on genre and belonging

[OzWozEre]

I guess the other thing is, I feel like genre tagging is something someone else -- as in, a reviewer, publisher or agent -- should be doing to your music.

THIS

IMO this "other person" has always been the DJ.

It's okay to be an Artist and transcend different styles and find your own voice w/o having to worry about DJs being able to beat-match your track and put it in the right "record bin".

I think things are changing though, as evidenced by there being more self-identifing producers who _don't_ DJ etc.

Oh, and new tools like Tracktor and Live so that the pressure on producers making "DJ friendly arrangements" are mute.

[robogone]

IMO this "other person" has always been the DJ.

I'd say it has always been the record companies and record shops.

[foosnark]

Yeah, there's definitely a balance between underdescribing and overdescribing your own music. I've been underdescribing lately.

Another aspect of all this is deciding what kind of music to make. Every so often, I get this notion that if I pick a genre and stick with it, I'll be better off and have a better opportunity to build up an identity as an artist. Last year I decided I'd do that with ambient. I almost stuck with it for an entire album.

Though I think the answer to that is that genre is the wrong way to approach that, and I should think instead in terms of style, make music in my style and not worry about it. (Then put general tags on it so people can find it if they want to, but not as general as "electronic".)

Thinking about Future Sound of London, Gridlock, and some others -- they have no problem smoothly switching genres within the context of a very coherent album, and having a distinctive style while doing it.

[burkowitz]

I think there is value in looking beyond genre, as well as working within the contexts of genre.

Take dubstep for example.. I read an interview with Mala from DmZ, who is considered one of the pioneers of the sound.. he was saying that when they where first making those tracks, no one making it was calling it "dubstep" it was a term that other people later used to describe the sound.

So I think it's cool to experiment and think outside of the box in terms of genre.. sometimes its better to come up with fresh and new sounding ideas rather than rehashing what's been done before. It makes for interesting music and often new genres are spawned or little micro-scenes that sort of have their own thing going on get started.

On the other hand I think it's also good to have a respect for tradition and understand the context in which your music exists.

Genre plays an important role in electronic music because if you are playing live, or getting your material played by a DJ, it needs to exist in context with the other music that is being played at the show.. or work in context with the rest of the songs in the DJ mix. There is a reason why the world of electronic music can be very polarized into specific genres like techno, drum and bass, trance..

I can understand how people can get bored with the repetitious formulas that define genres.. And its good to expand upon them to keep it interesting.. but i think the familiarity of established genres is a powerful thing. Sometimes you get a taste for a certain palette of sounds, or certain tempo or drum beat, and having that associated to a certain genre is good because you can specifically seek out the kind of thing you are looking for. So yeah it definitely helps in navigating around the world of music, and also bringing people together to contribute on there own thing that also makes sense cohesively in the bigger picture.

There are a lot of artists though who switch up there genres/styles.

I think what's most important is to make something that you feel enthusiastic about and not worry too much about genre. At the end of the day its all just music, there's always a common thread somewhere, there will be some word to use to describe it.

[jancivil]

Well, for these electronica type of genres, genre distinctions are about specific attributes and there is a hazard of needing the attributes in mind before proceeding.
I am not trying to fit a gesture of language in front of a musical act, a cart to pull the horse.

Soundcloud forces you to tag a genre before saving now. I hate that; I don't know, in all likelihood I wasn't thinking about it up to this point . The first thing I put when I found that out was 'f**k Genre'.
I tagged one thing 'jazz', my idea of the parts that make the whole absolutely involved acting as a jazz musician, a jazz stand-up bass, jazz approach to piano, the pieces of the drum kit tended to come from 'Jazz 'n Funk' library. Tenor sax, quite deliberately out of jazz vocabulary. A top fan comments on the Soundcloud track 'From what planet is this jazz?'
("France"). What's the use.

As far as belonging, I don't make music to be a social animal, it's music qua music.

I have said for a long time 'genre tagging is the job of someone stocking the bins at the record store'.

[farlukar]

I think the correct answer is “who gives a shit”

[SODDI]

The electronic "genres" are not even real genres at all - if anything they are MICRO-genres, little tiny niches of music differentiated by very little of substance.

By accepting a genre label you implicitly accept its limitations - you wear the uniform.

[foosnark]

I'll just wear a lot of uniforms.

I honestly don't see genre tags as restricting my creativity. I've done ambient, dark ambient, industrial, noise, drone, glitch, post-dubstep, experimental, combinations thereof (usually), and some melodic stuff I still wouldn't slap a genre tag onto. I've played jazz and classical and done both Japanese and African drumming. I don't think some genre tags are going to slow me down, but they'll appease something that's been bugging me somewhat.

[meriter]

i tip my fedora to you good sir

[havran]

It's all a holy mesh of disambiguation, or something like that.

[Sendy]

Newer genres are prescriptive, older ones seem more descriptive.

Most electronic music smacks of electronic music. It's music "about" music. The creator is often thinking about pads, bassline, hook, melody, drop, blah blah blah, and it shows. Completely uninspiring. "Hello, my name is X and I'm a certified Electronic Music Producer and Tutor." Oh, god, just shoot me now please!

Think of any random bullshit when you write - invent an impossible universe and use that as your inspiration - roll a flipping dice even! Anything to get away from the "producer" mentality and electronic music's overwhelmingly self-referential nature.

(Yes, I am aware all things are self-referential to at least some small degree)

[DSmolken]

Be smart. Check what genre the cutest girls are into this year. Tell everybody that's the genre you do, even if you don't sound like it at all.

[foosnark]

Newer genres are prescriptive, older ones seem more descriptive.

Most electronic music smacks of electronic music. It's music "about" music. The creator is often thinking about pads, bassline, hook, melody, drop, blah blah blah, and it shows. Completely uninspiring. "Hello, my name is X and I'm a certified Electronic Music Producer and Tutor." Oh, god, just shoot me now please!

Think of any random bullshit when you write - invent an impossible universe and use that as your inspiration - roll a flipping dice even! Anything to get away from the "producer" mentality and electronic music's overwhelmingly self-referential nature.

(Yes, I am aware all things are self-referential to at least some small degree)

Hell. I just wrote an eloquent response to this and then my browser ate it.

In a nutshell: very well put. I'd argue that some newer genres are less prescriptive than their parentage, though that's the exception rather than the rule. Example: dubstep carries a ton of formulaic baggage, while post-dubstep implies a vague dubstep-ish influence and off-kilter rhythms but not a list of requirements.

The genres I'm comfortable identifying with are the less prescriptive ones.

[OzWozEre]

Newer genres are prescriptive, older ones seem more descriptive.

Most electronic music smacks of electronic music. It's music "about" music. The creator is often thinking about pads, bassline, hook, melody, drop, blah blah blah, and it shows. Completely uninspiring. "Hello, my name is X and I'm a certified Electronic Music Producer and Tutor." Oh, god, just shoot me now please!

Think of any random bullshit when you write - invent an impossible universe and use that as your inspiration - roll a flipping dice even! Anything to get away from the "producer" mentality and electronic music's overwhelmingly self-referential nature.

(Yes, I am aware all things are self-referential to at least some small degree)

YEAH!!!

So much this...

[Arglebargle]

I just focus on making the worst possible music.