Generic Distinctions

Listen to the new sales guy make cold calls from the other side of my cubicle wall all day, or pop in the headphones and load up the iPod with podcasts? As usual, I choose podcasts. Yesterday’s marathon of choice was Chris Hardwick’s gem, The Nerdist, and as I listened to the beginning of each episode, I realized something—that theme song is awesome.

As I quietly bounced at my desk, I thought to myself, “Self, this song makes me want to have lasertag dance parties,” and I tweeted as much. Mere minutes later, my friend Luca tweeted at me to tell me that it’s a real song by a real band—a band called Anamanaguchi. As he put it, an “8-bit chiptune band.”

An 8-bit what tune band? I mean, the name makes sense, when you think about it. The song sounds like an old PC from the late ‘80s was integral to the composition. But gone are the days where record stores (what are those, anyway?) were divided along such broad lines as “Alternative,” “Rock,” “Pop,” “Country” and “R&B/Hip Hop.” If you’re stocking up for your lasertag dance party, you’ll have to investigate the chiptune section of your local online music store.

Weird genres aren’t exactly breaking news, though. The cultural zeitgeist has been assigning strange monikers to music for years. You’ve heard of math rock--much to Mattie’s disappointment, they aren’t rocking about math. According to Wikipedia, “it is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), angular melodies and dissonant chords.” Sounds almost as boring as math to me.

Or take shoegaze. A genre name commonly tossed around in conversations about weird genre names, I’ve never really known what shoegaze meant, exactly. Apparently it means the bands just chill on stage and stare at their shoes during their shows. While playing instruments, of course, but it would seem that energy and movement have little place on the shoegazing scene. Although Wikipedia identifies Explosions In The Sky (the band behind the awesome music in Friday Night Lights) as a shoegaze band, to be honest, I think I’d rather listen to math rock.

Michael has already extolled the virtues of nerdcore hip-hop, which, much like 8-bit chiptune music, sounds exactly like the name describes. Who can resist lyrics about Boba Fett’s jetpack layered over thumping bass? That being said, the name would certainly throw the older generation for a loop.

What about a term I first heard over at Slate that describes a particular favorite subset of mine--beardy indie-folk. In this “Justin Vernon has his thumb in every pie” era, the beards are becoming less genre-specific, but Fleet Foxes have a new album on its way out, as does Mr. Vernon himself as Bon Iver, so the genre lives on.

Maybe these hyper-specific genre distinctions make things easier for all of us, so instead of having to explain to someone, "Well, I don't like country, but I like alt-country," we can simply state our passion for "mustachioed post-cloudcore" or "language arts rock" and have that be that. After all, this is The Future, and "I like everything" just doesn't quite cut it anymore.

Anamanaguchi - Jetpack Blues, Sunset Hues