Hi there,

I'm one of those people that gets easily annoyed by seemingly innocuous things. At the moment, I have a beef with the proliferation of what I think are silly micro-genre terms to describe people's music. I've just turned 30 so perhaps it is a sign of old man syndrome. My pet hate is Chillstep. So what exactly is Chillstep? A fusion of dubstep and downtempo no doubt. Then why not call it Chilldown? (BTW, this goes hand in hand with my loathing of the the word 'Chillax').

Other offenders I've heard Chiptune - with the various supposed regional variances (cmon, Yorkshire aint that big), Illbient, Darkstep, Grime, Chillwave, Horrorcore blah blah blah.

Its getting out of control, to the point of it being ridiculous. I'm hearing new sub-genres by the day but I'm not hearing any new music to justify it. I blame Trip Hop and Dubstep.

Old man rant over.

Ps. The only variant I currently accept as satisfactory is Broken Beat as it does what it says on the tin.

Moar toan and brootz!!

Eh?

the 90's called to say nobody gave a shit then...

And again. Eh?

c'mon, you are an "old man" now, can't you figure this shit out by yourself?

i am going to eat activia yogurt and send videos of my bowel movements to Jamie Lee Curtis. she likes that sort of thing.

I cain't hear ya!!!!!

You'll have to speak in CAPS I'm afraid. Hearing's not what it used to be. Nor are my bowels.

Chillstep sounds fine to me. Instantly recognisable as downtempo dubstep. Won't be confused with other genres. The "step" part suggests movement and flow. What's not to like?

Peace,
Andy.

chiptune as a genre is extremely stupid. the term doesn't describe a genre though, it describes any music made using what are referred to as "chip sounds" - your basic waveforms as found produced by early home computers.

as a technical term it might have the connotation of very small, simple compositions produced in a tracker-like format using exclusively 16ths (sometimes adjustable, but usually) timing quantization.

polyphony is usually severely limited. one, two, three or four channels being most common. (the c64's sid had three, for example.) this means frequent use of sounds including sequenced parameter changes. for example a snare drum would include not a smooth, complex envelope and mixture of components but a quick switching from white noise to a triangle wave followed by descending pitch in steps. arpeggios in place of chords. frequent voice-stealing - for example a single voice might be shared between hats, kick, snare, toms, bass and an arp.

so with all the specifics here i think the term is very justified - even if it's a bit stupid. "old style computer music" might make more sense.

p.s. I've always found "psymbient" a step too far, but OTOH it's useful for separating out certain types of chill out music. Specifically, those that aspire to the same production values and techniques used in psy and goa trance. Something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yDvfUqO8Q

The way this track is constructed is just different compared to other styles of chill out music e.g. chilled IDM or whatever. The label helps me find this music and more like it, without having to skip through loads of stuff I'm not very interested in.

Peace,
Andy.

In my opinion, these micro-genres were created, or at least inspired, by the marketing types. What is going to get more noticed, saying you play electronic dance music, or that you are the best electro-chill-ambient group on the scene. It is about differentiation in the marketplace, and garnering attention.

The thing is, each of these names and subnames means something very specific to an equally specific group of people knowing exactly what to look for - genres and subgenres make all the sense in the world! It's like eskimo words for snow*.

Even if you were to abolish subgenre names by lay you'd still get people describing their music of choice at 'that particular kind of metal band XYZ from Andorra makes, you know, with the rubber chicken samples?'

Talking of Metal - you could easily start criticising genre differentiation right there, where it makes sense to most people, because it's a large enough subgroup.

*yes I know it's a myth...

Marco

I can honestly say I've never been annoyed with a subgenre definition, even though I'm not in the habit of using extra specific names for genres myself.

And also, chiptune, huh? It's an old, valid definition for what it is. This is the first time I've even come to think the word might annoy someone. I've used the word for twenty years, [which is probably why I] never thought it was weird / too specific