Abstract Research Boundaries

To begin our journey through the world of popular music, we must first answer the question: “What exactly defines popular music?” Despite popular belief that this is a highly subjective matter, a broad consensus has been reached of its definition. Etymologically speaking, “music of the people (=populos)”, would not make us much wiser. The encyclopedic definition (Encyclopædia Britannica) states: “any commercially oriented music principally intended to be received and appreciated by a wide audience, generally in literate, technologically advanced societies dominated by urban culture.” Meaning that the right way to interpret the term, is music which finds the most appeal of all large music groups, due to its commercial nature. Indeed, there is in fact quite a large gap in record sales, concerts, downloads, and popularity in general between the group of popular music and so-called non-popular music. But this is not the only important part of the definition: popular music thrives in western and urban cultures due to the simple fact that these people have the financial and social means (social security, networking) to start music careers. These means can also be used for marketing and publicity, further widening the gap with other, non-popular music. The smaller appeal of non-popular music can also be explained by its older age; popular music consists mostly of (relatively) young and new music genres, sparking more interest than the ones who have been around for centuries.

Non-popular music can be divided into four groups; four vast worlds with a rich history of their own: Classical Music, Folk Music, World Music, and Utility Music. Popular Music is the fifth, and arguably the largest of all music worlds. Although many parts of this fifth world are well documented and its (oral) history is often told in literature and documentaries, a structural analysis of the whole is – due to its complexity – lacking, especially compared to the other worlds.

CLASSICAL MUSIC FOLK MUSIC WORLD MUSIC POPULAR MUSIC WORLD POP: world genres with significant popularity or pop crossovers with world music WORLD FOLK: contemporary folk genres / world genres rooted in folk genres UTILITY MUSIC CLASSICAL UTILITY MUSIC: classical film soundtracks / classical background music or muzak [The musical universe, with popular music as the largest yet not the oldest of its different worlds]

The other music worlds are not studied and analyzed in musicmap, as their music genres do not apply as popular music. This includes all kinds of orchestra music, chamber music, experimental classical music, historic and contemporary folk music, a gargantuan amount of world music genres, and all kinds of utility music: marches, military music, fanfare music, background film scores, amusement, musicals, vaudeville, and so on. Take note: these music worlds are visualized in a different order on the Carta than shown here to avoid too elaborate connection paths and too much visual clutter.

Sometimes certain types of world music get influenced by Rock/Pop/Dance music and crossover to World-Pop. It happens that these genres gain a large international appeal, especially when featured in films. However, these genres are also excluded from the Musicmap, as they have too many relationships (links) with other (read: non-popular) world music, and little influence on regular popular music. Certain crossovers between Folk and Popular music however (such as Folk Rock), are included, due to significant influence on other popular music genres.

It can be argued that the difference between World and Folk music is challenging, harboring a fair amount of overlapping. In essence, World music is contemporary music performed and created all around the world, but falling just short in influence to become popular music, for example RaÏ, Afrobeat and Highlife. However, these world music genres are often evolutions of much older geographically linked Folk music. In other words: World music is often the contemporary evolution of historical Folk music.

The Definition of Genre

The history of Popular Music hardly qualifies as an exact science. It is a retrospective analysis of events that focuses on the underlying forces or common symptoms in the overwhelming production of music records, ignoring nuances and side-effects to grasp a comprehensible structure. This is because (popular) music is far from a static phenomenon: it is a constantly evolving, transforming, giant organism. Almost never has a music genre suddenly emerged as a shocking revolution without any trace or evolution in the past. All of them have naturally evolved, mutated, merged, or become (theoretically) extinct. Only the past can be examined of this natural, organic network.

Herein one often finds network nodes or concentrations of artists having multiple traits in common and thus forming a genre. More correctly speaking: certain albums or a collection of songs by different artists, since the majority of music artists cannot be classified within the constraints of a single genre. Many artists attempt to create a unique and distinctive sound, crossing over into near and distant genres, while also evolving in sound during the course of their albums. This is why in case-specific literature, the same artist can be a given example for different genres; which means that often artists are located on the connection between two (or more) nodes instead of right on the node (genre) itself.

The traits that define a genre are more than a similar sound or summary of technical elements; subculture, fashion, geography, mentality and period of time all qualify as possible trademarks of which a genre in retrospect might be recognized. In other words, music genres can be seen as a concentration in the musical network, as the common denominator of a large enough group of music (not necessarily artists) connected by a specific instrumentation, technique, mentality/ideology, sound, place and/or time. By taking only the most important concentrations into account, a two-dimensional, comprehensible genealogy can be created. Genre definitions must be regarded independently of language. Changing the language of the vocals does not create something new (which is why e.g. French Rap is not listed as a genre), though geographical differences might influence the constraints of the genre.

The amount of popular music genres is staggering, reaching easily over 600. Many genres however, can either be seen as a subgenre of a larger genre or as very similar to another one (sibling genres). Metaphorically speaking, these genres are either smaller nodes connected to bigger network nodes or they are nodes located in high proximity to other nodes. There is no objective way to determine the true amount of genres. Musicmap is not the result of a parametrically based algorithm. The amount and selection of mentioned genres are determined on their importance and uniqueness by academic research. They are carefully selected by comparing as many genealogies as possible and examining their context and relevance in literature. There is no mathematical threshold involved to identify a genre, certainly not in the amount of practicing artists (which would also be a flawed approach for aforementioned reasons). Some genres can be extremely small (e.g. Old Skool Rap, Gothic Rock, Grunge, Musique Concrète) yet form an important link and source of inspiration for other genres. Other genres can be huge, yet their offshoots or subgenres vary too little to become a separately mentioned genre (e.g. Disco, Singer/Songwriter, Death Metal, Psytrance).

The name for a genre is often coined by a music journalist as an attempt to summarize underlying currents in past events, sometimes many years after the date of origin when the boundaries of the common denominator characteristics have finally become clear. The urge to do so in a concentrative manner (a noun or genre name) can lead to unfortunate results, i.e. something “new” or “progressive” in the eighties can hardly sustain this feat in present times. In other occasions, artists themselves come up with a name to describe their style, often compared to already existing genres. Another possible origin is by mixing records from two different genres, either consecutively or simultaneously. When the crowd starts to welcome these mixes, new records get made to approximate this combination and a new genre becomes born. More often than not, genre names are poorly chosen and reveal little information about the true nature of the genre. There is however no debate about which genre is which: once denounced, the genre name stays infinitely.

Because of the large focus on retrospective analysis, it is important to take all music genres from 2010 until now with a grain of salt, because their definitions are still forming. The ink is still wet; there is no telling where it might run.

Musicmap does not display any end time of music genres, only the (approximate) year of origin. A music genre after all, cannot die. It is never impossible to recreate a specific genre, even though the sociologic circumstances have been changed. Sometimes a return to one particular genre of the past happens on a larger scale, with updated equipment, sound and small alterations: a revival. Revivals form a big part of popular music in the last two decades, marking a possible saturation point of styles, and the perfect starting point for a summary of popular music genres thus far.

Last but not least; genres can never succeed in describing music correctly. Just like any language is inadequate to express emotions, so are genres imperfect tools to describe music. Yet, they are still far better than nothing, and very useful when mastered.