ilya
02-02-2012, 03:39 PM
Just some ideas, would be nice if other people chimed in too with their thoughts. I'll try to reserve my thoughts for categories I'd like to think I have some sort of grasp on and I probably have nothing of value to add for trance, drum & bass, or breakbeats.
House
Currently: Funky House, Hard House, Commercial House, Tribal House, Prog House, Electro House
Suggestion: Deep, Progressive, Tribal, Tech-House, Hard, Acid
1. "Funky" house is removed as the term is much more of a stylistic descriptor of a track's groove that applies individually to many of the subgenres listed. For example, many tracks that fall into house proper can be considered funky or 'jackin' to begin with; in contrast to subgenres like tech-house or progressive where funk takes a back seat to a more rigid or straight groove.
2. Electrohouse is removed for redundancy, already exists as a subgenre in the Electro forum.
3. Commercial house is moved to the Electro forum. In my understanding, commercial house largely consists of electro house-influenced mixes of pop/commercial songs.
4. Deep house is added as it's generally considered its own, unique category (see: popular distributors such as Beatport, Juno).
5. Acid house is added to distinguish between acid (techno) and acid house; acid house is currently homeless :(
Techno
Currently: Funky Tek, Acid Tek, Hardcore Tek, Tek-House
Suggestion: Acid, Minimal, Electro, Industrial/Noise, Hardcore, Dub Techno
1. Funky is removed, see justification from the house section. Don't think I've ever seen/heard the term used as a subgenre anyway.
2. Tek-House is removed, redundant to tech-house in the House section.
3. Minimal is added: Widely accepted sub-genre of techno, both in popular culture with labels like M_nus and more modern incarnations (i.e. the Berghain sound/Ostgut Ton) and amongst major distributors.
4. Dub Techno is added: Another major sub-genre that could use listing.
5. Electro is added: Easy way to distinguish between modern usage of the term (electrohouse, fidget, etc). The term also encompasses the sound much more closely related to techno (Drexciya, Aux88, etc.), proto-techno (Kraftwerk, Cybotron, etc.), and techno/electro hybrids (Ghettotech, Jit, etc.).
6. Industrial/Noise is added: Helps group industrial styles of techno (90s New York sound, Surgeon, etc.) into the main category as well as more noise and experimental branches of the genre.
Electro
Currently: Electro, Electro House, Fidget, Indie Dance
Suggestion: Electro House, Fidget, Indie Dance, Commercial House
1. Electro is removed and placed in the Techno forum, reasoning above.
2. Commercial house is brought over from the House forum, reasoning above.
Dubstep
Currently: Dubstep, UK Garage, Breakstep, Grime
Suggestion: Grime, Garage/2-Step, Juke, UK Funky
1. Breakstep is removed, not a very widely used term and can be considered as part of 2-step/proto-dubstep.
2. 2-Step is added to Garage to clarify the difference between early UK garage (soulful house with a shuffling rhythm) to the 2-step flavor that became a predecessor to dubstep.
3. Juke is added, becoming an increasingly popular form of bass music and in many cases merging with dubstep's stylistic traits.
4. UK Funky is added, also a pretty major and closely related genre to dubstep that could use listing.
Proposal for Disco Forum
I think it's pretty safe to say that disco, in many forms, has been undergoing a significant, international revival in both the dance music community and amongst mainstream listeners. Here are a few of the major reasons I think potentially justify the creation of a new area. Many of these points are simply reiterations from another thread and a more thorough discussion on the topic can be found here: http://www.djforums.com/forums/showthread.php?192-disco-italo-cosmicdisco-library-music-early-electro-synthpop-edits-balearic-subforum
1. Popular/cross-over appeal: Outfits and producers like LCD Soundsystem, Chromeo, Holy Ghost!, Aeroplane, Cut/Copy, and Tensnake have achieved a fair amount of success in the commercial festival scene, radio play, and receive coverage in mainstream music publications. Their sounds are typically described as 'Nu-Disco' or synthpop; all are admittedly and very heavily influenced by the disco sound in general.
2. Current appeal with DJs: Some of the most memorable and biggest chart-topping hits, both amongst more commercially-inclined and 'underground' DJs over the past few years have been disco tracks. Todd Terje, Metro Area, and again - Tensnake, act as some very obvious examples here. Aside from more electronic dance-oriented communities, disco remains a staple for wedding and event DJs, hip-hop/breaks DJs, and filter house aficionados. Edits/re-edits are becoming more as well and injecting a lot of older songs with new-found popularity.
3. Technically requires its own category: Disco is incredibly broad - unarguably broader than dubstep, electro and drum n' bass, all of which have their own forum. Everything from 70's Philly soul to HiNRG are direct forms of disco music. Disco can also be heavily electronic (italo, synthpop), mostly non-electronic (soul, balearic) or a combination of both (boogie, cosmic). For more on this point, I've gone through and explained some of the sub-genres in greater detail in the thread linked to above.
Sub-Genre Suggestions: Nu-Disco, Boogie, Synthpop, Italo, Cosmic, Balearic, Edits, *Disco House
*I can see just as much reason to place Disco House in the House forum but ultimately, the sub-genre relies just as much on disco samples as it does on other house production techniques.
Keep in mind these are only one person's opinions and I have no illusion that everyone feels similarly about the structure of the music forums. I do, however, genuinely feel that these suggestions could be helpful in removing redundancy/overlap between the music categories, 'modernizing' the way we list sub-genres, and just generally better clarifying what-goes-where for new members. Again, any feedback or additional input from other forum members would be awesome!
House
Currently: Funky House, Hard House, Commercial House, Tribal House, Prog House, Electro House
Suggestion: Deep, Progressive, Tribal, Tech-House, Hard, Acid
1. "Funky" house is removed as the term is much more of a stylistic descriptor of a track's groove that applies individually to many of the subgenres listed. For example, many tracks that fall into house proper can be considered funky or 'jackin' to begin with; in contrast to subgenres like tech-house or progressive where funk takes a back seat to a more rigid or straight groove.
2. Electrohouse is removed for redundancy, already exists as a subgenre in the Electro forum.
3. Commercial house is moved to the Electro forum. In my understanding, commercial house largely consists of electro house-influenced mixes of pop/commercial songs.
4. Deep house is added as it's generally considered its own, unique category (see: popular distributors such as Beatport, Juno).
5. Acid house is added to distinguish between acid (techno) and acid house; acid house is currently homeless :(
Techno
Currently: Funky Tek, Acid Tek, Hardcore Tek, Tek-House
Suggestion: Acid, Minimal, Electro, Industrial/Noise, Hardcore, Dub Techno
1. Funky is removed, see justification from the house section. Don't think I've ever seen/heard the term used as a subgenre anyway.
2. Tek-House is removed, redundant to tech-house in the House section.
3. Minimal is added: Widely accepted sub-genre of techno, both in popular culture with labels like M_nus and more modern incarnations (i.e. the Berghain sound/Ostgut Ton) and amongst major distributors.
4. Dub Techno is added: Another major sub-genre that could use listing.
5. Electro is added: Easy way to distinguish between modern usage of the term (electrohouse, fidget, etc). The term also encompasses the sound much more closely related to techno (Drexciya, Aux88, etc.), proto-techno (Kraftwerk, Cybotron, etc.), and techno/electro hybrids (Ghettotech, Jit, etc.).
6. Industrial/Noise is added: Helps group industrial styles of techno (90s New York sound, Surgeon, etc.) into the main category as well as more noise and experimental branches of the genre.
Electro
Currently: Electro, Electro House, Fidget, Indie Dance
Suggestion: Electro House, Fidget, Indie Dance, Commercial House
1. Electro is removed and placed in the Techno forum, reasoning above.
2. Commercial house is brought over from the House forum, reasoning above.
Dubstep
Currently: Dubstep, UK Garage, Breakstep, Grime
Suggestion: Grime, Garage/2-Step, Juke, UK Funky
1. Breakstep is removed, not a very widely used term and can be considered as part of 2-step/proto-dubstep.
2. 2-Step is added to Garage to clarify the difference between early UK garage (soulful house with a shuffling rhythm) to the 2-step flavor that became a predecessor to dubstep.
3. Juke is added, becoming an increasingly popular form of bass music and in many cases merging with dubstep's stylistic traits.
4. UK Funky is added, also a pretty major and closely related genre to dubstep that could use listing.
Proposal for Disco Forum
I think it's pretty safe to say that disco, in many forms, has been undergoing a significant, international revival in both the dance music community and amongst mainstream listeners. Here are a few of the major reasons I think potentially justify the creation of a new area. Many of these points are simply reiterations from another thread and a more thorough discussion on the topic can be found here: http://www.djforums.com/forums/showthread.php?192-disco-italo-cosmicdisco-library-music-early-electro-synthpop-edits-balearic-subforum
1. Popular/cross-over appeal: Outfits and producers like LCD Soundsystem, Chromeo, Holy Ghost!, Aeroplane, Cut/Copy, and Tensnake have achieved a fair amount of success in the commercial festival scene, radio play, and receive coverage in mainstream music publications. Their sounds are typically described as 'Nu-Disco' or synthpop; all are admittedly and very heavily influenced by the disco sound in general.
2. Current appeal with DJs: Some of the most memorable and biggest chart-topping hits, both amongst more commercially-inclined and 'underground' DJs over the past few years have been disco tracks. Todd Terje, Metro Area, and again - Tensnake, act as some very obvious examples here. Aside from more electronic dance-oriented communities, disco remains a staple for wedding and event DJs, hip-hop/breaks DJs, and filter house aficionados. Edits/re-edits are becoming more as well and injecting a lot of older songs with new-found popularity.
3. Technically requires its own category: Disco is incredibly broad - unarguably broader than dubstep, electro and drum n' bass, all of which have their own forum. Everything from 70's Philly soul to HiNRG are direct forms of disco music. Disco can also be heavily electronic (italo, synthpop), mostly non-electronic (soul, balearic) or a combination of both (boogie, cosmic). For more on this point, I've gone through and explained some of the sub-genres in greater detail in the thread linked to above.
Sub-Genre Suggestions: Nu-Disco, Boogie, Synthpop, Italo, Cosmic, Balearic, Edits, *Disco House
*I can see just as much reason to place Disco House in the House forum but ultimately, the sub-genre relies just as much on disco samples as it does on other house production techniques.
Keep in mind these are only one person's opinions and I have no illusion that everyone feels similarly about the structure of the music forums. I do, however, genuinely feel that these suggestions could be helpful in removing redundancy/overlap between the music categories, 'modernizing' the way we list sub-genres, and just generally better clarifying what-goes-where for new members. Again, any feedback or additional input from other forum members would be awesome!