What exactly puts a certain song or band in the music categories?

Like what makes rock rock?
Why is a pop song a pop song?
What makes Metal different from the other categories?

It does sound and look a little weird when you read/say it.

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Click the Pokemon.

The funny thing is, anything popular should go into pop, but usually only certain beats get lumped into that area. Shania Twain (who you might have heard had just filed for divorce before the weekend) was saying that if a country song becomes popular is a pop song.

But I don't know if the British started how the term "pop song" got used.

If you looked up the origins of these words, it would probably help to see the categories the songs are put in. But some guesses by me are: rock is harsh sounding music, and metal is some music with clanging metal-like noises in it.

4-3-4 posts

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There really is no definitive way to correctly categorize bands into empirical genres. However, there are various ways that people classify various musical forms.

Classical music is not something that I am particularly familiar with, but it generally uses traditional acoustic instruments in either an orchestral or chamber presentation.

Jazz is a term used for a form of music that evolved from Ragtime, Classical Music and Blues. It is ethnically tied to Black Americans, but there are other fusions of Jazz that have developed. There are several sub categories in Jazz, including Fusion, Swing, Bebop, Hard Bop, Post Bop, Avante Garde, Smooth, Contemporary, and Traditional to name a few.

Blues is a music that has a characteristic call/response format. However, while there are standard forms of blues, such as the I-IV-V progression, it has many different forms and styles that are as unique as the person playing it. For example, Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson are both delta bluesmen, but Robert Johnsons style of playing is very much different than Blind Willie.

Folk Music is a broad genre that consists mainly of traditional songs that are usually played on acoustic instruments in either a solo or ensemble setting. It has many ties to blues and country/bluegrass (at least in America). Every country has it's own folk songs as well, such as "Whiskey in the Jar" (a traditional Irish folk song).

Rock developed in the 1950's as an offshoot of Blues/Rhythm and Blues. It uses similar progressions and scales as blues, but is characterized to some as an up tempo version thereof. It developed the use of heavily distorted guitar sounds and long solos.

Metal developed from Blues and Rock music, but has a different aesthetic to it. Black Sabbath is to many, the first metal band, characterized by heavy, downtuned guitars/basses, and misanthropic, violent, and angry lyrics. There are many offshoots and subgenres of metal that have developed, but the heavily distorted, downtuned guitars and lyrical content is a common characteristic of most metal.

Punk developed in the late 60's and early 70's from early rock and roll and garage rock, like The Kinks, The Stooges and The MC5. It was characterized by the DIY mentality and a general 'lack of skill' among practitioners. Very seldom did songs have solos. Generally, they consisted of barre/powerchord styles, as well as heavily distorted guitars. It was generally a reaction to the political and social atmosphere of the places where it developed. Punk music generally has angry, disillusioned/rebellious lyrics.

I gave a definition of Hip Hop in the other thread.

Pop music is shorthand for 'Popular Music'. What ever happens to be popular at the time is pop music. However, modern pop music is generally characterized by simple melodies and 'creative' 'emotional' lyrics.

I hope that helped a bit.

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pop music = simple and catchy.

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"Hip-hop was set out in the dark. They used to do it out in the park"

Alt.Rock is the best ^^

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That's great. Did you read the OP?

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All Alt Rock music grew out of Punk I believe, I'm not as current on my modern music history as I like to be.

An add on to folk music, I believe that country music of today, bluegrass and whatnot grew out of American folk music, which was another branch off of blues and jazz I think? It's sorta the brother of rock in a sense.

NVM read your thing on folk a little too fast

^Alternative Rock actually grew out of New Wave bands such as The Police and R.E.M, Classic Rock such as Genesis and Pink Floyd, early heavy metal such as Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, Hardcore Punk, Punk Rock, and Blues.

And folk isn't really a branch of blues and jazz.

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Livin just to keep from dyin

There are certain characteristics that go with each genre. An easy obvious one would be that rap = no singing, just speaking with (or without, as that seems to be a trend these days) a beat. Anyone who's studied "Classical Music" would know that there are characteristics that divide that genre into categories.

That's not true. A lot of Common and Mos Def songs have singing in them, as well as pretty much every song with Nate Dogg. Classical music is divided into eras.

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Each era of classical music has its own characteristics that very well make it a genre.

Ok, so I'm not well informed with rap these days. There are probably lots of sub-genres as well.

Touche. I don't study classical music

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Livin just to keep from dyin

this is hip hop http://youtube.com/watch?v=p92_iI5Sy8o



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"Hip-hop was set out in the dark. They used to do it out in the park"

You guys think it's hard to differentiate the various subgenres of Rock??

You shouldn't even try with electronic club music. I used to be a club DJ and even I couldn't really explain the differences between deep house, progressive house, dub house, tech-house, deep trance, progressive trance.....etc.
I mean, I knew which was which most of the time, but explaining it was nearly impossible.

At the end of the day, there's only 2 types of music anyway...Good n Bad.

Cheers!!

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~Point & Squirt~