Quite a few people wrote to me and expressed their disappointment that I didnt tackle any of the bazillion arbitrary subgenres of electronic music. Its not as if I didnt think of electronic music immediately when I sat down to ponder ridiculous subgenres, because its the obvious thing that comes to mind. Unfortunately, complaints about the abundance of electronic subgenres are, as far as music humor goes, pretty goddamned hackneyed at this point; theyre the music snob equivalent of Viagra jokes. Picking on electronic music for its nerdy over-categorization might seem a little unfair, considering the comparably ridiculous number of rock subgenres. Then again, a reasonable person might easily confuse techstep with nu skool breaks, whereas nobody in their right mind would mistake emo for hair metal. Genre distinctions in rock generally follow from some major difference in the musics characteristics; if it followed the same rules for subgenre-creation that electronic music did, people would be saying check this out, Ive invented backwoods prison rock. Its like prison rock but with a harmonica. Plus, rock has the mitigating factor of being real music, whereas the world of electronic music is totally lacking in soul, talent and artistic relevance. Yeah, thats right, Im going to go ahead and paint in absurdly broad strokes just because I can. Now let me open up my e-mail client and watch some geeks flip their scruffy lids; if anyone is wound tightly enough that tedious shit like Boards of Canada or M83 could actually stir excitement within them, I cant wait to see what a tongue-in-cheek insult does to them.
All in all, I got about 250 e-mails from people who had something to say about my genre-slating. Lord knows I didnt even attempt to read them all, because acknowledging peoples requests would mean having to write even more. In the interest of fairness, I figure I should just pick a few e-mails randomly and respond to them with my charming and irrepressible wit, thus making the senders feel like theyve won some sort of Dave-lottery. That way, everyones happy: Im happy because I dont have to respond to hundreds of letters, the writers of the letters I choose to respond to are happy because they get to air their questions publicly, and the people I dont respond to
well, I guess theyre not happy, but two out of three isnt bad. Okay, first of all, heres a message from someone calling himself Omega Mac.
You forgot some:
Metal
Black metal
Death metal
Brutal death metal
Hair metal
80's hair metal
Fantsy metal
Fantsy death metal
Metalcore
Grind
Light metal
Heaby metal
Rap metal
Rap-black-metal
Rap-death-black nu-metalcore
Pop-punk
Nu-metal
Goth metal
Nu-goth-metal
Whatever the fuck the cure is. thank you for your time, unless you didn't read this then fuck you.
Jesus H. Christ, I should not have randomly picked that letter. This is going to suck. Okay, Omega Mac, you got lucky. Let me try to give you some definitions:
Metal: Okay, we know what this one is. This is where guys with long hair wail like tone-deaf banshees and play jerk-off guitar solos for arenas full of sleazy heshers with flimsy mustaches, dragon t-shirts, and 14-year-old girlfriends. I thought it died out in the late Eighties, but I guess some sorry souls are still clinging to its corpse.
Black Metal and Death Metal: This is that awful tomfoolery with the big pretentious song structures and BWAAARGHHH vocals and Scandinavian guys who burn down orphanages and eat each others brains, right? The best part of this stuff is the band names, which sound like ten-year-olds trying to name their secret no-girls-allowed clubs.
Brutal Death Metal: I assume this is like death metal but with slightly more intense band names. Like, for example, instead of a pedestrian death metal name like Festering Corpse, maybe a brutal death metal band would be called Grotesque Festering Corpse.
[80s] Hair Metal: Shh, were trying to forget.
Fantasy Metal: Well, all metal fans play Dungeons and Dragons and read shitty fantasy novels. Thats just a given. But some of them are so nerdy that they cant even enjoy their metal without explicit references to elves and swords and dragon-slaying. Hence this crap.
Fantasy Death Metal: Same as above, Id imagine, but probably deals with mercilessly slaughtering elves for Satan.
Metalcore: Adding core to the end of a type of music is functionally the same as adding for morons in white belts. So, take all the awfulness of hardcore and add some bitchin guitar riffs. Or, alternatively, take metal and remove anything that might be mistaken for music.
Grind: How does one even go about distinguishing a good grind band from a bad one? I posit that its impossible, and I dont think I can be proven wrong.
Light Metal: Ive never heard of it. Is it like light rock? Is it metal for sissies? Somewhere out there is there the metal equivalent of Christopher Cross? When you get caught between the moon and Satans fiery maw
Heaby Metal: What the fuck does heaby mean? Is this heavy metal for guys with sinus problems?
Rap Metal: Id say that rap metal is music for stupid people, but thats not really fair. Everyone who listens to rap metal is stupid, but not all stupid people listen to rap metal.
Rap-Black-Metal: Rap metal with creepy Scandinavian guys?
Rap-Death-Black-Nu-Metalcore: Rap metal with creepy Scandanavian guys and scarier names and white belts?
Pop-Punk: The opposite of punk.
Nu-Metal: The opposite of
music.
Goth Metal: Stay away from this stuff, kids, its bad news and you dont need it (writing that gives me credit toward my state-mandated community service hours).
Whatever The Fuck The Cure Is: I already did post-punk, but I guess later The Cure turned into sort of a warbling sad-sack goth-pop band. So, uh, am I telling you about warbling sad-sack goth-pop? Its sort of like what the Cure does.
thank you somethingawful.com