Genres are a mess and no one knows what to do about it

freewave

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Oct 25, 2020
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Its simple. Genres are a marketing tool now.

Genres have ALWAYS been a marketing tool. For artists, labels, music journalists, etc. If you aren't part of a new genre you likely aren't part of a new chapter of music history either. This is all musical darwinism anyway. As soon as something becomes stale it must evolve, get newer attributes, a new genre or style name and people who actively take up this music as well. If you don't it becomes stale and dies out. There are plenty of dead genres like ambient house, dutch trancecore, and acid house which don't really exist anymore and that's just how music is, especially electronic.
 

Recharge

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Sep 26, 2020
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To be fair, it's very true. I've been reworking one of my older songs which is supposedly melodic house & techno, It was to some degree with a bit of trance influence. But after adding some pads and more details it sounds like 100% trance, from the dreamy pads, to the bassline. Yet if I called it trance, I know it will do worst than if I leave it as melodic house & techno labeled.

https://soundcloud.com/lq5vxcb1rzbn%2Fdj-recharge-rhythm-of-life
 

Spacetime

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Nov 6, 2021
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Maybe some here do not consider an issue to exist, but I beg to differ. Genres are important because they helped me go to Trance nights instead of Hardcore nights in the 00's. I found this forum using genre searches and when I search for music online I use genres as an anchor point.

They let us judge the art in its context. When I watch a film labelled horror I know that suspense, tension and fear is part of the experience and we can judge it within that framework. If a comedy fails to make me laugh it fails. If an action movie has great momentum and energy it succeeds. Genres are very useful, this is why we have them for every single object in life.

We don't let anyone who chooses to write a book create a genre just because they decided to do something weird with whatever foundations they build upon. If we allowed that we would have 1000's of book genres, just like music is doing.. We understand that's not right. But now, because the labels and the music publications have lost their authority it has become a free for all, with the role landing in the lap of the music software companies. These people care about profit, not history or accuracy. It only spells bad things for music.
 

Hensmon

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Thats a great point about how the now rule-writers of genres have become the music tech companies. It's like either random nobodies on the internet or huge corporate entities, both of which a largely clueless about the whole thing.

I wonder if in 100 years it will be decided upon that the starting period of electronic music deserves its own official 'era', distinguishing it from what is currently labelled as 20th century music. In that sense, the last 40 years becomes a "genre", lets say 1985-20(??) becoming the 'Electronic era'.

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The Baroque period was separated into early, middle and late. Maybe the same should happen for the electronic era, and the 'genre mess' we are perceiving now is the result of being in the late stage, where identity is being lost through the blurring of influence and move towards something else. After-all pop music uses all sorts of electronic sounds and formats. True rock as well ceases to exist, and more likely to find hybrid stuff. Electronic doesn't really exist as a clear separate entity anymore.

Maybe we'll end up having categories such as Classic Prog-House, Mid Year-Prog House and Late Stage Prog-House. The former already exists in our terminology and the latter reflects that blurring pretty well, where prog-house has no identity at the moment, kind of sounding like techno sometimes, slow house, maybe trance like.
 
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dmgtz96

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hol' up, are you all concerned that Ableton, Serato, etc. will define the genres of music in the future? Or are you thinking more like Beatport, Spotify, Bandcamp?
I don't see why Ableton or Serato would even have a stake here.
 

Hensmon

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I don't see why Ableton or Serato would even have a stake here.

No not them, as mentioned in previous post we see Spotify taking on the role of genre creators, with arbitrary/non-sensical trigger happy approaches. Beatport also confused the hell out of everyone with Progressive House, among others and Bandcamp kind of takes hands off stance.

Discogs probably does it the best, allowing for multiple genre tags on a release and album, and you always have the year as a reference.
 
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Spacetime

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Nov 6, 2021
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In a new development, John 00 Fleming has apparently persuaded with Beatport to get the genre 'Deep Trance' added to their options. His full post, which is interesting, can be read here.

His points are valid enough and it's good that professionals of the scene are working with distributors to come to agreements. No sub-genres for Trance currently (house and techno have multiple) and this is causing commercial and uplifting sounds to saturate the inventory, leaving listeners clueless or endlessly sifting through the dirt to find a sub-style they find interesting. I havent touched the Trance genre section in beatport in a decade because of this problem, so John is right to work on this challenge.

I dont know what 'Deep Trance' is though. I assume John considers it the music he plays on his show, which might be a fair description, but from a personal perspective I see 90% of it as his style of Techno or Progressive. Coredata and Digital Blonde are some of the tranciest numbers in recent times, but is that really 'Deep Trance'? I don't think so. I have a feeling this just adds to the confusion ultimately.
 

Redrot

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Jan 11, 2022
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Yeah honestly JOOF isn't helping anything, especially considering at least half of the releases on JOOF nowadays are pretty dull progressive house. What I'd consider deep trance certainly exists, see Forescape and guys like Facade (basically the JOOF sound 7 years ago) but this is a bit late, eh?

edit: If anyone, Enlusion should be lobbying for the name since Forescape is the only one that consistently releases that stuff now.
 
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Manofearth

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Sep 24, 2020
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Creating Deep Trance in Beatport is not a bad idea, but may risk causing more confusion. As mentioned it is a genre that barely exists or has obvious definition, although I would say label releases from Forescape, UTE, Translucid, Radiant Love and some JOOF could fit that description.

On more thought I think this is a great idea. Even if it’s not categorically or terminologically tight, it still creates a clear bucket for labels to add Trance, A or B. One more typical for deep, dark, serious, slower and one more typical for uplifting, faster, commercial. A simple distinction that already makes things much easier for a Trance listener to search. I would never find Forescape o UTE music organically in a single section, but now those chances have increased. Good.
 

Quethas

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Jul 15, 2020
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It's so deep.

But to be serious, this is somewhat welcomed change. The problem of having everything under one umbrella is pretty stupid. Trance can be anything from deep, hypnotic progressive trance to cheesy almost 150 BPM trance which makes your teeth drop. I perhaps would have used the word "progressive" in this case, but then again I just like that it at least does make some difference inside the genre when there used to be none.
 

MDD

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Jul 17, 2020
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Got be careful with the JooF Deep Trance expansion to our classification of Plodism©

That's my 2pence on a very interesting read gents.
 

SaltAcidFatHeatAcid

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Jul 19, 2022
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Creating Deep Trance in Beatport is not a bad idea, but may risk causing more confusion. As mentioned it is a genre that barely exists or has obvious definition, although I would say label releases from Forescape, UTE, Translucid, Radiant Love and some JOOF could fit that description.

On more thought I think this is a great idea. Even if it’s not categorically or terminologically tight, it still creates a clear bucket for labels to add Trance, A or B. One more typical for deep, dark, serious, slower and one more typical for uplifting, faster, commercial. A simple distinction that already makes things much easier for a Trance listener to search. I would never find Forescape o UTE music organically in a single section, but now those chances have increased. Good.
Isn't it odd that JOOF and CO aren't spinning any of those labels in their sets? I 100% agree with your assessment they fit the deep trance label, but they are either missing this up & coming growth in the scene or ignoring it intentionally. Given their rep as trendsetters, I'd say they are missing the boat. Most of the sets I've heard from then are almost 100% prog house, trancey at times, but still prog house.

The other issue for me, even if this category exists, I'll go out of my way to avoid Beatport and still buy from Bandcamp, despite the challenges in finding related music on BC. Maybe if this new genre space grows, I'll be more likely to visit Beatport from time to time, but given the marketing aspects, I won't hold my breath for labels to fill the space with content. Habits are hard to break, and when $$ is involved, even harder. We'll see.
 
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Recharge

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Isn't it odd that JOOF and CO aren't spinning any of those labels in their sets? I 100% agree with your assessment they fit the deep trance label, but they are either missing this up & coming growth in the scene or ignoring it intentionally. Given their rep as trendsetters, I'd say they are missing the boat. Most of the sets I've heard from then are almost 100% prog house, trancey at times, but still prog house.

The other issue for me, even if this category exists, I'll go out of my way to avoid Beatport and still buy from Bandcamp, despite the challenges in finding related music on BC. Maybe if this new genre space grows, I'll be more likely to visit Beatport from time to time, but given the marketing aspects, I won't hold my breath for labels to fill the space with content. Habits are hard to break, and when $$ is involved, even harder. We'll see.
Agree to disagree, I consider most of modern melodic house & techno and melodic progressive house - trance. Progressive and trance has always been 'brother'. Modern progressive maybe more slow and chiller, but absolutely caries that feeling of trance, maybe even more than most modern 'trance'.
 
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SaltAcidFatHeatAcid

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Agree to disagree, I consider most of modern melodic house & techno and melodic progressive house - trance. Progressive and trance has always been 'brother'. Modern progressive maybe more slow and chiller, but absolutely caries that feeling of trance, maybe even more than most modern 'trance'.
I don't disagree with you, especially with some of the content on the JOOF label. I've made similar arguments, and my library tagging agrees ;). Same for content from FSOE UV (sometimes), Magic Island, Anjuna (sometimes) and Pure Progressive. Forescape Digital and Lost Language, bless you for this, have stuck to the Trance tag for their trancey stuff. The list Enlusion posted above matches my definition for deep trance almost exactly, but that is pretty small subset of JOOF releases to be fair. JOOFy sets often have a lot of house stuff from Balance, Bedrock, etc. Given the borderline stuff has often been called prog house these last many years, it may be harder to break the norm that's been set. I welcome the change, but I'll wait cautiously to see if it is impactful.
 
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erickUO

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Jul 13, 2020
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Agreed that it might be easier to search. However, deep trance genre filter is already on Beatport. There's only a few tracks at the moment, but I'm seeing signs that once popular, its gonna get bastardized. Not sure if it's the right solution, but better than doing nothing though.

Anyway, do people (and labels) actually use these sub genre filters? Since they changed it into the new design I always feel the feature doesn't work as it used to be. Beatport classic does it better.