Genre defying artists

[Bunk McNulty]

This is, I suppose, jazz. But sorta not, too. A CD I picked up in Johannesburg 20 years ago. Everyone I've ever played it for seems to like it immediately. I'm sure some of you will disagree. I feel obligated to mention that the bassist, Denis Lalouette, plays a 10-string.

 

[BassicJazzy]

I get a kick out of when people try to label things that are highly metamorphic by their very nature, defying categorization, like 80% of the bands from the mid 80's through end of 90's. I remember an interview with the singer from "Curve" in early 90's, when they asked her to categorize their music, were they "pop?" I think the answer was something like "mix of techno, shoe gaze, rock, prog, some punk, but definitely not pop!"

These days, it's easy to label bands. 95% pure crap.

Old fart here.

 

[Michedelic]

I think a lot of artists who were once "genre defying" become subsumed in later labeling
Bing Crosby was revolutionary for his microphone technique
Taking advantage of no longer having to belt it out for the cheap seats
Then someone dubbed it 'crooning'
Now no one thinks of Bing as a revolutionary and genre defying at all.

If it wasn’t for his patronage of the technology, we wouldn’t have multi-track recording, or at least it wouldn’t have developed in the way that it did. It’s a tale of twists and turns involving German wartime tech/disinformation, a US Army intelligence officer, Les Paul, and the Ampex company.

 

[Michedelic]

I get a kick out of when people try to label things that are highly metamorphic by their very nature, defying categorization, like 80% of the bands from the mid 80's through end of 90's. I remember an interview with the singer from "Curve" in early 90's, when they asked her to categorize their music, were they "pop?" I think the answer was something like "mix of techno, shoe gaze, rock, prog, some punk, but definitely not pop!"

These days, it's easy to label bands. 95% pure crap.

Old fart here.

There were old farts(and young ones as well)who thought what Curve was doing back then was crap. I just thought of them as a more accessible My Bloody Valentine, but I did go see them. They were actually louder than MBV, if you can imagine that.

 

[Guitalia]

I agree with that sentiment but, for me at least, when it gets stretched too far or doesn’t really capture the spirit of the band, it can be misleading. Folk rock, jazz rock fusion sure! Those terms cover it pretty well. Some bands go beyond and defy nomenclature. Zappa above being a good example.

Bands that I dislike or am indifferent to: easy to categorize/pigeonhole.

Bands I love: impossible to label.

Hence I'm perfectly happy to call the Grateful Dead a jam band or whatever.

 

[Ostie]

Neil Young: Folk, Rock, Rockabilly, Punk, Electronic, Americana….

 

[Michedelic]

As for bands that are genres unto themselves?

I was just going to bring that up…a good example would be the Velvets. I have long held, as have many others over the years, that they were the second most influential band after the Beatles, but I would have to qualify that with the word “exponentially”. They were a slow burning fuse, that still continues. I used to joke that practically every song on their first album(let alone others)started a sub-genre themselves. Now, that was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, as I suppose Brian Eno’s famous quip was, but still there is a grain of truth. Case in point, “Black Angel’s Death Song” certainly birthed Sonic Youth, or at least Glenn Branca. “All Tomorrow’s Parties” is ground zero for Goth, in my estimation.

Oh yeah, Eno, now there’s a likely candidate for this category.

 

[bassfran]

Tom Waits.
Thee Osees.
Scott Walker.
Diamanda Galas.

 

[2groggy]

I'd suggest that both The Stranglers and The Damned run the gamut from punk to prog.

 

[Lo-E]

Genres are very convenient for marketing departments but they don’t do most artists any favors (other than to sell their music and make them money - but I mean artistic favors).

The number of bands in the eighties that were lumped in with “punk”, “post-punk” and “new wave” was staggering and very few of them sounded anything alike. For a while in the nineties, Mike Watt was handing out stickers at his shows that said “punk was whatever we made it to be” and he would certainly know. Nearly every collaboration he’s been a part of for the past 35 years has been highly experimental and “genre-defying.”

How on Earth can one define The Residents? Tuxedomoon? Fred Frith? Television? Henry Cow? Eno? Early XTC? Can? And that’s just in that era. What about Primus? Oysterhead? Mr. Bungle? Someone mentioned Opeth…

I currently play in two bands that could loosely be defined as punk or punk pop but I play in a third band who’s lineup is guitar, bass, drums, violin, viola, cello, three vocalists and hand percussion. Is “Rock chamber orchestra” a genre? At a certain point, does it matter?

 

[ardgedee]

I currently play in two bands that could loosely be defined as punk or punk pop but I play in a third band who’s lineup is guitar, bass, drums, violin, viola, cello, three vocalists and hand percussion. Is “Rock chamber orchestra” a genre? At a certain point, does it matter?

There seem to be a lot of metal musicians who also play jazz, bluegrass or folk. I don't know whether it's because they matured and developed interests outside of metal, or they decided that sometimes they wanted to play music without having to feel bludgeoned by it.

On a similar train of thought, a lot of jazz musicians explore styles outside their original jazz genres. Miles Davis for sure, but also John McLaughlin, Don Cherry (minimalist and new age music, Classical music, Indian and African musics, was even a member of Ian Dury's Blockheads for a brief while). Pretty nearly every significant figure who came up in post-bebop jazz in the 60s and 70s ended up doing a little fusion, a little funk, a little soul. A bunch of them found work as session artists for big-name players paid better than playing jazz so sometimes you could find their names attached to million-selling pop artists or TV commercials and TV/movie themes. In the 90s some of those guys even got into electronic dance music through the acid jazz genre. And I don't mean being sampled.

 

[Spectrum]

Labels... everybody's gotta' fit into some bin so their music can be sold to some target audience.

I'd like to find the twit who invented the term "Americana", and let the air outta' all four of their tires. And steal the valve stems. So they have to hitch. With an Uber with an EDM playlist.

That won't stop them, they'll just call AAA, wait on a corner, and along will come a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford.

 

[mikeynets]

While the Dead may well have been the first jam band I think the Allman Brothers defined the genre. I consider it well established that jam band is a genre.

As for bands that are genres unto themselves?

Lots of unique artists begat imitators so that's tough to say.

I'll toss out the Minutemen as an example from my past.

As for now?

I've never heard anyone quite like Noga Erez.

Minutemen def had their own sound. Big boys were adjacent, but also different. I think both occupied the tail end of when punk was much broader in scope. Reagan Youth, Butthole Surfers, X, MDC are a few more from that era that could easily be described as punk, but also clearly had lots more going on than the most generic and simplified definition of punk describes.

 

[Michedelic]

Genres are very convenient for marketing departments but they don’t do most artists any favors (other than to sell their music and make them money - but I mean artistic favors).

The number of bands in the eighties that were lumped in with “punk”, “post-punk” and “new wave” was staggering and very few of them sounded anything alike. For a while in the nineties, Mike Watt was handing out stickers at his shows that said “punk was whatever we made it to be” and he would certainly know. Nearly every collaboration he’s been a part of for the past 35 years has been highly experimental and “genre-defying.”

How on Earth can one define The Residents? Tuxedomoon? Fred Frith? Television? Henry Cow? Eno? Early XTC? Can? And that’s just in that era. What about Primus? Oysterhead? Mr. Bungle? Someone mentioned Opeth…

I currently play in two bands that could loosely be defined as punk or punk pop but I play in a third band who’s lineup is guitar, bass, drums, violin, viola, cello, three vocalists and hand percussion. Is “Rock chamber orchestra” a genre? At a certain point, does it matter?

Your third band sounds like its in the vicinity of the ensemble known as “Rachel’s”, or perhaps Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Then there was the This Mortal Coil rabbit hole. Am I getting warm?

 

[ardgedee]

Can't believe I hadn't thought of Yo La Tengo earlier. They're one of those bands that began easily be slotted into a genre (indy folk-pop) and at some point realized that they could do anything they felt like doing.





And those in the know are aware of their annual fundraiser performance on WFMU where they play requests from callers that make donations. Hundreds of people try to stump the band.

 

[Spectrum]

I always heard people refer to Pere Ubu as "experimental rock" or some such. Same with other "weird" bands like Residents and so on. Not so much a genre as a description for something unconventional.

 

[Michedelic]

Labels... everybody's gotta' fit into some bin so their music can be sold to some target audience.

I'd like to find the twit who invented the term "Americana", and let the air outta' all four of their tires. And steal the valve stems. So they have to hitch. With an Uber with an EDM playlist.

That won't stop them, they'll just call AAA, wait on a corner, and along will come a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed ford

Americana is the anti-Eagles. Plus the anti-Bro Country. Thankfully. The Carter Family and Gram are the patron saints of the movement. It was necessary, as “modern country” was such a load of pasture produce, and takes cues from everything from Fiddlin’ John Carson to the Maddox Brothers and Sister Rose, to the Flying Burrito Brothers.

 

[ardgedee]

Your third band sounds like its in the vicinity of the ensemble known as “Rachel’s”, or perhaps Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Then there was the This Mortal Coil rabbit hole. Am I getting warm?

Funny enough, Rachel's developed out of Rodan, which was a pretty hard math-rock band. GY!BE started in the Montreal punk scene, and most of the key members have their own projects which stretch in different directions.

I had the luck to attend one of Rachel's late performances, in a cavernous art museum. Easily the loudest chamber music that's ever been played.

 

[monsterthompson]

Igorrr is pushing boundaries but firmly rooted in heavy material.

 

[Michedelic]

That won't stop them, they'll just call AAA, wait on a corner, and along will come a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford.

By the way, you can call them AAA; it’s a radio programming concept that takes in a variety of catagories…

Adult album alternative - Wikipedia

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