Published: January 9, 2006
It’s been my experience that the most common answer to the question “What kind of music do you listen to?” is “A little bit of everything”, which is a pretty grand statement, if you ask me. No one – and I mean no one – listens to a little bit of everything.
There’s also a possibility that “a little bit of everything” doesn’t venture too far from the Big Four Genres (Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, and Country), the pillars of mainstream music. The wonderful world of sub-genres can help expand the confines of radio-played music.
Sub-genres are the micro-categories of music that help identify common themes and ideas present in a collection of music that would otherwise be indefinable, except perhaps as a combination or mixture of any of the Big Four (for example, trip-hop combines elements of hip-hop, rock, ambient and jazz). Sub-genres are also a way to identify a time when a certain kind of music was being made, such as post-punk or no-wave, or the method used to make the music, such as lap-pop. Using the right sub-genres as a guide can be a great way to discover new music.
It can get kind of ridiculous, though, since there are literally hundreds of sub-genres, and sometimes only two or three musicians or bands belong to a given category – and, in the end, it’s all music to somebody, so sub-genres are certainly not the end-all-be-all of music categories.
Perhaps a good place to start is with some sub-genres which bear a reasonable familiar resemblance to the Big Four. Post-punk, like the name entails, started being made after punk became somewhat commercialized and over-played in the ’80s. Using the ideas of innovations and anti-conformism, post-punk showed the music world that there was so much more that could be done with the ideas that punk gave us. The DIY ethic was employed by bands like Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Echo and the Bunnymen, Gang of Four, and the Psychedelic Furs. They also showed a more thoughtful, almost cerebral approach to independence and the think-for-yourself ideology. Post-punk has also been revisited by many recent bands like Erase Errata, Death From Above 1979, Interpol, and Hot Hot Heat, to mention a few.
The more pop-minded might enjoy Built to Spill, Of Montreal, and The Apples in Stereo, which (along with a slew of other bands) fall in the indie-pop category. Indie-pop is a sub-genre that is filled with great bands that took the conventions of pop and rock and sort of mashed them together for good ol’ pop bliss. The Flaming Lips, the New Pornographers, and Half Japanese are good places to start.
Well, I hope this brief delve into the depths of sub-genres helps you find some good music. The internet, as usual, is the greatest reference guide for sub-genres, bands, and all kinds of other music info. Happy digging.