Are Genres Really Dead? - CelebMix

Publish date: 2024-06-29

In the past few years, there have been plenty of newly discovered artists in the music industry, just as there’s been a lot of developing in music and music genres. For example, some people might say that there’s been a huge development in indie rock music because a lot of new singers and bands call themselves indie. The question is, are they actually? Or better, is that actually the things they should be doing? Or are they only making indie music because it’s somehow “cool”, “sick” and “hipster”?

Of course, this isn’t just an indie music “problem”. It relates to every genre. Are the people doing it because it’s cool, or are they doing it because it actually makes them happy? Another thing that is necessary to mention is that we’re not bashing any musicians in any way!

In the past decades, there’s been definitely a huge number of “mixed” genres, such as punk rock, pop punk, pop rock, etc. It’s a common knowledge that most artist don’t wanna be a representation of just one particular genre. It’s the same thing as the reality that nobody actually listens to just one kind of music when they’re growing up. People inspire by multiple things, they inspire by multiple people in their lives.

Even in such enormous “pop” acts such as One Direction or Justin Bieber, we cannot say they do purely pop music, can we? In 1D’s music, there is plenty of rock shreds, while Bieber’s songs have a lot of electronic and dance music hints.

However, 2015 was the year when the topic of genres being dead began actually be a thing. So many new musicians has been discovered and it started being really hard to say what genre their music is.

Furthermore, many artists changed the music genre during their careers, some of them even multiple times. For example, controversial 23-years-old Miley Cyrus who became famous thanks to the role of Hannah Montana, has had a lot of development in her musical style (The truth is, that she also had a lot of changes in her style in general). Miley is commonly recognized as an pop artist, although when she released her second studio album called Breakout, some of the songs were noted being under the influence of electronic music.

On 30th August 2015, Cyrus released a free album called Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (which she released under her own record label Smiley Miley Inc.) on Soundcloud for online streaming, after an unannounced performance of her track “Dooo It!” at the MTV VMA‘s. Some people specify genre of the album as art pop, some call it experimental and some people say it’s neo-psychadelia, which is a genre coming from psychadelic music.

Recently, The 1975‘s Matthew Healy has spoken about this particular topic of genres not being important.

On 1st June 2015, the band literally disappeared from every social media. When they came back, there was something that kind of shocked everyone of their fans. Instead of their black-themed layouts, there was a pastel pink. And it’s still there. Matty sort of explained, that it’s the beginning of a new 1975 era. 

The band has a new album coming in February 2016, which is named I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it. The album includes two of their most recent singles “Love Me” and “UGH!”.

Approximately a month ago, Healy said in an interview with MTV News, that genres “never really mattered”, after claiming that the band’s song “Sex” is actually the only rock song on their first album, even though The 1975 are often addressed as a rock band.

Moreover, 5 Seconds of Summer‘s bassist Calum Hood has spoken in a recent interview with the Rolling Stone magazine, about not being very comfortable, when people call them a pop punk band, just as it’s uncomfortable when people say that they are a boyband.

“It’s just as isolating as being called a boyband, you know, being called a pop punk band. I don’t want to make just one type of music. I really want to evolve as a band with our sound. Bands like U2 have songs which are almost completely different genres, and that’s what I love.”

It’s not only musicians who are saying that genre is not important. There are lots of amateurs and fans of music, who have the same opinion and they’re not afraid to say it publicaly.

It's unbelievably challenging to categorize music into genres. The more music I listen to, the more I'm convinced music genres are dead.

— Eduardo (@eduardoacv921) December 28, 2015

https://twitter.com/lolbeth_/status/680034737419894784

https://twitter.com/BiffyFucknClyro/status/677993917657255936

https://twitter.com/hitherntither/status/680298227267010560

https://twitter.com/jxrgina/status/684241602097725440

We’re interested to find out what is your opinion on genres being dead! Do you agree, that it doesn’t really matter anymore? Or are you a fan of just one concrete genre? Make sure you let us know in comments below, or tweet us at @CelebMix!

ncG1vNJzZmiblaGyo7nIsWWcp51ktKa60Z6qZqqVlrmtxYydnJqcXw%3D%3D