Best BOOK explaining Music Genre ? - And What do you think about Sub-Genres nowadays ...?

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

What are the Best BOOK explaining Music Genre

A book like explaining genre regarding how it is produced, main artists, main labels with some history - from soul-disco, to electro-funk, hip hop, and all electronic music genre and sub-genre…

Is something like that exist? (i have an old one but it’s only focused on electronic music, or only drum programming… then of course there’s tutorials)

Maybe with few references, I can have a whole point of view

What do you think about this classification i found on the WEB ? Do you agree on ?

R&B - SOUL
Disco, Funk, Gospel, Neo Soul, R&B, Soul

HIP-HOP
Boom Bap, East Coast Hip Hop, Experimental Hip Hop, Hip Hop, Southern Hip Hop, Trap, West Coast Hip Hop

BASS MUSIC
Bass Music, Breakbeat, Drum&Bass, Dubstep, Future Bass, Glitch Hop, Grime, Moombahton

HOUSE MUSIC
Acid House, Bass House, Deep House, G House, House, Nu Disco, Progressive House, Tech House, Tribal House, UK Garage

TECHNO- MINIMAL
Dub Techno, Hardcore, Minimal, Techno

ELECTRONIC
Ambient, Bit Music, Broken Beat, Chill Out, Downtempo, Electronica, Experimental, Glitch, IDM, Indie Dance, Industrial, Lo-Fi, Synthpop, Trip Hop

DANCE MUSIC
Complextro, Dance, EDM, Electro House, Future House, Hardstyle, Melbourne Bounce, Psytrance, Trance, Tropical House

#2

Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways. The artistic nature of music means that these classifications are often subjective and controversial, and some genres may overlap. There are even varying academic definitions of the term genre itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Music_genres

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#3

Every Noise at Once is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 2,743 genres by Spotify as of 2019-02-25. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.

Click anything to hear an example of what it sounds like.

http://everynoise.com

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#4

actually, nearly all genre names and definitions are coined by music journalists and never meant to be used for classification of «scientific» kind.

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#5

I’m kind of agree with that.
What i wrote is because i want to teach some basics for people who know nothing and want to learn. I would like to have a part on major music family and hints like BPM, if it’s halfbeat or not, to give them an idea of sound synthesis and how things are processed, mixed - and then, they can make their own travel, and transgress the rules

:wink:

so i looking for materials to make my own courses on that subject (but i already think to work only on music genre and not subgenres because i guess it doesn’t make sense for every reasons already post here)

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#6

Yes and revive sells based on “NEW hype subgenre” who make sells again
FOR SURE

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#7

Thanks for your links @t

This one is cool but only focused on BEATS :

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#8

genres… take them lightly ffs

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#9

this is a really good place to start to see where dance music styles came from and what owes a debt to what

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

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#10

I sort of agree with “take genre lightly” cos at the of the day, they blend into each other…

but also genres usually get birthed by genuine cultural or technological change, so looking back on the history of them and understanding why they happened how they happened when they happened can be pretty illuminating and interesting.

This is classic on the history of UK soundsystem music too:

https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/the-wire-300_simon-reynolds-on-the-hardcore-continuum_introduction

also, while the NAMES are often made up by journalists (no-one wanted Grime called “Grime” that was involved in making it initially) I feel like the need to have a name for a type of music is driven by the fact that a group of people are doing a new exciting thing that can at least loosely be grouped together in the first place - the tail doesn’t wag the dog!

I guess you were asking for more technical/practical stuff, but really I think understanding the cultural history behind a genre is as important as knowing “it’s at 140 bpm, snare on the 3”

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#11

understanding the cultural is included in what i have in mind too :wink:

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#12

I’m old-school … for sure … because IMO it takes much more to justify a new genre rather than using a clap sound instead of a snare drum, or to generate some typical squeaks with a filter :wink:

Same goes for sub-genres. I think we had some kind of inflation of “new genres”.

This said, I don’t care anymore about it. If a track sounds great, it sounds great, that’s it.

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#13

its 2019 man, don’t assume genre

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#14

what have you got against lofi minimal seapunk thrash?

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#15

And What do you think about Sub-Genres nowadays …?

i remember the times (90s), when new subgenres appeared every few months.

so i wonder. was anything new invented in 2010s ?

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#16

Great guide only about psytrance “subgenres”
http://psytranceguide.com/

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#17

Gqom?

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#18

“It doesn’t matter what they say in the papers, ’cause it’s always been the same old scene. Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk, it’s still rock and roll to me.” - William Martin Joel

.

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#19

that is pretty amazing.
although I feel like “South African Full-On” has to be a joke?

:wink:

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#20

it depends. if you mean south african psytrance scene of 2000s, it’s not. «twilight psy» & «night full-on» is basically the same.

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