactly the same thing as sadcore and shoegazing. I think it should be clarified.

Hello

PLEASE be careful reverting. . ..
As a result of a revert, Jazz has apparently been missing since Sept. 2004. This is. . . . . embarrassing. Please triple-check the whole article for differences when you revert, not just the section you want to get rid of. Soundguy99 05:52, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Genres in allmusic.com
Has somebody seen list of music genres in allmusic.com? They have one of the best thought out categorisation of music genres in my opinion. They first divided all music genres in 2 major categories, namely "Popular" and "Classic" and defined main genres for these 2 categories.

The main genres are further divided in so-called "Styles". For example genre Jazz has the styles "Fusion", "Classic Jazz", "New Orleans Jazz", and many many more. Or the genre "Rock" has the styles "Heavy Metal", "Punk", "Rock & Roll", etc. Some styles can be cross-genre, like "Hip-hop", which can be found in "Rap" and "R&B" for example. I think this is very clever way to categorize music and really makes sense more than the categorization in this "Music Genre" article of Wikipedia. --193.102.74.18 14:13, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, of course this is Wikipedia, and anyone can edit, so you're welcome to expand this page. But if you look at the "Overview" section, the idea of this article is to give a very general explanation of the concept of genres and the major general genres. It's not intended to be a "central page" that lists and defines all genres and sends you to any and all articles about music genres - we have List of music genres and Category:Musical genres for that purpose. Soundguy99 15:03, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And never trust a system of classifying genres that considers "Latin music" as distinct, plus they put reggae, ska and rocksteady in the same category, have vague and probably poor distinctions between "film music" and "soundtrack", have a category for the nonsense term "orchestral music", the rather silly categories "vocal" and "world" as well as a category called "Cajun", which I would assume is mostly full of Creole music, and not Cajun. So... I don't think their system is so intelligently done. Tuf-Kat 16:55, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Classification: Serious, Popular and Functional music
In Germany we learn in school the classification of music is divided in 3 kinds i.e. Serious Music (Ernste Musik), Popular Music (Unterhaltungsmusik) and Functional Music (Funktionelle Musik ).

Serious Music is basically all classical music from all eras.

Popular Music is modern popular music like Jazz, Rock, Electonic etc.

Functional Music is music for certain purposes, events or intentions like hymns (e.g. national hymn), dance music (e.g. Flamenco), elevator music, video game music etc.


 * This is most certainly an interesting classification -- I think in North America we don't think so much in terms of 'Functional Music' but definitely the other two. I would argue on pedantic grounds that few genres of music could fit exclusively in one of these classifications. Tango or flamenco music, especially in a multicultural context, could easily fit all three. Just my 2 cents.


 * If classical music is the only "serious music," does that mean everyone else is just kidding around? I find this odd. Where did the trend of calling classical "serious" begin? Would this bear inclusion in the article?

--bleh fu talk fu  June 30, 2005 13:53 (UTC)
 * PS don't forget to sign your posts! --~ --bleh fu talk fu  June 30, 2005 13:54 (UTC)

The commercial pop music world doesn't, PERHAPS, think in terms of functional music. The background music industry, church music, lounge bands, film composers, new age artists, jingle writers, and others certainly do. It's just that its UNFASHIONABLE or UNCOOL in the world of popular music for one's music to be seen as functional. And any bar band that doesn't understand an audience of non-drinkers is undesirable, regardless of the size of the audience, will fail economically because of their lack of understanding of functional music.

In a bigger sense, the article needs to discuss who finds genres useful and who finds them offensive, stifling, etc.. Someone could also add to the Arguments/Advantages section that genres contribute to musical creativity in that it is not uncommon (citations should be easy to find) for artists to deliberately change their music specifically so as to NOT fit into a genre.

re Serious vs Popular - it is my understanding this division has existed for many centuries in the West. Whether it is more attributable to the Church, the rise of a middle class, or some other factors, I will leave for better historians than I. Likewise whether other cultures with a long-established classical music (India, Indonesia, Iran/Persia) make the same distinction.

It might also be useful to note that a fair number of non-Western "classical" music genres are deeply rooted in improvisation, and for that matter, much Western Classical music was also, at the time it was created (Bach, Beethoven). 24.17.180.126 20:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Klezmer
What about adding Klezmer? There's already a Klezmer page, but it seems it should be mentioned here somewhere. It has been called "Jewish Jazz" but it is distinctive from American Jazz, although some musicians play both. So maybe a sentence or two with a link under Jazz? Or should it have its own heading? User:Rooster613

who copyed?
Hey, see here: http://www.hg11.com/genres_en/music_genres.htm Who copyed? --212.34.235.44 12:20, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * they will have copied wikipedia; it's all in wikipedia style formatting, and all of wikipedia is gfdl'd anyway --MilkMiruku 00:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

hip-hop
Hip Hop/ Rap is NOT real music, and should not be considered as such. -- what the heck does this mean? I may not like Hip Hop but I have no problem calling it music

Disco
yes, there are moroder, but Disco was the real origin of electronic music - with Kraftwerk, LIME, Cerrone and so on. I think Disco worth mentioning, just remember ABBA, Boney M, Michael Jackson, Madonna, C. C. Catch


 * No, not really. Electronic music started with composers such as Olivier_Messiaen and Andre_Jolivet in the early 1920's.  Seeing as the earliest disco dates from the early 1970's, you comment does not make sense.  dunerat

Definition of Terms
It would be good to have a more specific discussion of the attributes of the "basic musical language" commonly used to distinguish genres. This would be interesting in itself, and it would also enable more focussed discussion of particular genres, both in the article itself and on this discussion page. Countersubject 12:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Further to this: the article on Olivier Messiaen, a 20th century French art-music composer, is a good example of this approach to description of musical style, as applied to the work of a single composer. Messiaen's style is considered in terms of a number of musical parameters, including pitch, colour and harmony. The article also traces the development of Messiaen's style over time, and describes various musical, historical and intellectual influences on it. While there are clearly differences between the analysis of an individual's style and that of a genre, there are also many similarities. It should be possible to apply techniques like those used in the Messiaen article to wider bodies of music. Actaually, I'd go further, and suggest that without this kind of approach, there's little point in writing about music genres in Wikipedia, as the articles won't be able to convey their distinguishing features in anything like an objective, verifiable manner. Countersubject 13:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

New article "Music genre debates"?
Hi, am one of the authors of the Tool (band) article, and have been facing some problems and debates during the past about genre definition myself. As I am currently trying to enhance the article, I stumbled upon an idea. There have been many arguments about the categorization of Tool and their fellow "progressive metal" bands. I wondered, if these debates are more common or if this was more of a specialty. IF there was enough material, I pondered we could create an entire article about this issue, which would basically incorporate Music genre and Tool (band) and include material of issues and debates of other musical genres. Then, we could link the main article and present a short summary at the related pages. Considering the debates that occur at many band-related articles because of genre categorisation (besides the nu metal debate, I recall a revert war about "comedy rock" and Tenacious D). After a quick research if there was any material about these discussions, I was able to come up with the following:

world music genre dispute "The awards have also stirred up an ongoing debate about the nature of world music.
 * a news item at the bbc about BBC Radio 3's first Awards for World Music in 2002

Some think it should be conceived as a style like pop or jazz, while others dislike the category - they say it keeps them on the margins without serious respect or attention. " bbc news item "Awards stir world music debate"]

country music's transformation in the 50s "My hope was that I could study the transformation of country music in the 1950s, and demonstrate how mass mediation works to trivialize and homogenize "authentic" culture. But recalcitrance, in Burke's sense, intruded. What I found, when I went to Nashville, interviewed performers, producers and writers of the period, read the trade and fan magazines, and listened to the music of the time, was not an authentic music ruined by the forces of mass mediation. Instead, I found overwhelming evidence of a symbolic struggle to create a slightly different style of the same genre." Genre and recalcitrance, Country music's move uptown by Joli Jensen Spring, 1988 University of Texas, Austin
 * an essay from 1988 covering the evolving landscape of a well known genre, country music:

black or urban music dispute "The Black Music Congress celebrated its second anniversary of organising debates at London’s City University with a debate entitled ‘Black Music Or Urban Music?’ on Saturday May 22. With the Prince’s Trust’s Urban Music Festival (see BBM/BMC’s open letter) having taken place a couple of weeks prior, the term urban music had been pushed further into the mainstream, and this added to an exciting debate." The Genre Report: Is It Black Music Or Urban Music? by BritishBlackMusic.com or Black Music Congress
 * a coverage of "debates at London’s City University with a debate entitled ‘Black Music Or Urban Music?" from 2004
 * another bbc news item quoting joss stone about the term "urban music" dated 11 February, 2005:
 * "I'm not really comfortable with the word urban. It's a word that's been manufactured in this country and America to describe black music. The word urban seems to cover such a broad range of black music that it's wrong." Brits debate over 'urban' music

I propose writing a new article &mdash; Music genre debates &mdash; that covers some of these debates. I would begin with the "black music" or "urban music" and the progressive metal debate (incl. the pieces of information from the Tool article). Any thoughts? --Johnnyw 00:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * i'd argue that it's not really nessacery to have a new article about it. one would normally class a band or artist by the style that the majority of their tracks are closest to although it's very much possible for bands/artists to span more than one genre (which should be obvious ;). world music and urban music are umbrella terms and disputes about what they refer to should be delt with on their respective article pages. reading comedy rock, it's obvious the term refers to rock with comedy elements so it seems natural that Tenacious D fit into that description; the question here should be is 'comedy rock' a real term that people actually use in rl rather than something made up by a few people online. --MilkMiruku 01:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback milkmiruku! Due to the 'overwhelming' response that I received I probably just let this idea disappear like a flurry of smoke... --Johnnyw 17:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

--TorontoCanadaWikiguy 19:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Please Note that there are too many internal links in the "Latin American" section

Did Chuck Berry really invent rock and roll?
I think the bit in "Rock" that says Chuck Berry invented rock and roll should be removed. It's open to much argument over who invented the genre, and I think that to avoid arguments, the sentence must be removed.--Percussion

Is "punk rock" necessary on this page?
This page only mentions the largest, most important genres. I don't think a paragraph about punk rock is necessary, as it is only a subgenre of rock. If we mention punk rock, why not progressive rock and heavy metal? The large genre of "rock" is enough for this page, I think. Can someone delete the paragraph about punk rock and add a few of its elements under "rock"? --Ryusenshi 17:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Brian W 23:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree too.All systems go 14:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * And what about "grime"? Is it really a big, important genre? (it is the first time I have heard this word, by the way) It seems to me that it is rather a subgenre of electronic music. Besides, the paragraph does not have a single link, not even to the "Grime" article... --Ryusenshi 09:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, as nobody has defended the inclusion of grime, I have deleted this paragraph. I have also rewritten large parts of the paragraph about rock, but there is still work to do.--Ryusenshi 09:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I have finally deleted "punk rock". The "rock" paragraph has been changed, too -- but it's still too long...--Ryusenshi 10:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

OI, Punk is unique
I disagree HUGE punk rock represented an enormous move away from mainstream rock and roll with its ast guitar cords, loud angry lyrics, and ability to blend with other forms of music over the years (such as Jamaican ska, Celtic folk and hardcore metal). I'll work on an article mysel when I have some time, if you look at the state of music today, even most mainstream rock bands (not just including the skater punk and pop punk artists who traditionally could never be defined as punk) but even alternative rock artists today as well as modern punk groups would be nowhere without the early influence of British and American punk bands from the 1970s and 80s.

A lot to change
Hello, this article needs heavy re-edition. I am working on it, before reverting it, please read my user info. Thank you for your patience. Brian W 02:52, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What needs to be changed and how so? It seems more appropriate that other editors revert or not based on the merit of your edits, not your user info. Hyacinth 06:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh my Lord, if I say "please read my user page", there are some good reasons of course. Anyway, my main cultural reference in this topic are summarized in the writings of an italian academic (he's also a guitarist and an electronic musician); in my user page I put the links to those articles. Brian W 09:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * For information on how to indicate references see Citing sources. Hyacinth 21:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

erm
Metal is its own genre, with many subgenres

punk is a subgenre of rock,

wtf is grime >_>

this article fails

Punk Works, Grime Doesn't
Given the minimalist aggression inherent in the punk sound (and not to mention its history and central paradigms), its safe to say that punk qualifies as a genre that is distinct from rock.

As for grime... never heard of it.


 * Agreed. Just like Metal, Punk's evolved out of rock so far now, that it can be qualified as a seperate genre. And the defining matter for both of them still fits, i.e. the extreme format of both genres, death and crust respectively, sound absolutely nothing like regular rock, so... And as for grime, I've never heard of it either. Sure he doesn't mean grunge?

WHAT HAPPENED TO
PUNK, FOLK AND Oi!?????????????????? THESE ARE JUST 3 GENRES THAT COULD THINK OF AT THE MOMENT, THERE ARE MANY GENRES THAT ARE NOT IN THIS ARTICLE Mitsos 10:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

METAL IS MENTIONED IN THAT ARTICLE, WHY NOT PUNK??????????? Mitsos 10:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What happened to not writing in Caps? — Mütze 12:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

That's the only thing you mentioned? This article lacks many things. Mitsos 11:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

It's probably the only thing she mentioned because it's the only thing that made sense from your comment. dunerat

Because... Punk sucks. Deimoss 06:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Metal
Whoever put metal as its own genre, THANX YOU. someone finally gets it.

Deimoss 01:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Heavy metal isn't its own genre. It's a subgenre of rock.  A large one with many of its own subgenres, akin to punk and alternative, but a subgenre nonetheless.  WesleyDodds 19:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Seconded. "Heavy Metal" is a media label created to sell music, not a genre.  dunerat


 * Yes, heavy metal is rock (not all?), but the heavy metal mentioned in rock is from 70s. For example some grindcore is far from pop. Maybe there should be genre at Rock_music named other metal, thrash metal, or... i dunno --Dynamic Progressive Turbulence Creator 12:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Acepella
Shouldn't acepella have a page? Or at least be listed on this page?


 * No. A Capella (it's two words, by the way, and should be Italicized to boot) is a style of music, not a genre.  You could sing any genre of music in a capella style.  A good example is rap, which is a genre, and has a fairly even split between songs in both accompanied and a capella styles.  dunerat

Where the hell is rock music??? --Λeternus 12:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

This page just does not cover it all!
These page is far to broad! like it hardly covers any genres of music...what about Hardcore, Emo, Punk, Chrstian, we must update this page to explore all the genres in the world and all of there sup-genres, ex. Alt Punk, and so on. Whos with me!?


 * No, I think it would actually be more productive to reduce the number of genre headings, and instead use somewhat lengthier discussions of much more general overall genres (e.g.: art music, folk music, popular music, electronic music?). This article should not (and cannot!) hope to cover all or even most genres of music. That's what List of music genres is for. This article should describe what is meant by "genre" in music, and cover a few overarching categories which in turn link to more specific articles. &mdash;ptk✰fgs 06:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)