Genre

Genre
What is Genre?

Broadly speaking, genre is defined as a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterised by similarities in form, style and/or subject matter

The Issues With Genre

The issue nowadays is being able to distinguish between the different genres as there are now such a vast amount to choose from. There are many sub-genres, sub-sub-genres and even further, that labelling, categorising and defining musicians, artists and bands has become an extremely challenging task as is discussed in the video to the right.

As mentioned above, distinguishing between genres is an extraordinary difficult concept. Many genres are sometimes mis-matched or confused - such as punk, rock, pop and hiphop - whereas others may have undergone the process of broadening. there is also the concept of "the mainstream product". It seems that anything that's popular and trending in this current day and age can be labelled as the mainstream. For instance the Top 40 music charts are labelled as being "mainstream" simply because the music played is dominant across the UK. This does not necessarily mean that all of the music within the Top 40 fit into the "rap" genre for instance, more often than not there are many different musical styles incorporated within the charts, yet by labelling it as this one group of "mainstream" we are implying that it is identical in it's nature.

Further issues lie with modernisation's within genres. For example Folk Music can bring to mind "Barn Dance Bands", groups that perform with instrumentation such as Banjos, Violas, Fiddle's and of course the classic Steel-Stringed Guitar. Yet this is very much the "old-school" of Folk. Nowadays this genre is filled with acoustic singer-songwriters. Yes artists such as Ben Howard and Charlie Simpson still draw from Folk's roots, for example through their use of strings, but the music is much more modern in terms of production as a result of the advancement of technology. Some may argue that Mumford and Sons are very much keeping with the original Folk genre through their instrumentation (as pictured) when in actual fact they are merely modernising Folk further by bringing the traditional instruments into the present day. As a result of this, youth culture and aspiring musicians

- guitarists in particular - are aspiring to play

the Banjo so as to be a part of the move back

to older culture/technologies (alongside the

return of the vinyl record).

Mumford and Sons use traditional Folk instruments such as the Banjo and Accordion within their music