Keeping Both Hands On the Beat

Why genre-bendingis catching on in catchy forms.

Written by Anna Bassett Photography by Monica Wilner

“Damn,” “What song is this?”

Every “self-proclaimed-house-party” DJ’s favorite words. Why? Because they did it! They hooked the song into their audience’s ears with ease, just like an invisible, pulsing earring.

And while the song hangs on both side of the listeners head, whispering to them life’s current melodies of love, anger, inhibition, and sadness, the curious DJ sits, wondering ‘why Post Malone’s “Psycho” is the one to get people going.’ And then, ‘why everyone is so obsessed with Post Malone in the first place?’

The answer?... Musical genre bending.

The climate of music is a mixed forecast with songs debuting daily that feature Folk and R+B together, Jazz and EDM, Rap and Ballad, Classical and Rock. The options are endless, at least modern musicians are making it so. They are harnessing rhythms that are loved within each channel of music and fusing them together seamlessly, like musical petri dish babies. Before consuming different styles was a mutually exclusive experience for music listeners, until the pioneers of genre bending realized…the masses would love it. And so it went and here we are, with Nelly featuring on a Florida Georgia Line song, and whether this particular duo hooks your ears or not, the charts don’t lie.

Now the DJ is wondering… ‘How did we get into this alternate musical universe?’

Well, there is this thing called EDM… and it knew what our ears wanted before we even did.

Please don’t get me wrong; I am not crediting Electronic Dance Music with the entirety of musical fusion, as artists have been collaborating since before Aerosmith and DMC ran out onto the scene with “Walk this Way” in 1975. However, there is a ton to be said for how EDM has used it’s layering and erratically changing nature to tap into music consumer’s preferences and inner melodious cravings. Not only does the genre pull in influences from instrumental backings, but also it has paved new ways of incorporating natural noises and manufactured sounds all into one.

Pleasant and catchy melody aside, our curious human brains have adapted to revel in this ever changing genre. Between the natural intrigue of hearing something unlike you have ever heard before, and our own exponentially decreasing attention spans; the way EDM constantly creates, destroys, speeds, slows, bursts, hums, and pulses, is not only music to our ears, but to our minds. It is reinforcing our love for instant gratification and ever-present stimulation by serving us twenty different musical messages in one. In other words…EDM is the light causing our millennial phototaxes.

As EDM and other forms of electronic music production have progressed and risen in popularity, artists of this category have continued to experiment with mixing everything into one, heart-pumping beat, and other artists have followed to the beat of their keyboard.

And just like with all revolutionary art… there has been a trickle down effect.

From the earliest genre-bending instances in EDM or other forms of music, to the mainstream music environment, where Post Malone is combining old school Rock, R+B, Rap and Ballad, artists continue to paint us pictures of mixed emotion. And it doesn’t stop with him; artists like SZA, alt-J, and ODESZA are forging the genre links as well. They are serving us our own complexities in colorful and confusing BPM (Beats Per Minute) packages that we cannot help but bop our heads to. We identify with it, because for the first time in musical history the most prominently listened to songs are the ones that allow us to involve multiple parts of ourselves into one track. We can hear the juxtaposition of our own episodic lives in the music and we like how it knows us so well.

It is important to notice how these artists are reflecting the intricacies of human and societal development into their music through the incorporation of any music genre they want, knowing that if produced the right way, we will want it too. And while they are making the historically categorical art, a spectrum, we now find ourselves having to keep both hands on the beat to keep up with the rhythms of times.

And the DJ, nods, head bumping along… hooked now and forever.