Have you ever tried to hand-tag your music in Windows Media Player or some other music application and been bowled over by the choices of genre to which you may assign your track? I mean, sure, I can appreciate that there different styles of, say, polka music, but when you see the number and the odd titles you wonder how someone could even make the distinction.
Just as an example, Wikipedia lists these twelve types of Trance music: Acid trance, Classic trance, Dream trance, Euro-trance, Epic trance, Hardstyle, Nu-NRG, Progressive trance, Tech trance, Uplifiting trance, Vocal trance. Oh, and of course, anythings that references scripture would simply be called “Christian Trance.” Just kidding. Didn’t see that one.
That is sort of a point, though. Which element is the thing that names the music? Sometimes one aspect overrides everything. And any name that has “pop” in it would really seem to get into a gray area. I mean, wouldn’t the sea chanty be pop music if it were heard in dozens of commercials and news program bumper music?
Well, I guess the point is that tags/genres have a place. It helps us locate tracks or albums wherever many are stored. People have a need to group things even though artists often say they despise being labelled. See for me, seeing these lists is pure stimulus. It creates a thirst for knowledge. For example, right now I have a strong desire to sample twelve kinds of trance music and see if I can understand the very minimum of variation in instrumentation, rhythm, tonal quality, lyrical content, or chord structure that would make a full-tilt Nu-NRG piece bust out of its genre totally and suddenly fall into the realm of plain old vanilla Tech Trance.
Stay tuned . . .
To answer your question: You call it whatever you want to. At least that’s always been my theory. For instance, I spin dance music and I tend to call something “deep” if it basically has only a one- or two-chord structure with all minor chords. Anything else that moves to three-chords and involves a major chord becomes “melodic.” I think this goes against convention, but it’s the best way that I can describe what I’m thinking and feeling when I play the music. I dunno. Like you, I understand why genre exists, but I’m also one who doesn’t like to be defined by it. Especially now that we’re basically micro-managing genres. So long as I like the song and it makes me dance, or it makes me think, I’m all about it.
Good post. And kudos for actually posting every day. I’m terrible at that.
Since I’ve switched back to iTunes from WMP I have ditched the genre field all together. I think that it is impossible to describe and risky to limit music with a few words and some rules (why does the lap steel guitar automatically make any song country to some people? *shakes head*) Genre has its time and place, but like DJ exB says, don’t micro-manage.
I don’t really care how it’s labelled. If it sounds good I’ll listen to it.