Dissolving Genres/The Art of Playlists

The most visible trend in music today is the blurring of genre lines. That is, artists making music that doesn’t conform to one category, but instead pulls sounds and influence from a diverse set of genres. When asked, most young people today could not list one specific genre that they listen to. This is true of music consumers as well as creators.

The trend is evident in the music of London phenom, Archy Marshall a.k.a. King Krule. Any one of his songs pulls from an almost comically diverse range of genres. His vocals have the cavernous, punky snarls last seen in the Ramones. This, over a trip-hop kind of beat, a lone electric guitar that breaks into a saxophone-laden interlude. Its genre defying, but not in the kind of pretentious, overt way of doing it on purpose. More, his sound is the organic result of listening to a lot of different music.

To understand the concept of genre, we have to look at how one emerges. Where and how do they start? Most often its geographical. A person or group innovates: they experiment with a new sound. The surrounding community takes it in, contributes and it becomes an entity of its own. Often, it expands from that point creating a sphere of influence (SOI) that takes shape in that region.

An example of this is DJ Kool Herc experimenting with breakbeats. It was as simple as playing a dance record and rhythmically scratching on it in a handful of house parties in the South Bronx, NYC. From there, the surrounding neighborhoods soaked it up, and a distinct genre emerged, later named hip hop. The SOI expanded until all of New York City was tinkering with the new sound. From there, a needle is dropped in another city. A community adopts the sound and elaborates. In the case of Hip Hip, it was Los Angeles. A similar progression happens in the new location, and the result is innovation and all kinds of new textures and approaches.

Often, so many layers are added, that the end of the branch is unrecognizable from the beginning, here, subgenres diverge into an entirely new genre. This was the evolutionary path for a lot of popular genres, but isn’t so much the case now. Why? The creative process was more localized. Artists experimenting and messing around lived in greater isolation. The growth of the SOI was much slower. Say a bass player living in a city creates an altogether new bass line that’s never been heard. She plays in a band, and they adopt her style. She leaves the band to play for another, and they too adopt it. Someone at their show hears the new style and incorporates it into their playing. This progression radiates outward quite slowly. That is the way I imagine it worked before. Before what? The internet of course.

Today, that same bass player creates something new, her band takes it in. They post it to youtube, someone from across the globe listens to it and incorporates it into their playing, circumventing like thousands of steps in the previous system. Thus, genres don't really have time to become fully formed. What we have now is a melding of the known genres with the innovation being riffs and new ideas on top of the old. The SOI still exists but it’s vastly larger and faster. Suddenly, anybody that has a streaming account has access to the entire world. This opens the door for music discovery on a whole new scale.

This ability to go into so many new directions when discovering music is thrilling. It's one of my biggest attractions to music, and it’s a product of the internet and streaming services that’s basically unique to our generation. Like the “crate diggers” scouring the shelves of record stores, we do the same thing online. I’ll be listening to an artist I love, totally enthralled. I’ll look through their discography, saving songs along the way. So impassioned, I’ll go to youtube in search of an interview with the artist. Listening, they’ll mention an artist that inspired them. Back to spotify, and I’ll vibe to the new artist. Maybe this new artist has a playlist on their profile that’s full of their own tastes. Soon, I have a cache of new songs I love, which I’ll compile into a playlist. I’ll set with this playlist for a while, listening on repeat.

Now, in the art of playlist-making is where creative juices splash. One can get creative with the cover photo, title, sequence and so on. I’ve spent entire afternoons perfecting song-to-song transitions. In a way, one steps out of the role of passive consumer and into the role of creator. Through creating, one has more of a personal connection to the art. The grouping of songs, selected and organized with intention, can illustrate personal emotion and meaning in a way similar to writing poetry. Though you’re utilizing other’s work, the playlist becomes an entity of its own. When you share it with someone, it feels like sharing a part of yourself. In this manner of music consumption, genre hardly has a place.

Perhaps this is just my personal, romanticized take on streaming music, however I’ve observed people around me doing the same thing. Many, of the older generations have expressed disdain for streaming, saying that it gives music listening a temporary nature, and the experience becomes less meaningful. While this may be true of some, I’d like to shine a light on a more meaningful way to navigate streaming. I think there’s room for creativity that’s overlooked on the side of the artist and the consumer. Artists have the capability for innovation that wasn’t there before. They’re exposed to sounds that originated all over the world, giving them new realms to draw from. Consumers have a higher level of participation and are opened up to boundless discovery.

#music