Flotsam and Jetsam

In my last post I mused upon the categorisation of musical genres – the choice of which is an essential task that must be tackled should one be considering offering one’s musical endeavours to the wider world. Folk like to know what they are getting!

That I am considering this now is because the Chanteuse and I are in the midst of our preparations to release into the wild our third collection of songs as Anam Danu (much more on that later) and we need to be fully prepared.

With regard to musical genres Wikipedia (naturally!) carries an extensive list of categories and sub-categories, to which I shall refer as I share my thoughts on just how we could – and perhaps should – describe our offerings.

The problem with all of this categorisation is that – as it struggles to cope with an ever evolving field – it tends towards the extremes. By this I mean that the defined genres and sub-genres tend either to be really quite specific, or far too broad to be very much use. At the top level it is not too difficult – for example – to determine what is meant by ‘blues’, or ‘country’, or ‘hip hop’ – though of course as ever the exception proves the rule. ‘Pop’ – on the other hand – is such a broad ‘catch-all’ category that it gets used to label anything that doesn’t easily fit into other categories.

The same applies as soon as one ventures into the field of sub-genres: ‘operatic pop, or ‘K-pop’ are really pretty specific. ‘Alternative’ – on the other hand – basically applies to anything that doesn’t fit into any other existing category. This can, by some definitions, include all sorts of extremely well established acts that have always just been that bit different and thus stand outside the mainstream. The term ‘indie’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘alternative’, though other sources consider it to be quite different.

My instinct – with regard to Anam Danu – is to stick with both ‘pop’ and ‘alternative’, but I quite like also to include the term ‘adult’. Wikipedia has list of ‘adult alternative’ artists (drawn from tracks played on Adult Album Alternative radio stations) which would seem to include most of the people that I consider to be my influences.

The trouble is – as I say – this use of genres still doesn’t really describe the music, thus obliging one to try to come up with something else – a tag line, if you like – that is a bit more descriptive.

I quite like the phrase ‘cinematic pop’ – because much of our music has a sort of filmic quality – though I see that that term has been adopted by a project which describes itself as a ‘classical crossover’ (this stuff is all so difficult!)…

Perhaps we should adopt the genre ‘adult alternative’ and say that we create ‘widescreen cinematic pop’…

…or perhaps not!

Maybe the gentle reader has other (polite!) suggestions…

Independent musicians are – in this technologically advanced era – blessed with a plethora of online resources (courtesy of the ever-present InterWebNet) by which means their musical lives and careers may be facilitated. This is especially noticeable to those who have been ploughing this particular furrow since – for example – the 1970s (Who? Me??).

I was reminded again of this fact just a week or so back as I was watching a most useful podcast authored by one of the many generous educators who now make freely (as much as anything is really free!) available their hard-earned wisdom online for the benefit of rest of us humble musical souls.

This particular lesson concerned what the author described as the second most difficult thing that aspiring musicians and collectives must do; explaining at the same time why it was critical nonetheless that they do it.

The most difficult thing is – of course – choosing a name under which to operate. Some bands split up before even getting started under the pressure of finding, agreeing and adopting a moniker that has not been used and abused previously elsewhere.

The second most difficult thing is – you will probably be unsurprised to hear – answering that inevitable question: “So – what sort of music do you play?”. The great majority of musicians – faced with this diabolical inquisition – will mumble on for a while about how their music really isn’t like anything else on the planet, before finishing with the imprecation: “You’ll just have to listen to it and judge for yourself (Man!)”.

Whilst I certainly sympathise (as would anyone who has found themselves doing the same thing… repeatedly!) I have to agree with the podcaster, whose strongly expressed opinion was that – if one really expects members of the wider public to lend an ear to one’s musical meanderings – the least one can do is to give them the best possible idea of what they might expect to hear.

Fair enough, say I!

There are – fortunately – a number of tools that go at least some way to aiding the recalcitrant musical categoriser. The InterWebNet can provide one with a seemingly comprehensive (oh that there were truly such a thing) list of musical genres, organised as a fairly shallow hierarchy. One starts with such basic categories as ‘rock’, ‘pop’, ‘blues’, ‘country’ and so forth, before moving on to a seemingly endless plethora of sub-categories that aim to add some detail to the broad generic groupings.

So – what might that mean in the case of Anam Danu? Check back shortly for part two of this posting to find out.