Last week’s article contained a playlist to help you get inspired for the new year. This week I am exploring some genre oddities that I discovered when exploring one of the groups featured this week. A couple days ago in my Music Makes Me group I featured a band with a genre that I had never heard of before I found them. It made me start to wonder just how many genres there are today and what other genres I may not have heard of before.
I am the kind of person that usually drinks my coffee black. If I get a coffee out, I may go wild and occasionally get some sugar. I am not sure how a person’s go to coffee is a Kopi Luwak blend pour over with a shot of hemp milk and a teaspoon of monk fruit sweetener shaken not stirred (adding in a 007 reference). Just long did it take to get to this combination and is it that much better? Maybe it is…. I may be giving away my age, but when I was in my teens I would swear there were nowhere even close to the number of genres there are today. Or maybe I just didn’t know as much as I definitely have learned a lot about genres as I grew older. That is a definite possibility as I either liked a band or I didn’t. Just last year on Spotify it says I listened to 121 different genres. That seems like a crazy amount of different types of music. This week I definitely added to that number.
The band that was in a totally new genre for me is a band from across the ocean named Storm Seeker. They are a self-proclaimed pirate folk metal band. First of all, aren’t the folk and metal genres like at opposite ends of the arena? It’s like salty or sweet, not the same flavor. But then again I do like chocolate covered pretzels. The image I get in my mind when I read pirate metal is Blackbeard the Pirate making a prisoner walk the plank while AC DC is playing “Highway to Hell” on the other side of the deck. Perhaps I just came up with the next “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel. But this band’s sound is definitely not metal and not folk and I have never heard of pirate genre. So perhaps Storm Seeker’s music really is the definition of folk metal pirate. This piqued my interest and I had to know what other bizarre genres existed that were new to my apparently limited exposure.
The first genre I discovered in my search apparently no longer even exists. The Witch House genre was “made famous” by the artist Travis Egedy aka Pictureplane. The definition of Witch House is a dark occult-themed electronic micro music genre. It’s sound is a chopped hip-hop type of music accompanied by occult type visuals. I listened to a song but didn’t feel the occult vibe. Perhaps it’s more because of the visuals. After checking this out, I thought I’d explore something that sounded a little less dark.
Cute Metal had an interesting ring to it. When I think of cute I picture puppies or kittens frolicking around the yard playing with each other. But cute metal would probably not be playing with that scene. Cute metal is a cross between metal and J-Pop. I read it described as a mixture of metal, anime and horror. That description made me have images of Totoro in a Jason mask chasing down some innocent tourists. The band that is credited with starting this genre is the Japanese band Babymetal. Some of you may remember me featuring this band last summer. I think cute metal would have to be an acquired taste. The next genre I came across peaked my interest as something that I may enjoy relaxing over a glass of beer.
Folktronica blends folk or acoustic music with electronic music. Bibio is an artist from the UK who is popular in this genre. After listening to some songs I thought his music could fit into some other existing genres, but I guess the governing body of assigning genres decided it needed it’s own name. But I will let you decide for yourself. Some of you may at this point be asking the same question that I had when writing this article. Just how many genres of music are there?
Supposedly there are 41 different major genres of music each having 337 subcategories. That is over 13,000 different genres of music. That blows me away to think there are that many ways of classifying music. I am pondering if I could or would want to listen to a song from each genre. That is definitely something to think about for my Music Makes Me daily music spotlight. If you are interested, here is a list of a lot of genres for you to check out. Let me know if you find one that is really unique.
I hope you have explored my dive into the shallow end of genre oddities this week. Until next week, if you’re a music lover, you can hear, see or learn about something new every day on my Facebook group, Spotify playlist or YouTube playlist. And as always, feel free to reach out and let me know about your favorite new musical discovery.