Can you guys classify our genre?

[elenore19]

I'm not looking for critique, I'm just wondering what you guys would classify our (the band I'm in) genre as.

We can never really figure it out, even though it's nothing too "out there."

Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

I didn't know where else to put this, so if this should be in a different forum, I'm sorry.


Elliot


www.myspace.com/freakerswithspeakers

 

[Rokket]

Your singer has a (kind of a stretch, but...) Bon Scott thing going on with the vocals, but the guitars don't fit that. They are more along the lines of those hundreds of bands that are out there right now, so whatever genre that is... I can't give you specific examples because I don't listen to it.

Sorry, I shouldn't have posted. I am no help at all. But I did give 3 of your songs play counts.

 

[elenore19]

Your singer has a (kind of a stretch, but...) Bon Scott thing going on with the vocals, but the guitars don't fit that. They are more along the lines of those hundreds of bands that are out there right now, so whatever genre that is... I can't give you specific examples because I don't listen to it.

Sorry, I shouldn't have posted. I am no help at all. But I did give 3 of your songs play counts.

Ha, yeah, no help.

They are more along the lines of those hundreds of bands that are out there right now

Yeah. We're workin' on it. It's a lot better than we used to be..?

Thanks for listening anyways.

 

[rayc]

Agit pop/rock like the Fall or Wire but not weird enough for the latter.

 

[johnnymegabyte]

From song to song, there is much diversity.
I hear Punkish Pop/Rock, with some classic rock influence. What can I say, a Hybrid.

Are you trying to be My Chemical Romance / Cheap Trick / Nirvana / Yardbirds (Led Zeppelin) / Barenaked Ladies all-in-one ?
Nothing wrong with that. I will bookmark your band on MySpace. I like what I hear.

Good luck with your music career. I think you're going places.

 

[spy said one]

indie pop and/or indie rock is the first that comes to mind after hearing the first song, corporate theft. i'd lean toward the latter, though there's a good bit of pop-punk and moments of straightforward rock in other songs. the word "indie" is terribly versatile because it is not actually a genre descriptor, but is often used as one.

 

[elenore19]

From song to song, there is much diversity.
I hear Punkish Pop/Rock, with some classic rock influence. What can I say, a Hybrid.

Are you trying to be My Chemical Romance / Cheap Trick / Nirvana / Yardbirds (Led Zeppelin) / Barenaked Ladies all-in-one ?
Nothing wrong with that. I will bookmark your band on MySpace. I like what I hear.

Good luck with your music career. I think you're going places.

Thanks man.
My Chemical Romance? Nope. The others, haven't really heard too much of, I mean we're influenced a little by Led Zeppelin..who isn't?
But yeah. We have 4 new songs in the works, we'll see what you think of those in terms of genres..Although they won't be up for a good couple of months.

So I guess I should say our band is Rock on the side of Pop maybe?

 

[Rokket]

Whatever it is, steer way away from sounding like that tripe that is out there now. I can think of 20 songs I have heard in passing and thought they were all the same fucking band. Turns out they were 20 different bands.


I made the comment that you could pull any member from any of those bands, mix and match all day long, have each member play the songs from his parent band along with the new band, and no one would notice anything different. Cookie cutter pop bands suck ass, and I wish the industry would stop thinking with their accountant's head and realize how far and how fast they are ruining it.

 

[elenore19]

Whatever it is, steer way away from sounding like that tripe that is out there now. I can think of 20 songs I have heard in passing and thought they were all the same fucking band. Turns out they were 20 different bands.


I made the comment that you could pull any member from any of those bands, mix and match all day long, have each member play the songs from his parent band along with the new band, and no one would notice anything different. Cookie cutter pop bands suck ass, and I wish the industry would stop thinking with their accountant's head and realize how far and how fast they are ruining it.

I hear ya man. We're trying to incorporate more of my piano playing into our songs along with really trying to think of some original progressions and what not, to make it so we Aren't like every day bands our there. I'd hate to end up being those. I realize that we do sound more or less like those bands out there. I like to think we're a little different, but we really working on finding our own sound, we still have a ways to go. We are all only 18 so hopefully we still have a good amount of years to really work out the kinks

But I totally understand what your saying. It is bullshit what is going on with the "cookie cutter" pop phase the music industry is going through.

 

[TyphoidHippo]

indie pop and/or indie rock

My thoughts EXACTLY.

the word "indie" is terribly versatile because it is not actually a genre descriptor, but is often used as one.

hmmm... I didn't know that - in my mind, indie is a clear and distinct genre of music in which the singers have an over-the-top emphatic singing style, the music is sprinkled with somewhat elementary/basic guitar riffs played through guitars with very piercing tones, and the entire production intentionally (I think) sounds low-fi. Like... White Stripes, Yea yea yeas, Cake, Weezer etc. Guess I wasn't informed when the decider decided indie wasn't a genre after all... (Who makes these official decisions, anyway?)

P.S. to the O.P. - I totally dug whatever song I just heard with the slow piano arpeggio thing going on.

edit: ROFLMAO!! I just went to Amazon and went to 'browse genres' for music, and this is a copy and paste from their site

Browse by Genre
Alternative Rock

* Britpop, Hardcore & Punk, Indie & Lo-Fi...

apparently Amazon thinks Indie's a genre, too.. and they agree with me on the Lo-Fi part, too. I'm not saying that Amazon is a genre authority or anything, but I REALLY got a kick out of seeing "Indie & Lo-Fi" listed there

 

[elenore19]

My thoughts EXACTLY.



hmmm... I didn't know that - in my mind, indie is a clear and distinct genre of music in which the singers have an over-the-top emphatic singing style, the music is sprinkled with somewhat elementary/basic guitar riffs played through guitars with very piercing tones, and the entire production intentionally (I think) sounds low-fi. Like... White Stripes, Yea yea yeas, Cake, Weezer etc. Guess I wasn't informed when the decider decided indie wasn't a genre after all... (Who makes these official decisions, anyway?)

P.S. to the O.P. - I totally dug whatever song I just heard with the slow piano arpeggio thing going on.

edit: ROFLMAO!! I just went to Amazon and went to 'browse genres' for music, and this is a copy and paste from their site

Browse by Genre
Alternative Rock

* Britpop, Hardcore & Punk, Indie & Lo-Fi...

apparently Amazon thinks Indie's a genre, too.. and they agree with me on the Lo-Fi part, too. I'm not saying that Amazon is a genre authority or anything, but I REALLY got a kick out of seeing "Indie & Lo-Fi" listed there

Alright, so Indie Pop.

Thanks for the kind words man

 

[EL34]

Whatever it is, steer way away from sounding like that tripe that is out there now

Rokket pretty much nails my thoughts also.

Everything I hear sounds like the same band.
Same amps, same guitar sound, same singer, etc.

It's time for another big shake up.
We need another Hendrix, SRV, Nirvana type event that moves things in a different direction.

 

[elenore19]

Rokket pretty much nails my thoughts also.

Everything I hear sounds like the same band.
Same amps, same guitar sound, same singer, etc.

It's time for another big shake up.
We need another Hendrix, SRV, Nirvana type event that moves things in a different direction.

Yeah.

Where the hell do we go next for music? I suppose who ever figures that out will thenext Hendrix, SRV, Nirvana...

 

[hoddman]

I imagine that the reason indie isn't really a genre is that any independant release is indie by definition, regardless if it was hardcore, blues or what ever. The term has morphed to be widely recognized as a genre, but I get what the other poster was saying.

I'd call your sound indie rock.

 

[ocnor]

We need another Hendrix, SRV, Nirvana type event that moves things in a different direction.

So what you are saying is that all of the new bands should choke on their own vomit,while blowing their brains out with a shotgun,inside of a crashing helicopter?
Sounds good to me!

 

[elenore19]

So what you are saying is that all of the new bands should choke on their own vomit,while blowing their brains out with a shotgun,inside of a crashing helicopter?
Sounds good to me!

Wow, I laughed pretty damn hard at that. Made my day, thanks

 

[johnnymegabyte]

I think the Hendrix, SRV & Nirvana references is they they pioneered a new sound or genre, of sorts.
Hendrix revolutionized what guitar and amp could do. Constantly seacrhing for extreme sounds and technique.
SRV got the credit, but Hendrix, Clapton, Jeff Beck were his influences. MTV guitar god. SRV learned a lot from Frank Marino, who never got the credit deserved.
Nirvana broke new gounds with their own brand of grunge, fuzz and attitude. Majorly influenced by the dark side of Cheap Trick. Night & Day to Budokan tunes. Check out the first Cheap Trick album, and it utter rawness on most of the songs ... and screamy vocals.

However, you can add some of the living as pioneers of modern rock, from the 50's (Little Richard, Chuck Berry), 60's (Lennon & McCartney), Yardbirds (Clapton, Beck, Jimmy Page) which led into Led Zeppelin.
Then, you have the likes of David Gilmour, Steve Hackett from the psychadelic 60's/70's English scene.

I could go on.

FREAKERS ... keep plugging away at it. Your fans will love you for who you are and what you do.

 

[MadHatterTCM]

My thoughts EXACTLY.



hmmm... I didn't know that - in my mind, indie is a clear and distinct genre of music in which the singers have an over-the-top emphatic singing style, the music is sprinkled with somewhat elementary/basic guitar riffs played through guitars with very piercing tones, and the entire production intentionally (I think) sounds low-fi. Like... White Stripes, Yea yea yeas, Cake, Weezer etc. Guess I wasn't informed when the decider decided indie wasn't a genre after all... (Who makes these official decisions, anyway?)

Indie = short for independently produced. This refers to films as well. I'm not sure why indie is a genre. I guess it has a sound at times because it's not backed by a label and produced in a high$/hr studio. but in which case, the whole forum accurately has the sound of indie artists.

 

[TyphoidHippo]

Indie = short for independently produced. This refers to films as well. I'm not sure why indie is a genre.

Well... yea... but how do genres get names? From other things that already exist, right? I mean... in 1743 the "heavy metal" genre of music probably didn't exist, and if you asked somebody to play some heavy metal on their harpsichord they'd probably think you were a bit nuts, but at some point people started calling that kind of music heavy metal - same holds true for any genre... Both of the words "rock" and "roll" had, and still have, literal meanings that pre-existed the musical genre "rock & roll", right? As far as I am aware, brand new, non-derivative English words have not been invented for any existing musical genre.

The best example I can think of is how "techno" was 'short for' other technology related things before it became accepted as the genre of music produced by technological means. How is that any different than how "indie" has been taking on a new meaning (with several members of this thread, and apparently whoever makes the decisions about what genres there are at Amazon). And just like "indie" referring to films as well, "techno" still refers to other things as well as being as a distinct musical genre.

Does the official decider of genres have to publish a copyrighted pamphlet proclaiming indie to be a genre or does it just have to be commonly accepted (as it is now... as far as I can tell, at least).

Since nobody knows who this decider is... I declare myself king of genres and I hereby dub indie as the genre with the aforementioned characteristics from my other post. I feel that society has made it clear that there is a distinct flavor of music that that they will call "indie" which is otherwise uncategorized, or inefficiently categorized at best (ie: "sounds kinda like X crossed with Y with a little Z sprinkled on").

This is also good news for the original poster - you are now officially included in the indie genre (along with the other bands I mentioned before) Tell your friends!

 

[elenore19]

Well... yea... but how do genres get names? From other things that already exist, right? I mean... in 1743 the "heavy metal" genre of music probably didn't exist, and if you asked somebody to play some heavy metal on their harpsichord they'd probably think you were a bit nuts, but at some point people started calling that kind of music heavy metal - same holds true for any genre... Both of the words "rock" and "roll" had, and still have, literal meanings that pre-existed the musical genre "rock & roll", right? As far as I am aware, brand new, non-derivative English words have not been invented for any existing musical genre.

The best example I can think of is how "techno" was 'short for' other technology related things before it became accepted as the genre of music produced by technological means. How is that any different than how "indie" has been taking on a new meaning (with several members of this thread, and apparently whoever makes the decisions about what genres there are at Amazon). And just like "indie" referring to films as well, "techno" still refers to other things as well as being as a distinct musical genre.

Does the official decider of genres have to publish a copyrighted pamphlet proclaiming indie to be a genre or does it just have to be commonly accepted (as it is now... as far as I can tell, at least).

Since nobody knows who this decider is... I declare myself king of genres and I hereby dub indie as the genre with the aforementioned characteristics from my other post. I feel that society has made it clear that there is a distinct flavor of music that that they will call "indie" which is otherwise uncategorized, or inefficiently categorized at best (ie: "sounds kinda like X crossed with Y with a little Z sprinkled on").

This is also good news for the original poster - you are now officially included in the indie genre (along with the other bands I mentioned before) Tell your friends!

Hooray! Indie! Yay!
If I had to throw my opinion in there I'd say we were indie rock. Just because indie sounds to mellow for us in my opinion. Once again, everyone has their different images/sounds in their heads when they hear genres. When I hear Indie, I think of Death Cab For Cutie. That's me though. That's why I started this thread, because I want all of your guys' opinions.