Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Do you put your music in a genre or does it adhere to labeling?

We have hundreds of categories and sub categories.

I will begin . To me there is a need for the basics: Rock, Jazz, Country, Classical. But I do not adhere to the sub categories. ie: Jam Band or progressive? Hard Rock or Metal?


jorge

http://www.iamnotjerry.com

I hear different labels for the same thing. In the past few years I keep hearing people talk about blues-rock for example. I have no idea what that means. There's so many different labels, just as there are different political labels. I'm to the point now that I don't care what you call our music as long as you call us...and we get a paid gig once in a while....

Labeling is an unfortunate necessity. I play in various genres: punk rock, classic rock, hard rock, metal, blues but even those labels are not precise enough. The Farleys plays 70's style punk and hard rock ala The Stooges, The Ramones, New York Dolls, Frank Zappa and Mudhoney. I have heard this offshoot called "proto-punk" to indicate it was the style that came just before and influenced "real" punk - The Sex Pistols, Clash, etc. People like to classify things, it helps us organize our thoughts and get through our busy lives.

There's a excellent article in the current "Paste" magazine, cover story: "Is Indie Dead?"

Very, very thought provoking and concise overview of the "meaning" of the word Indie, and how we label music overall.

Beside, paste is about the best music mag out there. They've stopped including the free CD, but when you buy an issue, you can download the free songs from their site. GREAT GREAT GREAT way to hear music you'd never come across.

I quite like the label "eclectic." It fits me.

How about psychotic ???

A few years back somebody said our band played "music to hump by." I like that. I guess we're a new genre: MUSIC TO HUMP BY.

lol

I am the first in a new line of Psycho-delic..

We let our fans label us.
But it seems every song we write is a slightly different genre,
becuase the two writers are me and our guitarist. And we are polar opposite about music. But our songs profit off that, we all bring a missing piece to the song.

As for labels..? Who cares.

Personally, I have no problem with labels. Does it sometimes get out of hand? Yes...Being a metal fan, I'm not sure if any other music genre has more categories/sub-categories...Power metal, progressive metal, nu-metal, death metal, black metal, doom metal, poser metal, commercial metal, melodic death metal, prgressive death metal, industrial metal, traditional metal, alternative metal, christian metal, metalcore, thrash metal, grunge metal, grindcore, gothic metal, viking metal, Norwegian folk black metal, stoner metal, rap metal and on and on...So, as I said, does it sometimes get out of hand? Yes...

Everybody likes to be labeled. Everbody even likes to label other peoples stuff. No one ever argues or acts contentious about labeling.

Seriously though, if you want to 'talk' about a band, you have to do one of a very few things. One is labelling or categorization, and the contentiousness about this is palpable. Two is compare said band to other better known bands, and the contentiousness about this is palpable. Three is to address the individual members in one of the previous to modes, which is also extremely contentious.

An example would be saying, "Johnny Mustard is hard rock band except with a lead guitar player that kinda sounds jazzy like Steely Dan or something." Honestly, I think labeling is a necessary evil. I wish other people would just accept that and stop be so damned contentious about it.