[Emma is guest hosting today and tomorrow for Lana Gay]
Neo-glam. Trillwave. Bro-fi. Yes, these are all music genres (even if only because they exist as track tags on music streaming platform Soundcloud). But what do they really mean, especially if listeners aren't familiar with them? If we have too many genre names, do they become irrelevant?
In a time when we're listening to brand-new music on the daily, we still yearn to classify what we hear. Sometimes that means learning more about an oddly named genre like shoegaze, which came into being thanks to the popularity of British indie rock bands of the late '80s and '90s, and was made famous by acts like My Bloody Valentine. The first wave of these artists were often seen standing motionless, staring at the floor while performing... hence the "shoegaze" branding.
(My Bloody Valentine performing in London in 1989. Skip to about a minute in, and you can see some of this downward-gazin' I'm talking about.)
Shoegaze most certainly exists today, and appears to be a much livelier genre among acts like Toronto's Beliefs, who just released their self-titled debut album earlier this month.
What do you think? Are some of these genres a little too out there? Or do you dig the more creative classifications?