On Genres

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It always amazes me how touchy people are about genres. I joined VampireFreaks about a month ago, and in just my first browsing of the music forum (before I'd even posted) I came across about countless disagreements and debates about whether a band was considered industrial, or whether a band was gothic, or whether a band was metal, or whether a band was black metal, or how emo music isn't actually emo...it just irritates me to no end. Genres exist as an adjective to make it easier to give an idea about what kind of sound a band has, not to completely define everything a band is. Who gives a s**t if a band fits into a lot of genres and it's easier to just say one of them? People act so elitist. "Marilyn Manson isn't industrial!" "Marilyn Manson isn't gothic!" "It's an oversimplification to call him rock." "Dimmu Borgir isn't black metal!" "Cradle of Filth isn't black metal!" "Cradle of Filth isn't gothic!" "Cradle of Filth isn't metal!" "MSI isn't punk!" "My Chemical Romance isn't emo! All the emo bands were in the 70's!" "Ministry isn't metal, they're industrial!" "Ministry isn't industrial, they're metal!" "System of a Down isn't hyper metal, they're nu-metal!" I can't even escape seeing some of it here at WP.

Forgive me for not understanding the purist mentality, but I'm fine with disliking many bands that fit into my favorite genres (gothic, industrial, and metal) and I don't feel the need to label everything that doesn't completely sound 100% like other bands in those genres as "pop" or "rock," because they rarely sound a thing like pure pop or rock to me. Maybe death-pop, or industrial rock, or pop-metal, but that's not the same.

And I have to wonder, what the hell is the point of debating about this stuff? What's the point in "correcting" someone about what genre YOU think a band falls into when the fact that someone "got the genre wrong" in the first place shows that it's all a matter of opinion? It's all just BS. If you can think of Deftones as metal instead of hard rock, more power to ya. If you can think of Deftones as rock and don't consider them metal, fine. The important thing is whether or not you like them.

I can never tell whether certain bands are pop or rock or whatever. All music sounds different to me. I defenitely think it's just a matter of opinion. I think bands should be judged just on how good their music is, not because of whatever genre they're classified under. I think genres should just be used to differentiate obviously different music, such as classical from heavy metal. I also think people should listen to whatever music sounds good to them, not what genre it falls under.

Yep. Most people consider labels too much. I will muse:

Is this country or is this rock? Who gives a s**t? Is it good?!

Is this emo, or is it cool? What the f***, you can't be that simple.

Am I liberal or am I conservative. Well ... I don't give a s**t what you call me. I would prefer you know where I stand on those issues.

Am I AS or am I HFA or am I something else or just weird or am I something new?
Who cares? This is how Popeye exercises: I am what I am and that's all that I am.

When will people learn to think for themselves! instead of relying on others to label everythng first, and then decididng what to like or dislike.

Sometimes if you dare to think for yourself you can be harmed. There are social punishments for individualism. For most people conformity is an obsession. And working of the basis of predefined labels (instead of thinking for yourself), is one aspect of the instinct to conform.

Ya dig?

Is it rap or is it hip-hop? I don't really care I just ask myself do I like it. I do like to have a tudy iTunes library though! So I try to keep to very general genres so I don't have too many.

I don't really let me get this down, but I exactly know what you mean Veresae.

Most of the bands I listen to are either too obscure to be labeled or they have a negative sounding label like "stoner rock." Whenever I tell people I listen to stoner rock they assume I'm some kind of stoner, which I'm not. I just think bands that fit the stoner rock genre (which is incredibly wide and poorly-defined) are awesome.

Music is music.

I label things how I want to label them. If it's something that I care about and someone tells me that I labeled it wrong, I give them The Finger.


Why care about labels, anyway? That stuff is insignificant in the real world.

I like String Cheese Incident and I'm no "stoner".

Some people are too touchy about genres. However, people sometimes have no idea what they're talking about when they say, for example, "lolz this band is emo" or something like that. A lot of people happen to think that the nu-metal band Slipknot is "death metal." I doubt anyone who thinks this could actually tell me the names of any real death metal bands. Of course, anyone can think that Slipknot sounds like death metal (even if it doesn't to me), but people usually just don't know what they're talking about. This is also part of the reason that death metal has such a bad reputation (and metal in general).

As I said before, people who throw around the label "emo" often don't know what they're talking about either. Instead of "pop rock," people use the word "emo" to describe the pop rock bands of today. Some people even think that anything emotional is "emo". While they're free to think whatever they want, it's just a little ridiculous to say that all emotional music is emo.

Music is music but I like ambient music more than most music usually though.

what i also think is weird is that if you listen to certain genres of music,
you are supposed not to listen to other genres
never understood that.

I don't get that "emo" thing. Is it supposed to mean that if a type of music is not labeled as "emo", it does not stimulate emotions?

I like industrial.

i think there good just to quickly describe a band, and to find more like them ..... like i havent liked any power metal that ive heard so i wouldn't get any on a whim like i would with genres i particularly like .... you cant discredit them entirely

i used to have a VampireFreaks account but i hated everyone i met, and yea the music section seemed pretty stupid


although most metal heads i know enjoy a good old argument, one of my favorite moments last year was when a friend who had been really snobby about music beforehand tried to convince me that metallica arent thrash

I'm considering posting a modified version of this at VF, but I'm afraid it'd piss too many elitists off. Then again, that's part of the point.

do it man and link us ... if it floats itll be awesome