Witch house, grime, folktronica, lowercase, math rock, splittercore, filthstep, screamo……etc. Seriously, what the fork are all these genres & do we really need them? Most of them sound made up. Take “time lord rock” for example (yes it’s real). FFS! Grime is literally rap. But a little bit faster & comes from England. Isn’t German reggae just, well, reggae? Do people invent these stupid names in an effort so sound a bit cooler or something? Someone’s even made a forking map & it has almost 1400 different genres on it. Isn’t that a bit ridiculous?
I think it's become a way to get differentiation between bands on a micro level. I did a bit of sorting for the dj a while back and a lot of the sampler/promo labels would put weird categories or FFO (for fans of). Most of the categories were totally stupid, but it's seems like bands are using it as a way to catch the eyeballs of music directors/djs to at least listen.
There is just so much music out there, and nobody really has time to listen to it all. So if "rowdy redhead rockers" is a category on Bandcamp, I *may* be more likely to sample, even if I don't recognize any of the bands.
Ridiculous, but if it gets more ears to listen? Success.
I think it's become a way to get differentiation between bands on a micro level. I did a bit of sorting for the dj a while back and a lot of the sampler/promo labels would put weird categories or FFO (for fans of). Most of the categories were totally stupid, but it's seems like bands are using it as a way to catch the eyeballs of music directors/djs to at least listen.
There is just so much music out there, and nobody really has time to listen to it all. So if "rowdy redhead rockers" is a category on Bandcamp, I *may* be more likely to sample, even if I don't recognize any of the bands.
Ridiculous, but if it gets more ears to listen? Success.
I haven't been aware of this trend but I think you're onto something. It reminds me a bit of writing album reviews as a MD. We also used to write a few phrases or impressions on adhesive labels and put them on the jewel cases/sleeves so the deejays would have some frame of reference when they were looking through the new releases or albums in rotation.
I think it is largely a matter of standing out and giving people something to remember in a large field of players. Not to mention the dreaded algorithms that now enable us to lead a completely curated life. But I digress...
P.S. My poll answer would technically have to be "no" because I refuse to acknowledge what is described as actually being genres.