JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Music Awards Discussion How do we define the Genres?

Hi Folks,

One of the most common questions we get is how we define the various genres in the music awards. Keep in mind that we can only speak for our own logic. Genres and what defines them is one of the biggest mysteries in the music industry. That is why you can see the same song get airplay (or even award nominations) in multiple genres in a lot of charts and awards programs.

The answer for us is that we let the music decide what genre it is. How does this work? Glad you asked:

First we screen music simple based on what moves us, regardless of style/genre/type. We continue to whittle away at the giant block of music until the forms start to surface like a sculpture.

This year, once we get down to the top 3000 songs or so, we started putting them together with songs that had a similar vibe, content and feel. In some genres, this is easy. Like Childrens, Novelty etc.. in others, it is VERY tricky and someone could EASILY place the same song in several genres based on several criterias and their own tastes and opinions.

Once we have songs groups with similar songs by other artists/writers, we whittle them down even more compared to each other. Even at this stage, songs get switched to other genres as we go.

Once we are down to a manageable number of songs (this year the magic number was about 1000 songs or so), we start to lock down genres. Some genres are pretty obvious to most listeners, some are baffling. Here is a rough description of how we defined the genres this year. Remember, this can shift year to year based on the music we receive.

Alternative: Very Edgy lyrical content, moderately edgy music production but not HARD Rock edged. Think edgy Alanis or Concrete Blonde. Too edgy for Pop, not musically edgy enough for Hard Rock (though a couple songs could fit there). Ironically, this year 18 of the 20 nominees are women. I've renamed this the Estrogen Genre this year. = )

Modern Rock: This is the quirky Genre. They Might Be Giants and the Cure would likely both find a home here. Anything that doesn't fit Alternative, College Rock, Rock, or Pop but has something in common with most of those genres is likely to end up here) Often there is an ethereal/surreal quality about the music or lyrics. We also noticed some Brit Pop type songs migrated here.

College Rock: This is the most commercial Pop/Rock collection of music this year. Think Matchbox 20 or Creed. Mostly (but not exclusively) a full band sound.

Pop: This is where you'd find mainstream Sheryl Crowe's Soak Up The Sun. There's some diversity here, but it's mostly upbeat in lyric or music content, or lamenting love songs with pop production.

Hard Rock: This is more edgy guitar based music with more testorone influenced lyrics. Kind of the male version of the Alt. Genre this year. It walks the line a bit between Classic Rock and Hair Band Rock.

Metal: This is very agressive Guitar oriented rock with agressive vocals as well as music. Lots of maximum RAW/Screaming vocal stuff. Intense.

Industrial: This is yet another degree beyond Metal, often using Keyboard/Samples heavily. You'll find a lot of NIN influence here.

Dance: A variety of styles with Dance beats at the foundation. Most of these songs would make great pop songs without the Dance Beat.

Electronica: Very programmed/engineered music and Electro Pop vocals in nature. A lot of affected vocals or synth/sequenced music tracks. A very creative genre for sure. Many similarities to the Dance music but generally without a driving dance beat throughout.

Rap: All things Rap and Hip Hop related. We did pick some hybrid Rock/Rap songs as well.

R&B: Both traditional and Pop R&B styles are included in this year's nominations.

Ehtnic: This is for both non-English language and ethnic/cutural styles from Surf Music, Cajun, Indian, African, Australian styles to Japanese, Amermenian French etc.. language songs. It's a very diverse and interesting collection.

Novelty: All comedy, parody and humorous songs and performances.

Cabaret: Songs with a theatrical/broadway/performance art feel. Some of the most interesting lyric/melody writing is found here. Very quirky for the most part. (In a good way).

Spoken Word: Mostly spoken word with backing music/sounds. A few have some lines that are sung, but the vibe is consistent throughout these songs as spoken performance rather than songs. Think Beat Poet.

Traditional Folk: This is mostly acoustic guitar focused story songs. Usually lighter on production and heavier on vocal and story telling.

New Folk: This is very similar to Singer/Songwriter but has a definite folk influence with much more production and a much more contemporary subject matter than most of the Traditional Folk Songs.

Roots: This is sort of our version of Oh Bother Where Art Thou. Lot of Appalachian influences.

Americana: This is that in between spot for Rock, Folk and Country. Usually some rock guitar and some twang.

Country: This is pretty diverse from Old Time Country to new Pop Country. One of the more diverse collections that touches on most directions of Country music today.

Blues: Pretty much what you'd expect with as much diversity within the Blues structure as we could find. We tried to avoid too many straight ahead predictable blues jams this year, but we think we got some of all of it here.

Contemporary Christian: This is a very diverse genre musically, but most of the songs themselves are contemporary lyric styles with a Christian or upbeat spiritual theme. Everything from College Rock to Folk to Country to Pop is mixed in here.

Gospel: This is mostly Church Choir or R&B traditional Religious music. Often Gospel & Praise lyrics. Music you might hear on a given Sunday in Church. Emphasis is more often on vocal performances than music production.

Classical: This is where you'll find actual Classical performances of the Masters or new writing of Classical styled music.

Theatrical/Opera: Both of these genres are what you'd expect for the most part.

Instrumental: All styles except Jazz, Celtic can be found here. Movie soundtracks, trios and jams, orchestral etc.

Inst. Jazz: Jazz influenced instrumentals.

Vocal Jazz: Jazz with vocal performances.

Male and Female Singer Songwriter: This is a catch all for some of the brilliant Singer-Songwriters (male and female) that entered. Normally these artists have their own sound and style that is unique to them.

Celtic: All things Ireland and Celtic.

Contemporary: Mostly ballad songs with a light rock/pop production. Very competitive genre!

Solo Instrumental: Songs without vocals focused on a particular instrument performance.

Reggae: All things Reggae and island influenced.

Tribute: This is a 1 time 1 year genre for the best songs we got, mostly in tribute to the 9-11 tragedies (but not entirely).

Cover: This is a selection of some of our favorite new renditions of previous hit songs. In two cases, the original artists who wrote/released the hits got nominated for new versions!

I think I got all the genres. (Did it from memory). As you can see, songs could easily be in several different genres. We bounced songs around ourselves while trying to get to the final songs. And there's no question some genres were much harder than others to rise to the top in. But we are really happy to bring positive attention to as many of them as we could.

Thanks to everyone who has entered and participated.

Brian

Hi Brian,
I know you are realy busy, but as I was reading your catagories, I couldn't help but wonder......

My brother and I have been creating music that we felt was folk. I guess because they are usually story songs, with acustic guitar, mado, sometimes a wind instrument, backing strings and not much percusion. But most folks keep telling us it is celtic. As of late we have been studying traditional Irish works, and decided that sence folks were already labeling us as celtic, we would make it decisivly an American sound. Basically what I mean by that is, take what we have already been doing, and move a bit closer to the traditional Irish feel that we have been studying, without crossing into traditional Irish styles. UM,, I guess basically give it more of an Irish type of count without loosing our core style. Confused yet?
Anyway, our first works toward this goal are instrumentals, which would fall into the instumental catagory. But sooner or later we will be going into songs with story lyrics (to me makes them folk). Would songs like this fall into celtic, or folk. I know without actually listening to them, a definative answer may be difficult, but I was wondering what your gut thought on this would be. Also (if you can figgure out what the heck kind of music I'm trying to describe) if you have ran across any of it in the thousands of songs you guys have been laboring over. I'd prefer not to know any names of bands or musicans doing this. I don't want to listen to any of them, so I (we) can keep a clear and unspoiled vision of what we're up to. Just courious, thats all.

Well, keep in mind that a purist might strongly disagree with my opinion... but here it goes..

The difference between a traditional folk song and a celtic song is instrumentation. Use of a Penny Whistle and Fiddle playing a Irish Jig versus a dust bowl acoustic guitar and vocal certainly would set the two apart. Celtic to me is the instrumentation, the vocal accent can also contribute to authenticity (though a couple of our Celtic nominees this year have American accents), and lyric content can also swing it a bit. But in the end, instrumentation is the key.

At least that is my opinion... = )

Brian

I realized I left out:

Rock: This is a major catch all for rock songs that don't fit elsewhere and includes sub-genres like Ska mixed with Southern Rock, Classic Rock (i.e. the 70's style rock), edgy Singer/Songwriter songs, a bluesy feel without being blues and a couple other unusual songs that were rock but didn't sound like any other genre collection.

I think that is all of them... We also have Live, Compilation, Lyrics and a whole bunch of Founders Awards bringing the total Album, Song and Founders Awards to nearly 100!

Brian