"Genres don't matter."

Yes they do.

Of all the annoying conversations surrounding metal across the board, this is one of the most irritatingly common reductive arguments made regarding just about any band, album, trend, etc. It’s not an exclusively old-guy-metalhead argument, but I do find it coming more from the culture’s older members, members whose pet genre has expanded and evolved often further than where they can grasp and faster than they care to keep up with. I know that sounds kinda ageist, but research has now shown a pattern of decreased musical curiosity with age past about 25. And with metal evolving to places its first generation probably never foresaw, it makes sense that their exposure to the genre’s vast expansion via the internet be a bit overwhelming. I’m not writing this to examine metal’s first generation of listeners though or scoff at a naturally confused response to a phenomena I may very well experience too. I’m not writing about getting old and out of touch. Life happens, that’s natural. You saw the study, probably, if you’re young and keeping up on your favorite music’s new developments, which the study suggests, not just me.

No, this is about a rhetorically lazy and reductive line of thinking all too commonly spread throughout music discussion. I’m sure it’s not exclusive to the metal community, but that’s no excuse for how horribly this idea has infested much of the discussion surrounding metal.

(Sidenote: I don’t think there is really such thing as a [insert genre] band. Genre’s describe the music, not the people making them. This is why I try my best to consistently refrain from referring to a band as a “death metal band” or a thrash band”, etc. If Slayer decided they were going to make a jazz fusion album under the Slayer name (which they have every right to do, it’s theirs), would they still be a “thrash metal band” per se? How many jazz albums would they have to make before not being a thrash metal band anymore? It’s silly because the people who make up Slayer are not a style of music; Tom and Kerry do not fall within the confines of a genre, even if they’ve chosen to make the same shit since ‘83. Reign in Blood falls within the confines of a genre. We can describe it as “thrash metal” because we have attributed its distinct musical elements and patterns to a label, and other albums and songs that share those elements can be described as “thrash metal” too. Look at In Flames, whose career is a tale of two very different stylistic halves, making then hard to pin down as belonging to one genre or another. Look at fucking Devin Townsend’s catalog. The dude is all over the place. Even projects formed under the artistic intent of focusing on a specific genre like Scour or Me and That Man aren’t permanently restricted to their members’ original vision. And I only bring this semantic distinction up because clarification about discussion of an artist or their work just helps discussions about said art and artists proceed more smoothly, but refraining from thinking of artists as belonging to genres helps relieve pressure from fans for them to conform to that perception and be artistically confident.)

And yes, genres are labels, meant to help organize and categorize to make discussion easier, not to restrict artists to a certain style, as some often assert. They’re just descriptors, markers, something to attach to a vast, diverse multitude of songs and albums to make their many attributes not so overwhelming. But just because they don’t effect the music doesn’t mean they’re meaningless and should be ignored.

Okay, so where does this idea usually pop up? It usually stems from a debate on whether a group or album or song fits one certain subgenre or another. Maybe a band changed up their sound and now they don’t fit in the same box they used to. Maybe a band is pushing their own boundaries or the boundaries of metal itself. But amid all the enthusiastic discussion, there often come the frustrated reductionist who claims something like: “Whatever, it’s all just metal, genre debates are pointless” or “there is no death metal or black metal or whatever metal, it’s all metal”. Sometimes it’s out of a motivation to quell an unnecessarily heated debate with a sense of unity within the community of metal, and while that’s a nice sentiment and while remembering commonality while maintaining civility in discussion is important, this anti-genre argument is still reductive and also not always made with positive intent. It’s often used to try to shut up critics by attacking the idea of analytical thinking about the art in general. By the line of thinking this argument makes, there is no such thing as metal. It’s just rock. And there’s no rock either. It’s just blues, which is just music. And music is just art. And there’s no such thing as art, it’s just stuff.

We could choose to think that way, and there’s no obligation to think so intently about genres all the time, it can no doubt obscure the enjoyment of music and become more of a distraction than an aid. But choosing to ignore them doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Even if you don’t think of Vulgar Display of Power as more than just metal, it doesn’t mean that groove metal isn’t a more specific and full descriptor for it. And obstinately insisting that “metal is just metal” no matter where only disrupts thoughtful discussion of it with inhibitory anti-intellectualism that reinforces negative perceptions about metalheads not being the brightest bunch.

I get that I’m probably preaching to the choir on this one. If you’re taking the time to read through a very small, obscure metal blog’s post about genres, you probably care about keeping up with metal’s evolution and you probably aren’t overwhelmed, to the point of flipping the gameboard over, by genre titles. And I get that this is largely semantics and critiquing of rhetoric, not fun, and a small issue. However, I’m writing this because I think it’s an important roadblock to clear to facilitate better conversation around the music we love. And I’m glad this is a small issue, not a complicated issue; hopefully that means it’s an easily fixed issue.