Genre Overload

Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Contrary to what you might expect, this isn't one of those 'why are there so many silly names about these days, it confuses everything, why can't we just call it music, maaan?' type of rants. The names are mostly fine I reckon, it's the objective existence of such a plethora of actual musical styles that is doing my head in. It feels truly impossible to even come close to keeping up. So it's more like a variant of that other old chestnut, the 'too much music nowadays' rant (add your own auto-reference to consumer culture, the postmodern era yadda yadda). But I reckon not hearing/not knowing about/not understanding an entire genre is a more galling loss than just missing out on specific artists or records, it genuinely bothers me that there are or could be whole types of sounds, whole scenes, maybe even entire cultural movements that I'm unfamiliar with. I hope/expect others feel at a similar loss?

Current, or at least recent, genres that are off my radar:
Broken beat
Breaks (which is at least somewhat different to nu-skool breaks, right?)
Screwed n Chopped
Baltimore bass, ghettotech and juke (which are quite possibly not even that similar to each other - I just don't know!)
Desi
Reggaeton
+ I've been partially getting to grips with the whole minimal techno/minimal/microhouse thing, but still reckon a lot of it escapes me, not just as in that there's lots of music that I haven't yet heard, but also in that I don't feel that I've made proper sense of what slots into which hole, who influenced who, how the whole thing slots together etc yet.

And older ones:
EBM
New beat
On U Sound and digidub
Steppers
Italo-piano house
Italo disco
Miami bass
Electro (fairly glaring, possibly unforgivable ovesight, this one)

And no doubt there are others the will later occur to me. There's interesting little inflections to it beyond just general ignorance - for instance, there's genres which I understand the contours of in theory but have heard relatively little of the actual music within them (main example- US garage), or genres where I don't fully yet know or understand the stylistic, historical or cultural definitions thereof, but reckon I've heard a fair ammount of the sounds just from being out and about (main example - electro-house).
There's probably a more significant discussion to be had about what the whole thing means, beyond me just posting lists, hopefully this will emerge!
 
D

doom

Public Housing
Tentative Andy said:
it genuinely bothers me that there are or could be whole types of sounds, whole scenes, maybe even entire cultural movements that I'm unfamiliar with.
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I am glad, gratefull, thankfull that this is the case, if I thought for 1 millisec. that every sound, every scene, every cultural movement was something I could (should?) know about, let alone get familiar with I'd sink into a deep depression...
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
doom said:
I am glad, gratefull, thankfull that this is the case, if I thought for 1 millisec. that every sound, every scene, every cultural movement was something I could (should?) know about, let alone get familiar with I'd sink into a deep depression...
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In many ways I agree with you: I find that when I spread my listening across a wide range of sounds, esp when most are new to me, that I don't really listen properly, that I don't fully appreciate it, ending up viewing it subconsciouly as more something to be ticked off a list, making decisions about its value very quickly, probably too quickly. Whereas when I dedicate myself more to a particular sound, I always get more out of it - even music which might seem straightforward and face-value in its appeal can have many additional facets which reward periods of immersion.
But still, something in me just won't switch off, won't settle to continually limiting my listening. I think in large part it's to do with anxiety of appearing ig'nant in discussion, esp in highly informed musical communities like these of course. But also there's a deeper, and perhaps more laudable fear of missing something which turns out to be genuinely important. I mean, speaking as someone who was listening to music regularly from the mid-90s on, when I look back I just don't understand why I wasn't listening to jungle at the time, and from there getting into hardcore etc. I feel genuinely embarassed that I missed it and wasted so much time on bland guitar music instead. But during that period, it was off my cultural radar...
 
Jonesy

Jonesy

Wild Horses
Tentative Andy said:
there's genres which I understand the contours of in theory but have heard relatively little of the actual music within them
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As a regular read of the Wire I could spout loads about Noise, but apart from skipping through a Merzbow sampler a freind sent me, I've heard almost nothing.

Maybe I should stop reading from cover to cover.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Tentative Andy said:
[...] digidub
Steppers
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Glasgow is home to Mungo's HI-Fi, who run nights in your town.

Not forward thinking/roots and culture (delete as appropriate) digi dub/steppers style like aba shanti, iration, channel 1 et al, but at a live dance you'll get a sense of what both styles are about without having to buy the records (which, in the main are not worth buying for home play in any case).

One evening, cross two off! ;)
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Tentative Andy said:
I feel genuinely embarassed that I missed it and wasted so much time on bland guitar music instead. But during that period, it was off my cultural radar...
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Andy, why do you feel this way? You can't always help what cultural activities (or artifacts) that you come into contact with.

In the days of internet, the worse that can happen is that you missed some good nights/ potential friendships. Most of the other stuff can be caught up with.
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
matt b said:
Andy, why do you feel this way? You can't always help what cultural activities (or artifacts) that you come into contact with.

In the days of internet, the worse that can happen is that you missed some good nights/ potential friendships. Most of the other stuff can be caught up with.
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Well I mean, I feel embarassed when I explicitly think about it, like when having discussions like this one. It's not as if I spend my days sitting with my head hung in shame about it...
But, point taken about catching up, which is what I've been doing heavily over the last year or so. However, it is often more exciting living through these things in real-time, you get this sense of it being a dynamic cultural mechanism that you're caught up in, there's the shocks of the new, the uncertainty about where it will go next and so forth. You miss out on some of that if all you can do is listen back to the records I think. Although in my case I would have been a little too young to hear it out at clubs and stuff, so it would always have been at least partially a case of appreciation at at distance.
The other, no doubt daft why it embarrases me is the fact that I missed it first time round would appear to mark me out as someone with bad taste, or at least not fully cutting-edge taste. In theory I'd like not to care about that, but reckon that to some extent everyone does. It's that shame I've talked about before of realising that you're one of what is viewed as 'the wrong sort of people'.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Tentative Andy said:
Current, or at least recent, genres that are off my radar:
Broken beat
Breaks (which is at least somewhat different to nu-skool breaks, right?)
Screwed n Chopped
Baltimore bass, ghettotech and juke (which are quite possibly not even that similar to each other - I just don't know!)
Desi
Reggaeton
+ I've been partially getting to grips with the whole minimal techno/minimal/microhouse thing, but still reckon a lot of it escapes me, not just as in that there's lots of music that I haven't yet heard, but also in that I don't feel that I've made proper sense of what slots into which hole, who influenced who, how the whole thing slots together etc yet.

And older ones:
EBM
New beat
On U Sound and digidub
Steppers
Italo-piano house
Italo disco
Miami bass
Electro (fairly glaring, possibly unforgivable ovesight, this one)
Click to expand...

Well, with Miami bass/italo disco/on U/new beat/b-more/desi/s&C, i could def point you to a couple of comps that would give a really good overview.
 
V

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Tentative Andy said:
Well I mean, I feel embarassed when I explicitly think about it, like when having discussions like this one. It's not as if I spend my days sitting with my head hung in shame about it...
But, point taken about catching up, which is what I've been doing heavily over the last year or so. However, it is often more exciting living through these things in real-time, you get this sense of it being a dynamic cultural mechanism that you're caught up in, there's the shocks of the new, the uncertainty about where it will go next and so forth. You miss out on some of that if all you can do is listen back to the records I think. Although in my case I would have been a little too young to hear it out at clubs and stuff, so it would always have been at least partially a case of appreciation at at distance.
The other, no doubt daft why it embarrases me is the fact that I missed it first time round would appear to mark me out as someone with bad taste, or at least not fully cutting-edge taste. In theory I'd like not to care about that, but reckon that to some extent everyone does. It's that shame I've talked about before of realising that you're one of what is viewed as 'the wrong sort of people'.
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cut yr losses and get on with it!

totally feel where you are coming from, though i started listening to hiphop when i was 15 i basically totally missed the salad days of ukg and have only got into it retrospectively through grime and dubstep (like a lot of other people i feel)...

i saw foo fighters twice back in the day, plus the offspring, maybe i should be embarrassed by that :p
 
V

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
As an aside i think there is a dangerous canonical urge that can arise in one - i listened to basic channel because i knew how influential it was and found it dull and dreary. then when i returned to it in my own time i worked out the bits it liked and the bits i didn't. the internet throws a spanner in the works because it erodes the older channels of exposure (mates, bands, radio etc) and throws the keys to the world pretty much, so you end up thinking oh god why don't i know about this obscure US club genre or whatever, but then why would you..
 
D

Dunninger

-
I think once you realise that it's just not possible to be up to date with all music it's really easy. Nobody on the planet has heard every important (whatever that really means) music, read every important book, seen every important film etc., there's no point losing sleep about it because no matter how hard you try, you just can't. And then it doesn't really matter how much you miss, if your life is filled with good music and you're open for different and new stuff, it's all good. Why be embarrassed for missing jungle the first time as long as you had fun with the guitars?
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
viktorvaughn said:
As an aside i think there is a dangerous canonical urge that can arise in one - i listened to basic channel because i knew how influential it was and found it dull and dreary. then when i returned to it in my own time i worked out the bits it liked and the bits i didn't. the internet throws a spanner in the works because it erodes the older channels of exposure (mates, bands, radio etc) and throws the keys to the world pretty much, so you end up thinking oh god why don't i know about this obscure US club genre or whatever, but then why would you..
Click to expand...

Good points.
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
viktorvaughn said:
cut yr losses and get on with it!

totally feel where you are coming from, though i started listening to hiphop when i was 15 i basically totally missed the salad days of ukg and have only got into it retrospectively through grime and dubstep (like a lot of other people i feel)...

i saw foo fighters twice back in the day, plus the offspring, maybe i should be embarrassed by that :p
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was kind of similar. Although I was exposed to a fair ammount of it just through things like the heavy radio play, with 2-step especially I really wasn't feeling it at the time. Mainly because, to put it bluntly, I dismissed it as bling music. Nowadays I can appreciate it much, like you said that's probably quite a widespread thing.
I think I would still go and see the Offspring now, used to love them back in the day, still sometimes put a few of the albums on when I'm feeling nostalgic.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
I tend to just follow the artists and labels I like. I'm not really arsed if I miss a shitload of stuff in my interest zone that might well be amazing, the effort of keeping up with it all isn't really worth it. I'll let bloggers like these guys do the groundwork for me, life's too short.
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
swears said:
I tend to just follow the artists and labels I like. I'm not really arsed if I miss a shitload of stuff in my interest zone that might well be amazing, the effort of keeping up with it all isn't really worth it. I'll let bloggers like these guys do the groundwork for me, life's too short.
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That 20jazzfunkgreats page looks interesting, ta.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
And there are probably great music bloggers that I'm missing out on too. It's like I need a blog about the best blogs, haha.

You'd go crazy, innit.
 
C

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Tentative Andy said:
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I love a good compilation, as it goes.
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There's is a desi collective out of Glasgow too but I cant remember the name. I think they or someone posted a mix of theirs here some time ago.

On the Broken Beat comps tip.

The Good Good v1+2
Cooperation Sessions
Chromatic Universe
People make the world go round
 
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