Sub-genres: What’s What?

[tedtan]

Reading through the Metalcore / Djent Riff Theory thread, @SalsaWood mentioned shifting by minor thirds (metalcore) or fifths (djent) as part of the defining characteristics of the genres. Someone else (I think @False_God) mentioned using the typical open string plus notes at the fifth, seventh, and eighth frets as being characteristic.

But this got me thinking - there are so many sub-genres these days, how the hell do we tell them apart or identify which is which? What characteristics define the sub-genres?

 

[Kaura]

For me, tempo, rhythm and instrumentation (is that even a word?). The notes don't matter.

 

[BlackMastodon]

Porn or metal, who has more subgenres? Place your bets!

 

[SalsaWood]

I would say tonal and temporal intervallic relationships and their resulting associations, but that's a bit broad. There are orders of complexity in music composition that we just cannot intimately comprehend all at once, so we exercise intuitive understandings instead by listening to it. I'm not thinking about the exact component frequencies of the chords I'm playing and the resultant wave mixing mathematics, I just know that some tunes sound better played either faster or slower and if the progression between chords sounds good or bad to me in a desired or undesired way. With music theory it seems that the more you break things down into their sterile contexts the more you lose in regard to how to actually apply that understanding. I know theory decently well, or at least well as it applies to my own music, but I'm not a huge fan of the notion one could fully learn music just from reading a book. There's the empirical way of the world and the subjective way of the world. You might be able to explain thermodynamics by reading a book, but you can't expect it to fully explain why you prefer a steak rare instead of well done.

Most of the time I just describe metal bands as "metal with X" or "X metal" and it's completely abstract to what theory they are exercising. It would of course be most correct to quantify it in regard to theory, but that's almost too meticulous to be helpful even if you do know theory well. How it's applied is everything IMO.

If we were to do so either way we would have to define what is metal and why. From there we could draw out other distinctions which constitute variations instead of different classifications within those boundaries. I would probably say one unalienable staple is high gain and/or gritty guitar tones, but there may be others.

 

[Werecow]

I think what defines a genre is whatever characteristic the people in that scene focus on, or fall back on including in their music. It could be almost anything really. Like, one of the characteristics of thrash is that alternating bass drum and snare beat. Death metal, one of the characteristics is the gutteral vocals.

 

[jaxadam]

The most important subgenre of electronic music is Progressive House.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

a band is whatever genre most people agree it is

 

[JediMasterThrash]

I liked the 80's where metal bands didn't have to silo themselves into narrow niches.
Iron maiden could have one album with punk, powermetal, progmetal, NWOBHM, and hard rock songs.

I think niching genres by a chord progression or harmonic relationship or a type of beat seems absurd. Who would want to listen to an entire album of the same music theory instance, much less and entire genre? Unfortunately many bands do this to themselves.

There's only so many genres
Metal - cares more about the music than getting girls
Death - anything fronted by the cookie monster or a wild badger
*Core - pop music with the synth replaced by a distorted guitar synth and cookie monster only sings the verses but not the chorus

Then you got subgenres
Progmetal - metal that's not always in 4/4 or e-minor pentatoninc
Symphonic metal - metal where the melody is played by synch orchestra instead of guitar
Power metal - a melody played ontop of fast rhythms
Heavy metal - guitar riffs define each song
djent - 10-string guitar HPF'd at 500hz
math metal - djent with fractals choosing the notes
folk metal - power metal sung by pirates
neo-classical metal - melodies and solos based on classical music
doom - death at 5bpm
thrash - honestly hardest to define. fast palm muted riffs a a function of many sub-genre. Bands typically considered thrash like metallica and anthrax really are heavy metal, only their first albums with terrible production are thrash, which makes me think the defining characteristic of thrash is horrible thin production and a vocalist who screams badly instead of signing.

 

[nightflameauto]

Genre - Metal
Subgenre - "rocks": Makes the body move in rhythm, perhaps polyrhythm, with the head, hands, feet, and penis all bouncing in different time signatures. Please note: Polyrhythm body banging is not for the uninitiated. Attempt only under supervision. This subgenre brings the thunder.

Subgenre - "doesn't rock": Makes the body grow stale and droopy with sadness and melancholy. Leaves one wishing for the rocks subgenre, and wondering about sanity and coherence of the universe. Does not bring the thunder.

As far as I'm concerned? That's where it begins and ends.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Just have fun with it.

 

[gabito]

The more specific you get, the more wrong you are.

You just “feel” a band’s genre. And then disagree with everyone else’s feelings.

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

The more specific you get, the more wrong you are.

You just “feel” a band’s genre. And then disagree with everyone else’s feelings.

This is hilarious, because like this comparison:

Porn or metal, who has more subgenres? Place your bets!

....I think it boils down to 'you know it when you see it."
I think once things get to the point where they sort of become a meme (0-7-8 metalcore riffs, detuned 8 string palm muted open notes in 13/16 or some shit, blast beats and gutturals, hell even pluralized band names if we just wanna dunk on djent) is usually where you can start using those traits to 'define' (read: stereotype) a genre; but because these things have now become widespread enough to the point of mockery, many bands within that genre will start to avoid them to some extent in an effort to differentiate themselves while still sticking to 'that sound'.

"We're not like other metalcore bands," you know? Most 'identifying characteristics' will be largely ephemeral to some degree.
Metalcore imo is one of the most interesting examples because as a genre it's changed and expanded so much over the years that a lot of the characterizing traits to it aren't especially applicable anymore. Yet still, somehow, you still always know it when you see it.

 

[nightflameauto]

Just have fun with it.

How dare you!

 

[tedtan]

I liked the 80's where metal bands didn't have to silo themselves into narrow niches.
Iron maiden could have one album with punk, powermetal, progmetal, NWOBHM, and hard rock songs.

I think niching genres by a chord progression or harmonic relationship or a type of beat seems absurd. Who would want to listen to an entire album of the same music theory instance, much less and entire genre? Unfortunately many bands do this to themselves.

Personally, I agree with this; I like some variety.

Just have fun with it.

Absolutely; this is the way.

This is hilarious, because like this comparison:



....I think it boils down to 'you know it when you see it."
I think once things get to the point where they sort of become a meme (0-7-8 metalcore riffs, detuned 8 string palm muted open notes in 13/16 or some shit, blast beats and gutturals, hell even pluralized band names if we just wanna dunk on djent) is usually where you can start using those traits to 'define' (read: stereotype) a genre; but because these things have now become widespread enough to the point of mockery, many bands within that genre will start to avoid them to some extent in an effort to differentiate themselves while still sticking to 'that sound'.

"We're not like other metalcore bands," you know? Most 'identifying characteristics' will be largely ephemeral to some degree.
Metalcore imo is one of the most interesting examples because as a genre it's changed and expanded so much over the years that a lot of the characterizing traits to it aren't especially applicable anymore. Yet still, somehow, you still always know it when you see it.

Yeah, to give an example of what I was thinking of, look at death metal.

You can have the blast and skank beats, the riffs and solos, but if you put Spencer Sotelo (Periphery), Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), or whoever, it’s no longer death metal. But with djent, you could change the singer and it would still be djent IMO because djent relies on the syncopated or polyrhythmic riff for it’s “inherent identity”.

So what is the “inherent identity” of the other genres/subgenres?

 

[JediMasterThrash]

So what is the “inherent identity” of the other genres/subgenres?

metal - \m/
death - cookie monster
*core - eyeliner
Progmetal - juilliard
Symphonic metal - unicorns
Power metal - dragons
Heavy metal - flannel
djent - multiscale 19 stringer
math metal - noodles
folk metal - drunk
neo-classical metal - paganini
doom - lsd
thrash - 11

 

[jaxadam]

The best metal genre is metal.

 

[Grindspine]

 

[Grindspine]

metal - \m/
death - cookie monster
*core - eyeliner
Progmetal - juilliard
Symphonic metal - unicorns
Power metal - dragons
Heavy metal - flannel
djent - multiscale 19 stringer
math metal - noodles
folk metal - drunk
neo-classical metal - paganini
doom - lsd
thrash - 11

... Flannel was Grunge, which was influenced by punk and adjacent to metal, but not really definitively metal.
Also, drunk can be a lot more than folk metal.

 

[Vince]

The more specific you get, the more wrong you are.

You just “feel” a band’s genre. And then disagree with everyone else’s feelings.

I still have no idea what the hell "Thall" is.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

How dare you!

All jokes aside, I think we've really reached the "post-genres" phase, or at least as close to it as you can.

Music is so easy to make, and even easier to find that any old Cannibal Corpse pseudo-coverband is producing and digitally distributing albums so like so do we take the time to type out "Old School East Coast Death Metal in the style of Cannibal Corpse" or just say "eh, it's for fans of CC" and move on?

I'm old enough to have seen some of these genres birth and evolve and become completely different. Every generation the titles mean less and less as the history and idea of why they had those titles to begin with is lost to history.