What We Talk About When We Talk About Genre.

When I was growing up, alternative rock and grunge were really hitting their strides. Gravely voices and down-tuned guitars were familiar radio fixtures. From that, music lovers of my generation gained a strong aversion to pop music, but I am hard-pressed to get a really solid reason out of people beyond “it’s dumb.”
I admit I had this same aversion growing up until a few pop songs leaked in to my repertoire during high school.

Let’s look at a few the criteria for the alternative rock in the mid 90s through today:

1. Heavy use of guitars, and bass.
2. Minimal, if any, use of synthesizers and electronic elements. *
3. Often motivational, strong lyrics designed to be provocative
4. More focused vocals—usually only one lead vocalist.

Conversely, let's look at pop in the 90s and forward.

1. Light, if any guitar work, almost no bass work.
2. Heavy use of synthesized sound.
3. Simplistic, accessible lyrics designed to make the listener feel good and/or dance.
4. Use of simple harmonies.

If the the criteria of alternative rock songs are applied to a pop song, then of course the listener is going miss the powerful lyrics, or the deep bass. The manufactured feel will come across trite and shallow.  Conversely, if the listener was raised on pop music, the gravelly voices might great on their ears, or the bass might feel physically uncomfortable.
However, if one takes a moment to hold these genres to their own standards, a lot more music suddenly sounds good. Example, Backstreet Boys don't make good rock songs. The music is too simplistic and the lyrics are two-dimensional. However, they make fantastic pop music, their harmonies, while simple, are very strong and and their beats are incredibly easy to dance to.

Conversely, 90s Alt rock classic The Goo Goo Dolls, would make a terrible pop band. No harmonies to speak of, one of the vocalists sounds a bit like a gremlin (which is part of h is charm from my end) and the heavy guitar work almost drowns out the vocals on some songs. However, they are an amazing alternative rock band. Innovative guitar tunings are combined with killer vocals and passionate, evocative lyrics to make a perfect storm. The lead vocalist also stands out brilliantly.

This is why I take issue with genre biases. I would have missed out on a fabulous show if I’d turned my nose up at pop music this past summer. I don’t even know how many rock shows I went to, that I would have missed if I’d turned my nose up at them.

Pop and alternative rock aren’t the only genres that face this problem. Time and again, I have to rationalize my love of certain less popular genres and explain what makes them innovative and powerful to me. This dialogue is part of what makes music so wonderful; everyone has an opinion, a pet song, or genre, and often takes if very personally if their music is insulted.

However, you can’t listen to the same thing every day and expect to have new music fall in your lap. It is imperative to sniff out the things that make you itchy and maybe listen to some songs that are just plain bad in order to find things that really speak to you as a listener. The more you grow as a fan, the more you sniff, the more unexpectedly wonderful things you'll find. In the era of YouTube and Spotify, there is literally nothing to lose other than time and the odd brain cell and there are literally thousands of songs to gain.

In short, keep your favorites close, but keep your ears sharp, you never know what you’ll run into.

Next topic: Dubstep and Innovation.

*for the purposes of this piece I don’t mean things like electric guitars and basses,  that's a given in non-acoustic music,  here I am referring to  things that are computerized and/or completely digital.