Transformational Punk, Progressive Dark Cult Folk, New Wave-Old-Wave-Synthetic-EDM-Blues; just how many ways can a band try and create a unique brand to explain their, apparent, other-worldly music? Apparently a lot of ways indeed!
I get that no one wants to sound like someone else, and many musicians immediately sharpen their knives when compared to another band; it is as if it has become “not cool” to have influences anymore. More and more, bands are adopting the reactive mentality of trying to completely bury their influences under a mound of code names and convoluted genre titles. Press Releases are starting to sound more like the periodic table of elements than an actual band’s introduction. If you want to see what I mean, just go to your local music store and take a look at the many categories that exist, and then take note that they usually fall under Rock, Blues, Progressive, Country, Folk, Dance, Hip-Hop, etc…
There is no category that takes three or more random words to break it down even further into obscurity and elitism. This tactic might seem like it works, but it is clear that overthinking your genre, and providing convoluted descriptions is simply starting to look a little bit pretentious.
I accept that this might very well be an opinion shared by the old school listeners like myself, but as such, I feel the need to remind the newer generation that it is ok to call yourself by one or two categories that actually exist on store shelves. There is no problem calling yourself a Punk band or a Dark Classical musician, and there is nothing wrong with Progressive Rock at all; but some artists need to come back down to planet Earth and realize that not everyone speaks “Globdrinitchikin”; and before you look up that language, just know that I made it up to describe my new band because that is how unique we are.
Yes, it’s fine from time to time to step outside the lines and color your bands sound with some more interesting words, in an attempt to capture the soul of your sound; but I wouldn’t spend an afternoon with a thesaurus researching words like Dark, Rock, Emotional, and then providing the results in a run-on sentence in order to achieve music elitism.
Your music, if it is called Country, and Country alone will stand on its own if you are an original musician, to begin with. You can use any word and mash it together if you want to, in order to hide the fact that you sound like Lady Antebellum or The Dixie Chicks; or you can embrace your musical influences, stand behind your genre, and proclaim “I AM HERE!” to all the fans that you deserve to have.
Perhaps I am an old dog, a dinosaur that refuses to give in to the changing music scene; but I would rather believe that at the heart of it all, it is your music that makes you original and truly unique and that no clever wordplay can hide a copy of a copy.
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