A genre is something that identifies and can help to categorise different types of music. Similar genres usually contain general conventions and characteristics. There are many different types of music genres such as reggae, pop, heavy metal, punk and so on. However, even these can then be further categorised, like pop can then be further categorised into teen pop, latin pop. pop punk etc. However, these classifications are only labels, and although they can be used to classify songs (for example on spotify) and can make it easier when finding similar music, some people may disagree on what genre an artist is.
How do artists manage to create their own image? What do we expect to see depending on the genre?
In this section we are talking about album covers, and how these are different depending on the genre. Most different genres are shows through the different iconography.
Typography - This is important when creating an image because it can often represent the music. For example, dance music often uses geometric typography which represents the structure of their music.
Image (portraits) - Many record labels use images of faces and bodies as a selling point for albums. This is because the notion that 'sex sells' is indeed true. However, some people (such as catfish and the bottlemen in the first album) decide not to show their faces in the album cover as they believe that their music is more important than their looks.
Colours - Colours are very important when creating an image or trying to sculpt a certain genre to the audience. Bright colours are often used to create a feeling of content and to show that the album will give off a positive message. Whereas many grime artists use dark colours to show that their music isn't going to be upbeat. This also helps to give a quick impression to the audience as to what music they will be listening to.
Although music genres and classifications can be used for good (when looking for similar music) it can also be a bad thing. Sometimes the classification of certain music can stop it from being found. Some listeners won't listen to music if its not classified as being their preferred genre. This means that there may be loads of music out there which you aren't listening to because it is 'completely different' to what you usually listen to because it is a different genre. Genre can also influence how artists behave or look and may restrict them from changing their music or their appearance. One artist who has changed her music and her appearance many times is Taylor Swift but I will go into more detail about that in a separate post.
John Hartley (1994) supported the above statement by saying 'genres are agents of ideological closure - they limit the meaning-potential of a given text'. Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress (1988) also supported this by saying that genre 'control the behavior of producers of such texts, and the expectation of potential consumers'.
Another interesting thing is how are genre's decided? The record labels and artists help to choose a genre, but this is influenced by their music. The artist can try and decide to create a certain genre of music but if the audience decide that it belongs in a different genre then there is nothing that the artist can do about it. However, now many different algorithms are used to decide which genre music fits into the most. These algorithms use many different factors such as similar music to it, volume, instruments etc. These algorithms are what companies like Spotify and Apple use when selling music under certain genres.
However, Rick Altman (1999) now argues that there is no such thing as 'pure' genre anymore and that genre is now progressive, meaning that it will always be changing. He continues to say that generic conventions are now a thing of the past, as hybrid genres are taking over. Hybrid genres borrow conventions from other genres, therefore resulting in new genres being made.
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