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The decline of genre tags

Has anyone else sensed a decline in precise sub-genre tags? Every bio of a DJ I read now will invariably describe their sound as "house and techno", whether it's John Digweed or Avalon Emerson. There are also specific sounds for which no pigeon hole has been assigned. The dreamy sound Lee Burridge plays, for example, or the Stephan Bodzin / Mind Against noisy angular sound. It's all just "house and techno". Meanwhile, "tech house" means everything from Terry Francis to Dave Seaman to the execrable sounds of CamelPhat and Solado choking up the Beatport Top 100, the latest genre tag to be bastardised beyond recognition after "progressive" was finally rescued from the EDM hordes.

So what do we think? Is electronic music's obsession with precision tooled genre tags finally subsiding? Or am I talking shite?

I definitely see new subgenre tags popping up still ("lo-fi house" in the past year or so, for example) but maybe DJs are less comfortable now being known for playing a "limited" palette, so they stick to the general labels. I haven't taken a look at Beatport lately to see what kind of monstrosities they have added to their subgenre names.

You're not talking shite, the decline of tags is real (IMO*) and I for one am fucking ecstatic about it.

I've long been a critic of the microgenre obsession becuase at the end of the day, it's just fucking house, techno, trance and prog as far as I'm concerned.

I get it, people (especially journalists) absolutely love to fit a neat little hole to compartmentalize music but frankly so may of the stupid microgenres (as I'll keep referring to them) were just descriptors of a larger parent subset.

Yes it's minimal. It's minimal HOUSE or TECHNO. Yes, it's deep. HOUSE.

Back in the peak of my clubbing days you went out as although you wouldn't classify it as eclectic (i.e Jon Peele, Wetherall, Secretsundaze etc) you could hear a large gamut of house and it was just labelled "house" but fast forward 10-15 years and those same sets were described as a mix of minimal tech, deep house, breaks and pumping house. Nothing changed apart form the desperation to label them in to some cringeworthy pigeon hole.

I remember the first time I saw the mention of Future Bass and it made me a little embarrassed to still be associated with dance music. Tropical house confirmed that it had gone too far, becuase a few pan flutes and steel drums does not a new subgrenre (of deep house) make.

* = I'll happily admit I'm not the best person to be open minded about this becuase as long as I could remember, and probably becuase of the time I got in to dance music (94-96), these silly genres didn't exist so to see these minute definitions become their own category was just daft.

On a grander scale, I really don't think it helped dance music as a whole; it became about endlessly defining what people played or listened to rather than embracing variety. Again, I would go out to a club that was listed as house (maybe uplifting house) and in today's terms it would start with breaks and chunky house with guys like dave lambert, move in to prog/house with Craig dimech or Pele or Choppy and Jez then go in to full on trance and with the likes of Dave Peirce or Ferry Corsten or Tall paul etc. And that was just called a "house" night. It meant you got exposed to so much more music under a single banner, rather than these days going out to a progressive trance night and the BPM not budging by more than 2.

Well, as long as microtagging helps me finding similar music, I'm fine with it. But indeed the whole thing is declining.

I find there's a LOT of micro-tagging by artists themselves, but more as a means to get the attention of search results. A typical synthwave release on Bandcamp often comes loaded with associated genre tags like synth-pop, dark synth, chillwave, outrun, electropop, retrosynth, newretrowave, dreamwave, and more. Of course, in trying to assign so many tags to such a specific sound, almost nothing really sticks, so one emerges as the base default everyone refers to the genre as (synthwave for the glory). That kinda' happened in the post rave-hardcore era too, when the term drum 'n' bass hadn't quite settled in yet, so you had things like darkside, jungle, dolphin breakbeat, and whatever Simon Reynolds came up with fighting for genre dominance.

I think the reason we haven't seen many new genres emerge is that there just isn't much new stuff being created as of late. Much of what is considered cutting edge is more a mashing of established genres with technical gimmickry. Even when they think they have stumbled upon a new genre, more often than not it's just a rehash of something from 20 years ago ("You call this future house? I remember calling it Alex Party remixes.")

And in the end, when you want to garner the most attention to your sets, DJs will always market themselves with the two most recognizable, long-lasting, respected genres electronic dance music has ever created: house and techno. You may have some progressive elements or broken-beat weapons in your crate, but such sounds would only cater to fans of those particular sounds, and might potentially turn away detractors of those sounds (the sad saga of trance). If you're just simply known to play house or techno though, well hey, everyone likes that stuff, right?


Oh God, "house'n'techno" is the gonna' be the new 'techno'/electronica/EDM, isn't it?!!

quote:

Originally posted by Sykonee I find there's a LOT of micro-tagging by artists themselves, but more as a means to get the attention of search results. A typical synthwave release on Bandcamp often comes loaded with associated genre tags like synth-pop, dark synth, chillwave, outrun, electropop, retrosynth, newretrowave, dreamwave, and more. Of course, in trying to assign so many tags to such a specific sound, almost nothing really sticks, so one emerges as the base default everyone refers to the genre as (synthwave for the glory).

This has become a huge problem- on SoundCloud and especially on Bandcamp- when it comes to searching for new music. Artists are using tags that bear any resemblance or have any loose scene-association with their material, and it makes the search results little better than worthless.

As for genre tags in general, I think they're still just as numerous as ever, only more regulated to the micro-communities on places like Reddit that prefer to discuss and share them in those specific terms. 'House' and 'techno' have a vintage reliability to them that some of the larger names have picked up so as to market themselves as such.

quote:

Originally posted by Sykonee Oh God, "house'n'techno" is the gonna' be the new 'techno'/electronica/EDM, isn't it?!!

Nah

Fucking Beatport lumps ALL breaks into one big category, and half of it isn't even breaks at all. Finding new tunes is damn near impossible.

I think you have a point. But this might be a trend aswell since wild genre-mixing is fairly in fashion right now - or at least pretending that you play very diverse sets.

By the way, is this simply an analysis or are you raising some kind of concern? Just curious, I can't tell.

quote:

Originally posted by Sykonee I find there's a LOT of micro-tagging by artists themselves, but more as a means to get the attention of search results. A typical synthwave release on Bandcamp often comes loaded with associated genre tags like synth-pop, dark synth, chillwave, outrun, electropop, retrosynth, newretrowave, dreamwave, and more. Of course, in trying to assign so many tags to such a specific sound, almost nothing really sticks, so one emerges as the base default everyone refers to the genre as (synthwave for the glory). That kinda' happened in the post rave-hardcore era too, when the term drum 'n' bass hadn't quite settled in yet, so you had things like darkside, jungle, dolphin breakbeat, and whatever Simon Reynolds came up with fighting for genre dominance. I think the reason we haven't seen many new genres emerge is that there just isn't much new stuff being created as of late. Much of what is considered cutting edge is more a mashing of established genres with technical gimmickry. Even when they think they have stumbled upon a new genre, more often than not it's just a rehash of something from 20 years ago ("You call this future house? I remember calling it Alex Party remixes.") And in the end, when you want to garner the most attention to your sets, DJs will always market themselves with the two most recognizable, long-lasting, respected genres electronic dance music has ever created: house and techno. You may have some progressive elements or broken-beat weapons in your crate, but such sounds would only cater to fans of those particular sounds, and might potentially turn away detractors of those sounds (the sad saga of trance). If you're just simply known to play house or techno though, well hey, everyone likes that stuff, right? Oh God, "house'n'techno" is the gonna' be the new 'techno'/electronica/EDM, isn't it?!!

This is so on the money lol.

Microtagging is one thing, becuase that just helps sales, but actually trying to label genres in another thing.

The thing is, 90% of the smaller events I went to in the 90's were either house n garage or house n techno.

Funny how things come full circle.

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