Understanding Popular Styles

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Understanding Popular Styles

• Genre
• Simon Warner

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Overview 1

• Define genre in broad terms
• Consider the meanings and functions of genre
• Comment on the notion of a text

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Overview 2

• Look at genres significance in popular music
• Explore terminology
• genre meta-genre sub-genre
• Explore commercial and artistic implications of a
  genre system

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Genre - basic definitions 1

• What does this word genre mean?
• Suggestions, please
• Genre is from the French
• Meaning? Type, kind, form

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Genre - basic definitions 2

• Genre is related to the term genus
• Genus - Latin for race/birth
• Other associated terms?
• Links to genius, generation, Genesis, generate,
  gene

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Genre and the arts world

• Genre as style or category is often applied to
  the world of the arts
• Different areas of arts practice can be defined
  in generic terms

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Genre in non-musical areas

• Let us consider genres application in some
  non-musical areas
• Theatre
• Cinema
• Novels
• Television

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Identifying genres

• Let us think of genres which are associated with
  these areas of creativity.
• Suggestions please

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Genre characteristics

• What features/conventions might we expect to
  encounter in a particular genre and therefore
  recognise it for what it is?
• Television soap opera
• Sci-fi novel
• Television sit-com
• Western or horror movie
• Choose TWO genres
• Identify four characteristics for each

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Analysing a text

• Genre is a key component of textual analysis
  says Shuker (1998, p145)
• A text is an arts, design or media product - a
  radio show, an advert, a poem or a sculpture - we
  can subject to analysis

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Analysis of a text

• A piece of music is also regarded as a text, so
  this exercise has significant applications in
  popular music study and its textual analysis
• In due course we will turn our attention to the
  matter of popular music genres as texts we can
  read
• But first a little more theory

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Genre as a system of analysis

• Genre analysis emphasises the ways in which
  certain patterns, themes, structure and styles
  may be identified despite differences in
  storyline or plot
• (McLeish, 1993, p312)

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Repetition familiarity

• The key elements of a genre text, therefore are
  repetition, recognition and familiarity
• (McLeish, 1993, p312)

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Role of audience

• Given these factors, the part played by the
  audience or reader in recognising and responding
  to generically identifiable texts is seen as
  crucial
• (McLeish, 1993, p312)

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Expectations and conventions

• Steve Neale cited by Toynbee (2000, p103) sees
  genre as
• a system of orientations, expectations and
  conventions that circulate between industry, text
  and subject

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Expectations and conventions

• So, to summarise, genre as a tool of textual
  analysis guides us to look for
• Patterns
• Themes
• Structures
• Styles

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Expectations and conventions 1

• Encourages expectations
• Features conventions
• Showcases certain orientations
• Contains repetition
• Allows recognition
• Cultivates familiarity

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Expectations and conventions 2

• And the audience the reader, viewer, listener
  by recognising those generic characteristics
  completes the circle
• The film-maker, novelists or TV director can aim
  to create certain generic artworks but unless his
  audience identifies their form and content then
  the process is incomplete

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Further terminology

• I would now like to consider two further related
  terms

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Meta-genre and sub-genre

• Meta-genre
• Genre
• Sub-genre

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Popular musics genres

• Lets start by thinking of how we might establish
  a list of genres for popular music

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Popular music genresA suggested framework

• Pop
• Rock
• Reggae
• Country
• Folk
• Blues
• Soul
• Dance
• Jazz

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Sub-genres

• Sub, Latin, under, below
• Sub-genre, category/classification below a genre
• Let us see how many sub-genres linked to that
  list of genres we can come up with

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Breaking genres down into sub-genres

• Pop
• Rock
• Reggae
• Country
• Folk
• Blues
• Soul
• Dance
• Jazz

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Genres and sub-genres

• Pop - Top 40, boy band, bubblegum, MOR
• Rock - progressive, punk, hardcore, indie
• Reggae - ska, bluebeat, ragga, dancehall
• Country - bluegrass, zydeco, CW
• Folk - Breton, Celtic, Irish, singer-songwriter
• Blues - country blues, electric blues, RB
• Soul - funk, hip hop, rap, garage
• Dance - disco, house, techno, drum bass
• Jazz - free, trad, tailgate, bebop, acid

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Sub-genres that marry two genres

• We might also mention those sub-generic form that
  arise from hybrids of two genres, where genres
  marry. Any suggestions?
• Country rock
• Country blues
• Folk rock
• Jazz rock

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Sub-genres of sub-genres?

• We might also feel that a genre like rock has
  produced a sub-genre like heavy metal which now
  has a string of sub-genres of its own.
• Thrash metal
• Speed metal
• Death metal
• Nu metal

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Or punk..

• Hardcore
• Straight Edge
• Emo
• Ska punk