Can you distinguish different styles of music for what they really are?
 

It seems (and it is not a problem) that there is always an eternal debate as to what style an artist plays in, be it the unfair perception of, say, Sonic Youth as mere noise rock merchants, or certain fringes of indie rock bands that have a pop edge to them being deemed as proper pop songwriters. It is a common thing that happens constantly, and it is only normal for people being confused by the constant contexualization that music in general is subjected to by the scribblers of this world, both on paper and on the internet. Do you generally attribute the right style to an artist, or are you just happy to be fed vague information without questioning it? Poll on the way.

Rant baby, rant.

how do we know whats right?

fuck art, lets dance....

there are 2 genres of importance..
good music and bad music. sit on the fence maybe but im not gonna break my neck trying to jump over it!

I can distinguish just things i like and things I don't (which is probably a different thing from the "good music/bad music" distinction).
I mainly "label" stuff as pop if it's something I'd put on at a party.
Lots of stuff fits in the category.

Can you tell the difference from jazz to classical? Would you instantly describe the music of Mingus to someone as being pop? The other day this bloke told me that he loves Hip Hop and then mentioned Why? and a whole batch of names from the Anticon label. They aren't what I'd call Hip Hop to me, but he seemed to think that those names are what 'alternative' Hip Hop is all about.

How many times have you read posts on here that confuse noise for drone or vice versa?

I love why? I think he's a wonderful pop songs songwriter

Sure, that's why my initial post says that it is not a problem because it's a phenomenon that's never going to go away. Like you say, it is only the internet. What sometimes I find irritating is arrogance applied to poor knowledge. That happens both on the internet and elsewhere.

Good for you, I don't. I wasn't referring to my liking or disliking of Why?. I just don't consider that stuff to be hip hop, that's all.

I'm not terribly good at distinguishing styles at a micro level, but it's not something that really bothers me. If other people want to compartmentalise music in that way, fine, but to me it's just music, and some of it I like and some I don't.

To carry on with the earlier example, noise and drone can be fairly difficult to tell apart to the non-afficianado, but with most genres you're going to find some blurring of the boundaries, aren't you? That's the whole point of the game, it stops us from getting stale.

I agree with you Nefeli, but it is very easy to slip over from the divide between noise and drone just by the use of something as simple as frequencies. A drone at a harsh frequency has more in common with noise (to me) than with drone.

I'm thinking of Yellow Swans, by the way, if it helps to specify that.

when asked about musical tastes i tend to start babbling in a frequency that only mice and metalux can decipher, I hate being put on the spot of trying to describe music to people who like seether, green day, and have them look like umm ok "you're talking shit i have no idea or interest about",

the only thing i seem to think to distinguish is if they are real or fake

i think labels are best for canned food and personal assignment

Yep, that's another good point. When someone points out the obvious in a humble manner, though, I don't mind at all because they are not being an annoying and misinformed prick. Let's keep in mind that this is all connected to the realms of an internet messageboard, and purely on a musical level, not a personal one. It is also true that music sparks the sort of passionate discussions normally reserved for politics, sports, money and sex. I generally dismiss continuous personal internet attacks by making even more fun of the attacker. One concept that I can't get my head around is 'internet bullying'. I can understand a 10 year old being offended by what they might read on some site, but an adult? Anyway, there are definite ways to describe music, the whole concept of good and bad music is another thing altogether and it lends itself more to notions of personal taste.

Like Nefely said music should be loved for personal reasons, not collective. A more complex band like SY is perceived by three different persons in three different different ways, and a generalization can ruin the interest for 2 of the 3 persons. Many times i avoided an artist because of it's tag, so why should i care about distinguishing different styles. Of course, the is a bridge between, let's say, Jazz and Hip-hop, but not to much to care about Math-Rock, Post-Rock, Garage-Rock Revival or any other stupid related term.
This morning i listened to many of Jim O'Rourke's recordings. How can this guy can be described in one word?

genius :D.

I totally disagree with this. So what would you make of the way certain traditional folk pieces are perceived in any given country? You're only mentioning styles of rock that aren't even that particularly complex and are tagged in a lazy way. The prefix math was put in front of rock to describe music that is more staccato-like in nature, even though there is very little of the complexity of calculations in most of its exponents (just a personal opinion). A lot of it sounds like soporiphic and slightly more lo-fi progressive rock, or better still, progressive rock ashamed of its own status. There is terminology that is there for a reason. Sub-genres, like you call them, are only variations of any given style. Garage rock is a good example in that it is such a formulaic style of rock that sometimes borrows from other genres (arabic scales, cacophony etc), still mantaining its garage rock stance. I am not saying that all music can be caged under the same umbrella that easily, but there is, mostly, a correct way to describe music even if it's not with a single term.

sorry but i have to say it...

the only one who should care about genres are label's marketing and sales people.

i use genres as a very general description "it's jazz but it's noisy and aggressive, it's free jazz!" stuff like that.

chances are, your definition of one subgenre is going to conflict with another one's definition. unless it's metal or power electronics, which invariably leads to bands that sound exactly the same.

Would you explain to me why you care to write about music, then? Metal and power electronics don't all sound the same to me.

let me explain.

to me ("TO ME") a genre is defined by common general characteristics in sound and style that are later to be taken into the hands of an artist for him to make sense out of it and give his/her own interpretation of it. but, once these genres are redefined into smaller categorizations (it doesn't help to be commercially successful), boundaries are erected and people are less willing to express themselves artistically and try more to belong to a certain group and be accepted.

like metal; sure, i'm the first one to say "not all metal is dumb and the same", but once you go into subgenres like death metal, you have thousands of bands who play an invariable style; granted there are artistic innovators that go one up and dare do something different (cryptopsy, and dissection to give you two examples) but then again, someone (probably journalists) gives it another name like "blackened death metal" or "brutal death metal" and there you have hundreds of bands trying to figure out how to not infringe copyright laws and still sound like the bands they try to copy. so why bother with something like "blackened death metal"? chances are, i'm going to steer away from something like that after hearing a couple of lame bands defining themselves that way and perhaps missing out on a band who are actually pushing the limits or are just plain good at what they do.

and that can be applied to a bunch of genres/styles/whathaveyou.

and power electronics, of course not everything sounds the same, listen to whitehouse then grunt and well they hardly sound alike, but there are elements to that style that are invariable like the synth tones and the
distorted mic screaming, it's not like there are guitar based p.e. bands...hell! there's people who debate whether a band is p.e. if the lyrical content (alone) is not about mysogeny, racism, violence, etc!

Yeah, i think your right in some way. If you strip down rigorously every sound in one song from one album, and calculate every direction and root you will reach a certain amount of truth, but i see that as a worthless thing since the rest of songs from that album take different directions, and maybe the rest of the albums from that artist also take turns, so your opinion will be inapplicable in the real hazy music community / world (even it is not that complicated, there is fair ammount of obstacles). And maybe other person, who does the same thing reaches another verdict... so here we are on SY Gossip :)

That's why personal taste and musical skills are generally separated from one another, with due respect to both. :) :)

I put undecided. Some times I can tell what is what, but when it get's into thing like black metal vs death metal I have no idea.

And since we're 6.6 billion different personalities and brains around the world (according to wiki :D), that is almost utopia.
Like i said before, it can be apllied but in a very small circle of music "nerds", and since there is MTV and shitload of dork journalist, i mentain at the belief that this is almost utopian.

I try to use the genre's that will most correctl;y describe what I am talking about.
sure, it is tough to talk about music, but language is all wa have to understand and communicate with, so it has to be used. genres are not so specific, and can be applied to general groups. sonic youth and the rolling stones can both be called ROCK. They are ROCK music.
Howveer, to better define what we speak of, you can say that the roling stones are heavily "blues-based rock", or to get even more specific "blues based British rock" because british bands do sound different from american bands, even when they are both trying to do "blues rock"

sonic youth has been around long enough to where thy ahve explored quite a lot of sub-genre's within the "rock" sound. from their early days as noise rockers, to their mid period which could be referred to as melodic noisy rock to their later stuff which is more of a song-based, straight ahead rock.

genres are necessary. however. genres are not limitations, just descriptions. if you choose to see a genre name as a limitation that is yr problem.

death metal is supposedly faster, higher pitch, frenetic while black metal is satanic and ussually slower more melvins-y

i dont think black is slower, i think the singing is a bit more satanic, like burzum, his music isnt slow, be he just kind of screams. death might be more growling...
i dont know... those things tend to confuse me

Good thread, sorry to sully it with my mitherings.

Following the gorgeous (did I mention she's gorgeous? Yeah, she well is) Nefeli's example:

1)Genres are rarely so simple as precise descriptions; however, they are rarely (in a broader context) so indefinite as to evade musical description.

2) Musical description (as above with Staccato, or your earlier assertion about the difference between drone & noise) is distinct from contingent description - something like trip-hop always struck me as a geographical description, although that's possibly due to my proximity to the makers. Dubstep, so far (and I'll admit that I've heard not enough) seems to describe ravers, dubheads and instrumental Grime, all distinct and not quite coalesced into one form (to my ears - I may well be wrong).

3) A lot of genres describe themselves perfectly, in musical terms. Again - DRONE doesn't need to be described (and, brilliantly, it's barely a genre, more a description). NOISE is, uh, noise. noise (lc) is sounds outside of the musical spectrum, unless consolidated within systems, be they ad-hoc or extant (so Stockhausen/ Xenakis aren't noise).

4) I have no more points to make at this point.

I don't know. I generally think that the best bands defy categorization. Like Sonic Youth.

compared to the history of all music sonic youth are very easy to categorize

they play experimental-leaning dissonant rock. that covers them from their first EP to their current music

Good points from everyone. On the subject of describing music in general, does anyone agree that it seems more and more difficult for music journalists these days to coin new terms to describe groups of bands and the music that they play? Take the sort of crap that has been coming up on the NME ( I know, easy target and all....) for a long time, with your 'New Rave', 'New Grave' etc etc.

there is a big difference between naming a band's music describing their sound, and namin a band's music describing their fans

I think as time goes by, music becomes more eclectic mainly because of the technological evolution. It's like an upside down pyramid. Techonology is developing, musical instruments are developing, human minds are developing (not necesarry in a better way) and the resources and influences are more varied.
If you had a band in the 60's you didn't had much options, you could be La Monte Young, you could be John Lennon, you could be Coltrane or a classical guy. Time formed new and new generations of artists and an influence for a 2007 band is more varied. Over that the highly increasing technological evolution, in terms of sound, is burying the root and is showcasing a relatively new product, and for a journalist a new brand name.

Oh yeah, I know the sort of thing. Gives no idea at all as to what to expect. Quite often I think they're sites that just quote the label's press release, rather than listening to the record and describing / reviewing it.

Amen to that.