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Genre Fluid?

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Questions

I m a g e S o u r c e : K r i s t s L u h a e r s

I m a g e s o u r c e : G l e n n F r a n c i s

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I m a g e s o u r c e : L a r s C r o m m e l i n c k

The term ‘pop music’ is overused and wildly indescript. Society tends to bash pop music and charting artists for pertaining an ecosystem of mindlessness and simplicity. Not only is this blanket statement unfair and condescending, but it also seems to often miss the point that pop music, by definition, is not rigid. As society moves on and advances, so have people’s music tastes. Granted, there are always prevailing trends, but that has always applied across history. Where the most popular music of the 80s leant heavily on the use of synthesizers, the 90s was equally dominated by the rise of heavier-produced reverbless and soulless piano. Within more recent years, we’ve seen the rise of pop-rap, teen-pop, electronic-heavy pop and, mostly recently, sad-girl bop pop. What these have in common is very little; in terms of sound and general song formulation, they bear almost zero resemblance. The only thing they do share is simply being popular, which I’d argue isn’t enough to warrant being justified as a genre in its own right. However, and I’d argue more fortunately, we’re beginning to see movement across the whole of music of artists who are starting to make the music that they want to make, regardless of whether or not it can be labelled or compared to anything familiar that has already been created.

Where the aforementioned sub-genres of pop have each been categorised in attempts to label them, there has been a notable shift, especially within the last year, in artists taking steps outside of their comfort zones in shifting sounds and approaches to creating new music. Realistically, you don’t have to look any further than the insane rise of Billie Eilish; someone who, when questioned on what genre she would best align herself with, responded swiftly with a literal “ugh”. Eilish has always been very vocal that her music shouldn’t be labelled and pigeonholed; the music she makes at certains points in her life is simply reflective of her contemporary feelings and emotions in the style she feels is right at that time. Beyond that, it doesn’t need to be further identified.

In a piece last year, I spoke of Kacey Musgraves’ latest album, Golden Hour, in which I deemed it a ‘genre-bending masterpiece’. Musgraves’ sound prior to this album was wholeheartedly and unmistakably Nashville; but Golden Hour took her music in an ethereal direction that I can’t really relate to anything else. There remains something innately special about the diversity encapsulated within that album, both sonically and in terms of true breadth of songwriting. For me, this album was my first experience of an album that was seemingly untethered by restrictive genre lines that have whipped artists into submission across history.

Something that’s certainly noteworthy is the timeline of this change; it certainly wasn’t overnight, nor was it something that was inexplicable. Frankly, this shift in artists’ ability to pursue new sounds outside of their regular sonic-spheres has been mostly enabled by one relatively new(ish) addition to music: streaming. Most of the old traditional genre lines were often dictated by groupings associated with established mediums, specifically, radio. Where people consumption of content was previously limited to stations that tended to play particular genres, people whose tastes were similar tended to be drawn to them. Then, as radio became the dominant, and accidentally restrictive,path through which most listeners were accessible, record executives were quick to nudge artists into creating content that fit within the genre radio bracket. However, as streaming has allowed people to become deliberately picky with the music they like, it’s becoming increasingly common for people’s tastes to span across a wide gamut of genres. This in turn has created a whole new generation whose listening habits are more likely to be self-imposed and often supercede traditional genre lines. This creates a contentless vacuum, through which artists have been able to bridge previously impassable trenches and create something truly new, yet equally as accessible.

So, in an age in which accessibility to new music has never been higher, we find that more and more artists are creating music that spans across the genres of old. So, at the breakdown and the introduction of new mediums through which music is accessible, we’re equally beginning to see these traditional genres fade away too. In terms of creative freedom of artists, it’s never been better. Moreover, the arguments that the occupation of this middle-ground resulting in the creation of a monotonous ‘uni-genre’ are unfounded and miss the point. By alleviating the pressure through which artists feel as though they have to maintain certain styles to retain listeners, they are more inclined to make their music more personal and varied, and therefore interesting.

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