7 ms·

I think that the narrative of last twenty years has been a re-blending of genre in a way that is not fully appreciated. While you can certainly find plenty of m

I think that the narrative of last twenty years has been a re-blending of genre in a way that is not fully appreciated. While you can certainly find plenty of music that fits the mold established in the 60s, 80s or 90s around you also find much more at the top of the charts that challenges those categories. Right now the top 10 Billboard chart includes Lil Nas X and The Weeknd, neither of whom fits comfortably in the genre they are assigned to by the RIAA. And if you look at what is happening on Bandcamp or Soundcloud or YouTube or wherever else young people are trying new things you see a tremendous heterogeneity of inspiration and not a lot of concern for where the sound fits in. The parallel trend of course is the power migration from labels and producers to artists, and these are intrinsically related. The artist wants to experiment and find their own path, the label is always trying to replicate success (to radically oversimplify on both counts). Labels have a role to play in supporting artists, but the power dynamic is different when the artist brings the audience they've been building independently for years. The direct connection between artist and audience shows how much more open to new ideas we can all be. It is the same receptivity that powered the integration Dylan describes taking place in the 1950s, and I think its great.

TomSwirly 5y ago
To compare this to the 1950s is... very strange. For listeners, the broadening of access to the full diversity of music between 1950 and 1990 was unprecedented in history and will never happen again, simply due to the rise of technology, and the sudden access to all the traditions of the world within a single generation. > Lil Nas X and The Weeknd, neither of whom fits comfortably in the genre they are assigned to by the RIAA. For me, this is generic and formulaic music that could have come out any time in the last thirty years (except for the ubiquitous "autotune/overcompress" sound I suppose). "Not fitting comfortable into a genre" is so bland a compliment! But I agree with this - all the action is in Bandcamp and similar. ----- A composer named Steve Reich wrote several pieces of tape music (processed tape recordings) back in the 70s that were a huge hit (in avant circles), but then he went to study in Ghana and decided that this was a mistake. He felt that the purpose of music was for humans to play and sing together as a group activity, and that pre-recorded music did not fulfill this very deep human need. I was skeptical when I first read this, but time has proven him entirely right.
- svantana 5y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that about Reich. Another leftfield hitmaker, Bill Drummond of the KLF, came to a similar conclusion, which prompted him to start a series of collaborative live music projects ("the 17" maybe the most well-known)
- ebiester 5y ago
  You miss the point. Lil Nas X and The Weeknd are placed in R&B almost exclusively because they are black. In your eyes, sung by a white person in 1986, would be synth pop. Did Billy Ray Cyrus make Old Town Road suddenly country? Is Montero (call me by your name) rap or a gay dance anthem?
  - blacksqr 5y ago
    As an X'er, The Weeknd's latest music does sound amazingly to me like a callback to early 80s's new wave synth pop. "Save Your Tears" could've been an OMD single. As such, to me, it's a powerful challenge to existing musical categories. But to how many people younger than me does this really register?
    - otde 5y ago
      Younger millennial/Z-adjacent here. I don’t claim to speak for everyone younger than me, but I am continually impressed by the level of genre awareness today’s youngsters have. Genres like synth/vapor wave are very conscious remixes of periods of time many of us were barely alive during, and their popularity comes in part, I think, from the tenuousness of their connection to the time period from which those genres draw their audiovisual cues. For me, at least, my earliest memories are a dream half-remembered, and music that draws from but does not emulate music from that time period can be a way for my imagination to fill in the blanks.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  This widens my immediate perspective, thanks. One can get caught up in the topic as framed. And great points: > "Not fitting comfortable into a genre" is so bland a compliment!" > Steve Reich wrote several pieces of tape music (processed tape recordings) back in the 70s that were a huge hit (in avant circles), but then he went to study in Ghana and decided that this was a mistake. He felt that the purpose of music was for humans to play and sing together as a group activity, and that pre-recorded music did not fulfill this very deep human need. That is very interesting. (Also, I've only heard Reich's music live, but I've never played along.) In folk music, it is a core belief (long ignored): It's music for folks. Woody Guthrie's songs were written so anyone could play or sing them, as I understand the story. His successors often played more complicated and challenging stuff, much that ordinary people couldn't hope to perform or isn't singalong music. It's hard to imagine sitting around a bar or a living room or out under the stars, singing 'Like a Rolling Stone' together.
fossuser 5y ago
One hypothesis for why genres matter less is musical abundance and identity as a result of that. I think when you had to buy a record or CD people would consider themselves a “punk rock” person or whatever for any genre and they’d tend to buy and listen to/show their friends that music. With streaming services, and easy access to wide variety there’s not much need for this kind of thing so tastes blend more on the consumption side. They then start to blend more on the creation side too. One thing I’ve noticed is that music has gone from an activity (listen to this record I got) to entirely personal and mostly ambient. Maybe that’s a factor of my age, but I think it’s mostly related to higher stimulus activities now available on the internet.
- naravara 5y ago
  You're not alone on this. I recently saw this video from a guitar teacher who has been doing it since the 90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emOJdqsEU0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emOJdqsEU0o He charts the patterns in how his students engaged with music over his career and comes to the same conclusions you do, shifting from a very highly engaged relationship with bands and acts to a relationship with music as more of an aural thing. Often he finds people don't even necessarily know the names of the songs they enjoy, while in the past people would read liner notes and learn a whole origin story for their favorite acts. He attributes it largely to the neverending algorithmic feed. You don't need to know anything about the music you like to find more music like it, the feed does it for you. Not always for the best of course. I recently started listening to the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack and really enjoy it, but algorithmic feeds seem to associate it with a lot of anime soundtracks and Jpop rather than associating it with jazz and funk, the actual musical genres the soundtrack is in.
  - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
    I'm not an insider in the music industry so I can't comment on this teacher's view but that seems... possible sure yeah I can see it. That's totally separate from the algorithm/genre issue though. The genres have never ever really perfectly matched up with the music but it doesn't matter. If the algorithm perfectly selected more music you like you still wouldn't be more likely to look up the name of the track I don't think. Anyway that soundtrack is... not jpop per se but it is heavily influenced by it. The format and aesthetics are very jazz-like but the rhythms and harmonizations are very jpop. That might not be the most _useful_ association in this context of finding music that sounds similar, but it is there. And in its way as accurate as calling it jazz. Saying it's "actually" jazz or funk is... that's just not really how this works. It's not wrong to say it's jazz but it's wrong to say anything really is ONLY jazz, and can't also be other things too.
moomin 5y ago
The "Old Town Road" Billboard kerfuffle was a great demonstration of the thesis of the piece: that the hard categorisations of music are racially driven.
- dangerbird2 5y ago
  Yep. If you listen to "hillbilly music" and "blues" from the 20s and 30s, or "rock" and "r&b" from the 50s or 60s, they are musically indistinguishable. The difference almost always solely lies in the race of the musicians or the target audience
  - krapp 5y ago
    Literally the reason "rock and roll" exists as a label was to segregate "ethnic" (read: Black) music in record stores and on the radio for a white audience.
    - wholinator2 5y ago
      Interesting and damning claim! Do you have a source for it? Ive googled around and found no mention of race in the articles I've read
      - bobbybabylon 5y ago
        It is in the Bob Dylan article itself.
  - ndesaulniers 5y ago
    I finally got around to listening to Led Zepplin I the other day...a couple of times I thought to myself "man, this sounds like the blues."
    - awithrow 5y ago
      A lot of heavy metal is the blues played very fast and with heavy distortion. So many of the solos by Pantera use the blues scale
tarsinge 5y ago
That's my take too. Also for The Weeknd it's especially true with early releases, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPp5Ty9EE6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPp5Ty9EE6k. On the hip hop side Lil Peep (RIP at 22 unfortunately) is also typical of that blend, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMgQQMZ9Lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMgQQMZ9Lk or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOujzvtwZ6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOujzvtwZ6M, with a huge 90's alt rock vibe.
- z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
  Trust me, the loss of Lil Peep is no great tragedy upon our society
Balgair 5y ago
> And if you look at what is happening on Bandcamp or Soundcloud or YouTube or wherever else young people are trying new things you see a tremendous heterogeneity of inspiration and not a lot of concern for where the sound fits in. One way I have heard to mentally categorize things: What is the stereotypical musical instrument of that generation/genre? For jazz and the silent generation it was the saxophone, maybe others though. For rock-n-roll it's the electric guitar, no question. The 80's was the electric keyboard and synths, kinda. Today? The laptop.
- Kye 5y ago
  The laptop is probably on the way out for a lot of electronic music. I just got a Launchpad X to see what all the hype was about, and it's a lot of fun. The fancier Pro MK3 model can hook right up to a synthesizer. You can already get a fully independent music-making tool in the higher-end Maschine+. I wouldn't be surprised if the inevitable Ableton Push 3 was standalone.
  - mncharity 5y ago
    > The laptop is probably on the way out for a lot of electronic music. The VR "EXA: The Infinite Instrument"[1] seemed one intriguing window on the future. Development looks stalled. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/606920/EXA_The_Infinite_Instrument/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/606920/EXA_The_Infinite_I...
    - Kye 5y ago
      There was a TV show a long time ago that was basically 3D demo reels. This reminded me of that. I can't remember the name. It might have been part of another show. edit: It was Eye Drops on TechTV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlM2LFPjS5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlM2LFPjS5k
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - goodbye_ruth 5y ago

TomSwirly 5y ago

To compare this to the 1950s is... very strange. For listeners, the broadening of access to the full diversity of music between 1950 and 1990 was unprecedented in history and will never happen again, simply due to the rise of technology, and the sudden access to all the traditions of the world within a single generation. > Lil Nas X and The Weeknd, neither of whom fits comfortably in the genre they are assigned to by the RIAA. For me, this is generic and formulaic music that could have come out any time in the last thirty years (except for the ubiquitous "autotune/overcompress" sound I suppose). "Not fitting comfortable into a genre" is so bland a compliment! But I agree with this - all the action is in Bandcamp and similar. ----- A composer named Steve Reich wrote several pieces of tape music (processed tape recordings) back in the 70s that were a huge hit (in avant circles), but then he went to study in Ghana and decided that this was a mistake. He felt that the purpose of music was for humans to play and sing together as a group activity, and that pre-recorded music did not fulfill this very deep human need. I was skeptical when I first read this, but time has proven him entirely right.

svantana 5y ago
Interesting, I didn't know that about Reich. Another leftfield hitmaker, Bill Drummond of the KLF, came to a similar conclusion, which prompted him to start a series of collaborative live music projects ("the 17" maybe the most well-known)
ebiester 5y ago
You miss the point. Lil Nas X and The Weeknd are placed in R&B almost exclusively because they are black. In your eyes, sung by a white person in 1986, would be synth pop. Did Billy Ray Cyrus make Old Town Road suddenly country? Is Montero (call me by your name) rap or a gay dance anthem?
- blacksqr 5y ago
  As an X'er, The Weeknd's latest music does sound amazingly to me like a callback to early 80s's new wave synth pop. "Save Your Tears" could've been an OMD single. As such, to me, it's a powerful challenge to existing musical categories. But to how many people younger than me does this really register?
  - otde 5y ago
    Younger millennial/Z-adjacent here. I don’t claim to speak for everyone younger than me, but I am continually impressed by the level of genre awareness today’s youngsters have. Genres like synth/vapor wave are very conscious remixes of periods of time many of us were barely alive during, and their popularity comes in part, I think, from the tenuousness of their connection to the time period from which those genres draw their audiovisual cues. For me, at least, my earliest memories are a dream half-remembered, and music that draws from but does not emulate music from that time period can be a way for my imagination to fill in the blanks.
wolverine876 5y ago
This widens my immediate perspective, thanks. One can get caught up in the topic as framed. And great points: > "Not fitting comfortable into a genre" is so bland a compliment!" > Steve Reich wrote several pieces of tape music (processed tape recordings) back in the 70s that were a huge hit (in avant circles), but then he went to study in Ghana and decided that this was a mistake. He felt that the purpose of music was for humans to play and sing together as a group activity, and that pre-recorded music did not fulfill this very deep human need. That is very interesting. (Also, I've only heard Reich's music live, but I've never played along.) In folk music, it is a core belief (long ignored): It's music for folks. Woody Guthrie's songs were written so anyone could play or sing them, as I understand the story. His successors often played more complicated and challenging stuff, much that ordinary people couldn't hope to perform or isn't singalong music. It's hard to imagine sitting around a bar or a living room or out under the stars, singing 'Like a Rolling Stone' together.

fossuser 5y ago

One hypothesis for why genres matter less is musical abundance and identity as a result of that. I think when you had to buy a record or CD people would consider themselves a “punk rock” person or whatever for any genre and they’d tend to buy and listen to/show their friends that music. With streaming services, and easy access to wide variety there’s not much need for this kind of thing so tastes blend more on the consumption side. They then start to blend more on the creation side too. One thing I’ve noticed is that music has gone from an activity (listen to this record I got) to entirely personal and mostly ambient. Maybe that’s a factor of my age, but I think it’s mostly related to higher stimulus activities now available on the internet.

naravara 5y ago
You're not alone on this. I recently saw this video from a guitar teacher who has been doing it since the 90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emOJdqsEU0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emOJdqsEU0o He charts the patterns in how his students engaged with music over his career and comes to the same conclusions you do, shifting from a very highly engaged relationship with bands and acts to a relationship with music as more of an aural thing. Often he finds people don't even necessarily know the names of the songs they enjoy, while in the past people would read liner notes and learn a whole origin story for their favorite acts. He attributes it largely to the neverending algorithmic feed. You don't need to know anything about the music you like to find more music like it, the feed does it for you. Not always for the best of course. I recently started listening to the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack and really enjoy it, but algorithmic feeds seem to associate it with a lot of anime soundtracks and Jpop rather than associating it with jazz and funk, the actual musical genres the soundtrack is in.
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
  I'm not an insider in the music industry so I can't comment on this teacher's view but that seems... possible sure yeah I can see it. That's totally separate from the algorithm/genre issue though. The genres have never ever really perfectly matched up with the music but it doesn't matter. If the algorithm perfectly selected more music you like you still wouldn't be more likely to look up the name of the track I don't think. Anyway that soundtrack is... not jpop per se but it is heavily influenced by it. The format and aesthetics are very jazz-like but the rhythms and harmonizations are very jpop. That might not be the most _useful_ association in this context of finding music that sounds similar, but it is there. And in its way as accurate as calling it jazz. Saying it's "actually" jazz or funk is... that's just not really how this works. It's not wrong to say it's jazz but it's wrong to say anything really is ONLY jazz, and can't also be other things too.

moomin 5y ago

The "Old Town Road" Billboard kerfuffle was a great demonstration of the thesis of the piece: that the hard categorisations of music are racially driven.

dangerbird2 5y ago
Yep. If you listen to "hillbilly music" and "blues" from the 20s and 30s, or "rock" and "r&b" from the 50s or 60s, they are musically indistinguishable. The difference almost always solely lies in the race of the musicians or the target audience
- krapp 5y ago
  Literally the reason "rock and roll" exists as a label was to segregate "ethnic" (read: Black) music in record stores and on the radio for a white audience.
  - wholinator2 5y ago
    Interesting and damning claim! Do you have a source for it? Ive googled around and found no mention of race in the articles I've read
    - bobbybabylon 5y ago
      It is in the Bob Dylan article itself.
- ndesaulniers 5y ago
  I finally got around to listening to Led Zepplin I the other day...a couple of times I thought to myself "man, this sounds like the blues."
  - awithrow 5y ago
    A lot of heavy metal is the blues played very fast and with heavy distortion. So many of the solos by Pantera use the blues scale

tarsinge 5y ago

That's my take too. Also for The Weeknd it's especially true with early releases, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPp5Ty9EE6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPp5Ty9EE6k. On the hip hop side Lil Peep (RIP at 22 unfortunately) is also typical of that blend, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMgQQMZ9Lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMgQQMZ9Lk or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOujzvtwZ6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOujzvtwZ6M, with a huge 90's alt rock vibe.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
Trust me, the loss of Lil Peep is no great tragedy upon our society

Balgair 5y ago

> And if you look at what is happening on Bandcamp or Soundcloud or YouTube or wherever else young people are trying new things you see a tremendous heterogeneity of inspiration and not a lot of concern for where the sound fits in. One way I have heard to mentally categorize things: What is the stereotypical musical instrument of that generation/genre? For jazz and the silent generation it was the saxophone, maybe others though. For rock-n-roll it's the electric guitar, no question. The 80's was the electric keyboard and synths, kinda. Today? The laptop.

Kye 5y ago
The laptop is probably on the way out for a lot of electronic music. I just got a Launchpad X to see what all the hype was about, and it's a lot of fun. The fancier Pro MK3 model can hook right up to a synthesizer. You can already get a fully independent music-making tool in the higher-end Maschine+. I wouldn't be surprised if the inevitable Ableton Push 3 was standalone.
- mncharity 5y ago
  > The laptop is probably on the way out for a lot of electronic music. The VR "EXA: The Infinite Instrument"[1] seemed one intriguing window on the future. Development looks stalled. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/606920/EXA_The_Infinite_Instrument/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/606920/EXA_The_Infinite_I...
  - Kye 5y ago
    There was a TV show a long time ago that was basically 3D demo reels. This reminded me of that. I can't remember the name. It might have been part of another show. edit: It was Eye Drops on TechTV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlM2LFPjS5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlM2LFPjS5k
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- goodbye_ruth 5y ago