Genre. It’s a convenient way of classifying forms of culture, be it music, cinema, dance, art etc. Quite helpful shorthand if you want to describe a song or a film to someone – a quick way of conveying the experience, based on shared understanding of the conventions of that form.
But then generic as an adjective is neutral to pejorative – tending towards dismissing something as trite, hackneyed – tab a into slot b, to use a Kermode-ism.
What or who decides genres? Do they have a lifecycle, from fresh merging of existing artforms into something new and self-standing towards imitation, lazy copy pasting, and finally mass-produced ‘generic’ blandness?
Any answers to or reflections on this minor trouble doll of a thought challenge that’s been sitting with me for days are gratefully received.
Genres are certainly embraced enthusiastically by marketing departments as they make selling things to people easier. Like that – then you’ll like this as it’s hewn from same outcrop. Consumers in turn like genres as they make choice easier and quicker. Imagine, for example, going into a bookshop where every single title was arranged alphabetically by author – fiction, sports biogs, self-help, cookery – all arranged in one enormous A-Z. How long would it take you to find something new? Fine if you know what you are looking for, but any shop relies on browsers as well as those who know what they want. Genre has a very long tradition in publishing both commercial and academic – for what is the Dewey system but a way of ordering a library by genre.
Thanks for your thoughts. Logical and well-expressed. Wasn’t it Foyles in Charing Cross Road that used to have a completely idiosyncratic way of shelving their books? You might come out with something brilliantly serendipitous, but probably not what you why in there looking for.
I look after the shared book collection at work, and while it’s not big enough to completely separate out into genre (language and non-fiction is enough for now), there was a temptation to split off the romance, bonkbusters and chick lit in one section, and the thrillers, horror and murder mysteries in another, as quite clearly generic, leaving the rest in a fairly amorphous fiction block.
It’s the ‘does what it says on the tin’ element of the genres I mentioned that comes closest to the generic slur. Another yard of Cartland, Grisham or Dean Koontz, anyone?
Maybe it’s me who’s being lazy and dismissive, and rather snobbish?
No, no , that’s a definite maybe
I’ll take that as a Jein.
Publishing is for such a long-established culture ridiculously sexist in its approach to genres – and thus deeply patronising. Trawling through a couple of hundred recently publsihed books while doing my picks of Amazon each month it depresses me hugely how publishers view men and women readers. Only a pair of high heels, a handbag and pastel cover could possibly interest women, only a black-and-white gritty photo, red lettering and a broody man in a coat could interest men. Music genres tend not to be quite as rigidly sexist in their exploitation by marketeers as publishing – discuss.
I like some of what might be deemed ‘women’s fiction’ – Susan Hill and Maggie O’Farrell are two of my favourite writers. But that’s because they are excellent writers. Genre tells me nothing about how well a book is written – it’s more likely to provide the generic haystack in which the needles are hidden.
I’m guessing I’m probably not alone on here – when asked what genre of music I like, would say all sorts, because there are musicians normally bound into a genre who are enjoyable to listen to not because of the sort of music they play, but because the sound they make is just great. I’m guessing here – but they are probably the pioneers of the genre, surrounded in the record shop divisions by generic copyists.
I love your vision of a record shop.
You don’t see many of those in my area these days unfortunately.
I’m thinking of record shops of the past (the Platonic ideal), plus Oxfam Music in Chelmsford.
I remember back in 2009 when GLW told me she was pregnant with our first child on the phone I was stood upstairs in Virgin Megastore in Oxford.
Across the road was a 3 storey HMV and 100 yards down the road a 3 storey Borders.
How times change!
All empires of genre
Genre and generic puts me in mind of genus in biological taxonomy, the penultimate level of species classification. I visualise genres, genuses and species in a similar way – as mountain peaks on a three dimensional landscape. They are clusters of similar things, and there are obvious gaps between them.
I think you’re right that generic has acquired pejorative connotations in everyday speech, perhaps in response to the rise in mass produced consumables. But I still think of generic in a neutral way, meaning representative of a type, or a peak, if you like.
Genera is the plural of genus, not ‘genuses’. That’s a word I made up owing to excessive exposure to Steve Hackett live albums in recent days.
I like that idea of genres providing a useful mapping function for art forms, marking out the peaks, possibly indicating well-trodden pathways across the cultural landscape. I think it’s the byeways, not the highways that interest me most, but sometimes you just want the quickest way from A to B.
The landscape – cultural or biological – is dynamic and constantly shifting. Peaks subside and new ones emerge elsewhere in response to cultural trends or evolutionary pressures. But the areas between genres – the valleys and side roads – are often the most interesting areas to explore.
Change its the only permanent thing. Yes. Years ago, I thought of concepts,categories, and yes, i guess, genres like cast iron forms that give structure to culture and thinking – strong, but brittle, so they can be shattered and recast when no longer fitting/matching the evolving lived experience.
Used to play in a band with a drummer whose former group played metal. He said they were ‘mainly thrash, but with a death influence.’ This distinction was very meaningful to him. (And presumably the other members of Dementicide)
Am I right in thinking the guitarist brought the thrash element, while the singer was responsible for the death influence (deep, guttural, throaty vocals)?
Generic: all the band members listen to the same music. Crossover: at least one has different tastes.
Generic: bassist has tattoos.
Gene rictus – bassist sticks his long tongue through a fixed grin.
Generic does imply that the item is unremarkable – the kind of doof doof electronic music you might hear at a rave up is generic club music. It may well do the job i.e. It’s loud and you can dance to it – but it doesn’t usually matter what it is or who it’s by.
Not sure if people still use the word “landfill” to describe indie guitar bands (e.g. Shed Seven) that are a reliably enjoyable band to see live but aren’t going to be troubling the Ivor Nobello Award jury.
My trouble is that generic and landfill are in no way positive – just artistic pablum that it’s completely unnourishing or unstimulating, but blocking space from more rewarding fare.
In pop music, generic is a put-down isn’t it?
I see it as the gateway, or several gateways and a country lane, to a gateway to a very big house in L.A. You wanna make money? Be generic.
Simply Red, UB40, Fleetwood Mac, M People, Lighthouse Family, Phil Collins, any number of country acts we’ve never heard of.
All as memorable as this year’s F.A. Cup Final, but sell shedloads.
The Eagles are the best example. They seem to have taken every facet of the L.A. music scene (Glen Frey was literally taking notes, he wanted to be a star) c. mid-60s-1970, rolled it up in a ball, taken any colour or nuance or identity out of it, and spewed it out to the great unwashed, seemingly ready-made, outselling Love and Buffalo Springfield 50 to 1 in the process.
They’re so unmemorable that, when seeing that programme on Laurel Canyon recently, I realised that I didn’t even know what the cover of their Greatest Hits album looked like … and it’s on a par with (the generic) Thriller in sales!
Formulaic, indeed. What can be said for those musicians, I guess, is that they became very good at the formula they pursued. There’s a reason mass-produced products sell, and that’s because they work. They do the job they’re supposed to. They might diminish the sense of being an individual with unique qualities, if 99 out of 100 other buggers make the same choice, leaving an empty feeling inside, but that’s just the world we live in.
The Eagles were hardly formulaic. Every album is different. What the biz does is take a genuinely new act like Eagles, pick the bits which they think can be repackaged and resold, put a band together to deliver it and that’s where the formula starts. I guess I mean someone does something new. Marketing plonkers pick the cherry and icing off and try to rebrand it. Three generations of that and all you have is artificial sweeteners.
Clearly I’m speaking of music acts I don’t really know in detail. I like your explanation of how the formula emerges (and overwhelms what was there before) better than mine.
Thanks!
But but… Those acts defined the genre. And, BTW, were brilliant even though you might not like them, millions did.
I’ve got more time for George Michael than the smiths.
Generic is far harder to obtain, perfect and keep than NME darlings.
NME darlings can get away with much more, because (a) they don’t sell any records outside their fanbase, and (b) chart positions don’t matter, indeed being unpopular is positively encouraged.
When does generic get the Blue Peter badge and become homage? Who decides?
Critics?
Is it not the context that gives the word a bad name? Generic needn’t be a put down. Another adjective can point the way: lumpen generic landfill sounds off putting, hardcore generic instrumentation sounds interesting. I wonder whether the meaning of the term may be, if you will, partly genre specific. If the writer and intended audience are a bit snidey about it: metal, indie, it is a a mild insult, if a fan to fans, especially if a deliberately obscure subset: thrashcore folk-noir, dub-swing country wyrd , it’s beam me up, Scotty!
Generic thrashcore folk-noir, dub-swing country wyrd? Just stick it on the heaving pile over there – it’s all anyone is churning out these days.
I suppose if a certain genre of music is your comfort zone, your beanbag of go-to relaxation, generic needn’t be an insult, but it’s hardly great praise.
I may have made those ones up, but, yes, you are right, bound to be available…..
Generic drugs are a good thing, no? Saves health services lots of money.
Good point, well made. But what about generic printer cartridges? I’d put those in the bad category. Perhaps there could be a new notation for good generic(🙂) and bad generic(🙃).
Ah, now. I agreed with you until I got a Canon TS5050 at the recommendation of Vulpes Vulpes which happily uses generic cartridges and even enthusiastically thanks me for using Canon ink. Happy days.
That’s interesting – I remember a few years ago an ink bloke rolling his eyes and saying Canon were the only manufacturer whose cartridges couldn’t be cracked.
We have 2 Canon printers. The older of the 2 is a simple B&W plus colour model and takes generic cartridges whereas the newer fancy pants wireless one has 6 different cartridges and is as fussy as a pedigree cat. It will accept generics but puts up a fight first. I hate it.
Mine is the first printer I haven’t wanted to smash to pieces with my fists. In fact the demise of the last one was when I did exactly that.
Yes my Canon printer (TS5150) accepts generic cartridges happily. I do find generic black cartridges often aren’t a dense enough black though.
My Brother’s Epson printer just refuses generics completely and has to be sweet-talked/threatened with destruction before it will accept Epson ones sometimes. An expensive pile of shit.
The only annoying thing about mine is it burns through the Photo Black despite me never printing photos as well as the normal black. But that’s no biggy, generally it works ok.
In its negative connotation, generic implies mimicry. It’s about having all the attributes of a genre, without doing the heavy lifting to get there in the first place. But that would suggest that pioneers are the only ones whose music cannot be labelled generic.
Having composed all my above comments with the view that generic is a negative adjective, Twang’s mention of generic drugs reinforces the approach that Black Celebration and Retropath (and to an extent Deramdaze) seem to be endorsing – that it can mean ‘fit for purpose’ – dance music makes you dance, soul music makes you feel romantic, heavy metal makes you feel good about being an angry teenager, etc.
It isn’t always necessary to reinvent the wheel, though if you do, and you create a new genre, it probably fulfills/updates the function of an older genre, just with newer technology.
I’d forgotten about the Dewey system. A relevant comment from Moseley!
Genres are important to help
Librarians and their visitors where to find things.
Here is a discussion, based on their perspective.
https://www.goalexandria.com/dewey-decimal-vs-genrefication/
Dewey is far older than I thought.
Thanks, KFD. Interesting article comparing Dewey with genrefication. I rather skipped over the reference to Dewey in moseleymoles’ original comment, as it’s kind of a given that libraries use Dewey. But its age and the comments in one of the linked-to articles from your linked article suggest that it isn’t necessarily always the most useful way of finding books. It does seem quite unlikely that a system developed in the 19th century would still function in the 21st. The 10 sections for Literature, for example, go through US, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish/ Portuguese, Latin, Greek, then ALL OTHER LANGUAGES.
Most genres cover a range. Generic = the lowest common denominator within that range.
???
I wonder if it would be correct ( or reasonable maybe) to suggest that something shouldn’t be considered generic if it straddles two genres.
When people talk about genres in music they are referring to songs that share similar characteristics – tempo, mood, instrumentation, lyrical themes and so on.
You could take a mathematical approach and measure the values of all these characteristics and plot those values in a multi-dimensional space. If genres do truly exist – you would expect to see clusters of points corresponding to the genres, with a few points scattered about in no-man’s land – corrresponding to the Einstürzende Neubautens and Klusters of this world.
Generic would then refer to any space occupied by a cluster. You could introduce statistical confidence limits for fine tuning. Too nerdy?
Too nerdy? Surely not – this is the Afterword, after all. But doesn’t Pandora claim to do some sort of measurement of this kind with its music genome project?
That is a very interesting proposal, Martin.
I am sure it would throw up some very fascinating surprises and make connections we hadn’t seen.
And then you would have the oddities, such as Finnish C & W.
It might tick all the boxes for country music, except for the fact that it is sung in Finnish and deals with Finnish life.
When African music was big in the early to mid eighties the various record labels had a meeting to discuss how to market effectively. First and foremost was where would record shops put the vinlys.
And lo, World Music came to pass as a new genre.
I don’t think there is such a thing as generic World music, is there? It’s almost defined by what it’s not (1st World popular music) as by anything else, surely?
Generic world music is the polymorphic mush of balkan/afro/asian plus electronica beloved of and played by white postgrads on the lesser stages of smaller music festivals.
The blanding-out of musical diversity.
“They’re a village band from Latvia, but let’s stick a kora, some bagpipes, a synth, a South African women’s choir and lots of percussion on it. And some fuzz guitar, of course.”
That’ll be the ‘One Love’ song I posted on the Last Night of the Proms thread, then – guilty as charged!
Have some Keith Richards
I’ll be honest, it is a bit bland and mushy. but sometimes it’s nice to indulge in.
Racist!
I think. At least something-ist!