A music genre is nonsense. Good music is good music. The only times genres really need to apply are either, “friend” or “more than a friend,” and I don’t see how that could be implemented. Thus, I digress.
So while Best Buy and Know Name Records (the only place to buy Crunk Juice in Minnesota yeeeeeeeah!) will list music in genres like “country, hip-hop, rock, jazz,” etc. etc., it’s all bullshit.
Here, I’ll show you. List your top three artists. Then continue reading.
Basically, this is what happens. The first artist listed is one of your actual favorites, most likely from when you were too young to know any better (Outkast or A Tribe Called Quest in my case). The second artist is a “street cred” artist from your favorite genre of music (The Roots in my case.) Then, you list the legendary third artist: The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan, or another artist that belongs in that pantheon. Because no matter how much someone hates the first two artists you mentioned, they love the last one you threw at ‘em. Listing the legend shows that you’re “edgy,” “eclectic,” and “diverse.” Really, you’re a sham. But it’s okay. We are all poseurs underneath our clothes (c) Shakira.
(Before moving on, let’s take a moment to reflect on Shakira.. Reflects… One serious note her “new” single with Wyclef is actually just taken from the Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights soundtrack. Don’t ask how or why I know this. Just know that Wyclef and Claudette Ortiz sang it originally, but Clef just added Shakira’s voice and the horn used most notably in “Deja vu” by Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz. However, it’s essentially the same song just with a different chick. They took a previous song, added a classic hip-hop sample and looked the other way. It’s like when they replaced Bo and Luke Duke on Dukes of Hazzard and hoped no one would notice. Seriously. Check it out. Anyways though we’re all poseurs.)
Yeah, I know. Here you thought you were at the front of the alt-country resurgence only to hear that it’s all nonsense. In all honesty and truth etherous truth actually there are only three genres of music.
1- Music that makes you look cool. 2- Music that can get you laid. 3- Music that you actually enjoy.
Think about it. It’s true.
Now, it’s possible to enjoy music that makes you look cool. So, using a Venn diagram to describe the three genres, unions can exist. (Wow, all those years of Richfield science education finally pay off.) But why do you think Bob Dylan is always in someone’s top five? Because he’s fucking untouchable! No self-respecting person can attack that choice. It’s Bob fucking Dylan. “Don’t Think Twice,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” the catalog goes on forever. Same with the Beatles, Stones and Jimi. Miles Davis and John Coltrane are also the epitome of this distinction. No one knows enough about jazz to really argue other wise; whereas the few that really do enjoy jazz are too busy foaming at the mouth over the four-disc re-release of Bitches Brew. Thus, our “Makes you look cool” genre is lead by these legends.
All music starts there, mostly because listening to music is cool. However, the “Makes you look cool” artist is either a legend of the opposite - an indie-group just about at its tipping point (c) Malcolm Gladwell.
They have to be easily defendable, so they must stand up on their own artistically Groups like the Arcade Fire, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Roots, The Shins, The Pixies, D’Angelo, The Artic Monkeys, etc. The Strokes were once the poster boys for this genre, but we’ll get to them later. The important thing is, no one has really heard of the group (except for indie-rock internet blog addicts), sparking a “Who are they? What do they sing?” conversation every time you drop their name. Which you do a lot, because you’re a self-absorbed prick.
Now the Venn diagram comes back into play. (Yea, we’re talking about it again. Seriously, if you don’t remember it’s the diagram with the two circles.) When a “cool” band starts to get airplay - basically, once chicks start to notice them - they become part of the “Music that can get you laid” genre. If we’re taking a tour through this genre, the guide would sound something like this in the loudspeaker, “To the right are John Mayer, Jack Johnson and David Grey, to the left are the Dave Matthews Band, Guster, and Ben Harper. Please, do not feed the Incubus during the tour. We will be passing the 2Pac memorial soon…”
All of those musicians/bands were “hip, artsy, and real,” aka part of the “makes you cool” genre originally. And females start flocking to these artists like R Kelly to 14 year olds. In the martini shaker of life, when you mix chicks with “cool” music, you get one of two things. Either high chicks or drunk chicks. Either way, you’ve got highly impressionable females that are probably going to make some bad decisions. So, while you have several music aficionados that enjoy these artists, you have three hundred pathetic douche bag date rapists trying their best to sit through “Forever” by Ben Harper, hoping a female will notice. However, many females went through a fake hippie phase and may actually be able to name the popular songs (akin to O.A.R. and “Crazy Game of Poker), so they may be able to fish out some of the douche bags (but let’s be honest, probably not.)
But lastly, sometimes a group gets too popular from the “Music that makes you cool” genre, or they don’t get popular enough, losing steam even from the web nerds that follow their every move. Fall Out Boy is an example of the popular variety, and Jurassic 5 is an example of the not-popular enough variety. D’Angelo’s music was once able to get you laid - still can get you laid under the right circumstances - but since his period of exile, he has floated into the abyss of “music you actually enjoy.” No one is name checking for him. Yet.
Another hypothetical situation is emo music, and then it is never cool to listen to it, and if you somehow do get laid it will be in spite of it. So if you listen to bands like Dashboard Confessional, it’s because you actually like them. Or your girlfriend started blowing her boss. (It’s a pick ‘em type situation really).
So be safe out there rockers if you tell her you really, really like James Blunt, it’s pretty fucking obvious that you’re trying to see her cash and prizes. Which isn’t a bad thing, but you want to make sure she doesn’t end up giving you her own genre, the dreaded “friend” label.
And that’s one genre you don’t ever want to be stuck in.
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