In week four of the Radio and Popular Music module, we were set one reading about genre and the narrative structure behind it, and had to find another reading ourselves to involve it into our reading response.
The readings and the lecture of this week helped to understand that there is more behind genre than simple distinctions in the sound and BPM (beats per minute). “In basic terms genre refers to the types of popular music, so that a categorization of music into distinct categories like soul, Rock, House, Rap, Reggae, Trance, Nu Metal or what ever, is a process of genre identification.” (Wall, 2003: 179)
But in week four’s lecture of Radio & Popular Music we saw how hard it was to identify a genre of an artist or a song, when we were given pictures of artists and we had to place them into a genre.
Genres are developing and changing very quickly in our days, when I was like eight years old I was into hip-hop, because I was listening to the Paparazzi Album of Xzibit. Today people aren’t just listening to hip-hop, now there is Hip-Hop, Rap, Grime, Trap-Rap, Gangster-Rap, Rock-Rap and so on. I agree with Wall that there aren’t clear cuts in genres. (Wall, 2003: 180)
In my opinion it’s not possible to identify a genre by a technical process with codes or something similar. Genre is more than just music; genres are cultures, lifestyles, creativity, fusions and much more.
The situation we are in today, where we are still trying to identify popular music or the difference between genres, shows us that there is no correct method of doing this. (Borthwick and Moy, 2004: 1)
The whole idea of genre in popular music has got its advantages but also brings its disadvantages with it. You definitely came across genres before when you were looking for music that matches your taste. You simply type in the genre you like or choose it in categories and you find many tunes with a similar sound. The bad side of genre is the prejudices by the media or by outsiders. Reggae for example is very often known for their openness to and use of cannabis and people are judged as drug consumers just because of listening to a specific genre and style of music.
Genre in popular music isn’t a bad thing in my opinion, but people are trying to often and hard to identify genres instead of just enjoying and feeling the music.
I would suggest to take further academic research in artists who changed their genre and the genres itself. This could help to identify business moves of artists and could help artists to plan the next step of their career.
Reference:
Wall, T, (2003). ‘Genre’. In: (ed), Studying Popular Music Culture. 1st ed. UK: Hodder & Stoughton Educational. pp.(179-188).
Borthwick and Moy, S.B. & R.M., 2004. Popular Music Genres. 1st ed. New York: Routledge. pp.(1-4).