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A CRASH COURSE ON
EXISTING MUSIC GENRES
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Part II ::
Indie, Urban, Alternative, Easy Listening, Reggae
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Published in
PRESS Magazine
February 2004
Last issue (February), Valerie Mayuga introduced us to an educational crash
course in usical genres. She began the course by breaking down the different
genres of Pop music and New Wave. Fortunately, she was only arely scratching the
surface of musicology. So now, we tread on more unchartered territories in Part
II Of
PRESS’
Crash course on Musical Genres
INDIE
INDIE
POP
Inndie Pop is Indie Rock's
more melodic, less noisy, and relatively angst-free counterpart. Reflective of
the underground's softer, sweeter side, with a greater emphasis on harmonies,
arrangements, and songcraft, it encompasses everything from the lush
orchestration of chamber pop to the primitive simplicity of teen pop, its focus
is nevertheless more on the songs than on the sound, and although both indie pop
and indie rock embrace the D.I.Y. spirit of punk, the former rejects punk's
nihilistic attitude and abrasive sonic approach. Luscious Jackson, Teenage
Fanclub, Blur, Stereolab, Guy Chadwick, Jason Falkner, Hefner, The House of
Love, The Lilac Time and Money Mark are among the many Indie Pop artists that
bring to mind blue skies, pink cotton candy and vanilla ice cream.
INDIE ROCK
There have always been
independent labels in the history of rock & roll, but Indie Rock refers to the
independent rock music of the early '90s. After Nirvana inadvertently brought
alternative music into the Top Ten in 1991, many alternative bands resisted the
fact that their music was becoming popular, so they went further underground.
These bands embody the Do It Yourself (DIY) attitude of Punk Rock, and because
they refused to sign to major labels and adhered to their independent, punk
ideals, their albums are recorded on a smaller budget and released through
record labels that are not corporations, but independently owned. Some of the
many Indie Rock bands whose music is readily available all listeners are Ani
DiFranco, Liz Phair, Sonic Youth, Stereolab, The White Stripes, Yo La Tengo and
The Strokes, among others.
URBAN
 Also known as Urban
Contemporary, Urban was the term given to the R&B/soul music of the 1980s and
'90s. While its smooth and polished romantic ballads fit well into quiet storm
radio formats, urban also had room for uptempo, funky dance tracks, which
usually boasted the same high-tech, radio-ready production and controlled yet
soulful vocals. Up until the late '80s, most urban music was highly
pop-oriented, often in melody but nearly always in terms of production. The
urban landscape began to shift with the advent of hip-hop as urban and hip-hop
cross-pollinated during the early '90s, eventually resulting in a new hybrid
tagged "hip-hop soul." While hip-hop soul was still slickly produced, the beats
were funkier, more elastic and unpredictable with a grittier, more soulful feel.
There was still a side of urban that retained roots in adult contemporary,
though, and regardless of which side of the spectrum they fell on, the songs
were increasingly becoming showpieces for elaborate vocal technique. Partly
owing to the steep decline of mainstream pop/rock in the wake of alternative,
urban more or less dominated the pop singles charts for the latter half of the
'90s, with major acts including Mary J. Blige, Toni Braxton, R. Kelly, Boyz II
Men, SWV, Blackstreet, Jodeci, Monica, and Brandy, among others.
FUNK
As soul began to experiment
with rock textures in the late '60s, Funk emerged and kept the groove of soul
but made it deeper and also added a greater reliance on improvisation, much like
the blues-rock and psychedelia of the era. Among the godfathers of funk were
James Brown, whose funk was stripped down and spare and Sly Stone, whose funk
was wilder and drew more from rock & roll. George Clinton, the leader of
Parliament and Funkadelic, was the next great funkster who expanded on Stone's
blueprint by adding wild conceptual fantasies derived from the psychedelia of
Sgt. Pepper and the counterculture humor of Frank Zappa. He kept working one
groove, kept jamming over a deep bass line and adding instrumental breaks,
leadeing most of the funk bands of the '70s picked up on the groove, not the
concepts. Funk and hip-hop groups in the '80s and '90s though, expanded on both
the sound and the concept. Sly & the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Donald Byrd,
Chic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Funkadelic, Herbie Hancock, Isaac Hayes and The Isley
Brothers are among the many groups whose music can be categorized as funk.
NU SOUL
Nu Soul (or neo soul) is a
musical genre that fuses R&B, 1970s style soul and hip hop. Believed to have
flourished in the 1980s with New Jack Swing artists like Guy and, later, Boyz II
Men, the emergence of nu soul could most be credited to Mary J. Blige who's 1992
debut “What's the 411?” has proven enormously influential. In the mid-1990s,
artists like D'Angelo, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu made the genre a critical
success, with moderate to occasionally blockbuster commercial success. Soon
after the turn of the millennium, artists like Alicia Keys as well as Macy Gray
further popularized the sound
CONTEMPORARY R & B
Contemporary R&B developed
after years of urban R&B. Though it is just as slickly produced as urban R&B,
the musicians belonging to this genre such as Maxwell, D'Angelo, and Terence
Trent D'Arby are obsessed with bringing the grit, spirit, and ambitiousness of
classic soul (Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding) back to contemporary
soul and R&B.
SOUL
Soul music was the result
of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the '60s and
came to describe a number of R&B-based music styles. From the bouncy, catchy
acts at Motown to the horn-driven, gritty soul of Stax/Volt, there was an
immense amount of diversity within soul. Since the 60s, soul music has evolved
greatly as musicians pushed the music in different directions: In urban centers
like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, the music concentrated on vocal
interplay and smooth productions. In Detroit, Motown concentrated on creating a
pop-oriented sound that was informed equally by gospel, R&B, and rock & roll. In
the South, the music became harder and tougher, relying on syncopated rhythms,
raw vocals, and blaring horns. However, although soul music evolved, it never
went away -- not only did the music inform all of the R&B of the '70s, '80s, and
'90s, there were always pockets of musicians like Chuck Jackson, Etta James, The
Soul Stirrers, The Staple Singers, Stevie Wonder, Martha Reeves and Bobby "Blue"
Bland, among others who kept performing traditional soul around the world.
ALTERNATIVE
ALTERNATIVE POP/ROCK
Alternative Pop/Rock is
essentially a catch-all term for post-punk bands from the mid-'80s to the
mid-'90s. Though a variety of musical styles exist within Alternative Rock, they
are all tied together because they existed outside of the mainstream. During the
'80s, alternative included everything from jangle pop, post-hardcore punk, funk
metal, punk pop, and experimental rock. After Nirvana's popularity in the '90s,
alternative included all of these subgenres, but many of the edges were sanded
off because the music was now being marketed as part of the mainstream. Hard
rock and punk-derived music were
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