re: What is the best genre of music?

Danman: you should watch American Hardcore. Sometimes when I'm trying to "learn" a genre, it helps me to supplement my listening with some viewing. Whether it's a show, a documentary, watching youtube videos, or reading interviews/commentary; I often don't "get" a genre just by listening to it. I need some kind of other hook.

I think it's cool as hell that you're trying to explore other genres. That's one of my pet projects with music. I try to delve into various genres and find out what makes them click. Why do people like them? Some answers are obvious (like with pop country), but others are really intriguing and require a lot of exploration. I always want to find the redeeming qualities in a genre and figure out why people are attracted to them.

One of the biggest projects I undertook was metal. So many people I knew loved metal and talked about it in really sophisticated and intelligent ways. Yet, I just couldn't stand the stuff. I finally sat down with 2 or 3 guys (okay, not sat down, but talked virtually) and had an honest conversation about the kind of music that appealed to me and got their recommendations for some bands to start sampling. They turned me on to Sigh, Agalloch, Baroness, Kvelertak and some others. Three years later, and metal is now one of my favorite genres (though I pretty much go toward doom and down tempo heavy stuff).

Anyway, I think it's cool to not be dismissive of any genre (even if it's freaking K-pop) and think, "Hey. There are people out there who are more intelligent and know more about music than me who like this music. So why do they?" when approaching genres.

It's really similar to listening to jambands or focusing in on a specific band. There's a threshold of non-appreciation where it just sounds weird and like noise (think of this video for non phish head LINK on what Phish sounds like to them).

After a little listening and getting past that threshold, you start to be able to see a different side of the music. I'll play some Doom shite for my wife and she's like, "WTF? How can you listen to this. It's horrifying!" And I'm all like, "That's really pretty, I think."


Oh. And if you work out: throw in some Baroness or Kvelertak, and watch your performance soar.

I've been listening to metal for almost 25 years now and I still like watching documentaries and interviews of bands talking about their influences. There has been some really good ones the last few years.

For the psychedelic rock guys. Are you listening to stuff like CAN and GOAT and Amon Duul, or are you talking tamer, more mainstream stuff?

I wasn't a mod or a rocker

I was a mocker

Blues rock

Combines the two best forms of music, blues and rock

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My top three: 1. prog rock 2. post-punk 3. early 90's hip hop

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Youve been living in Baton Rouge too long

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The greatest genre of music is early jazz because that is when american music first started to take shape.

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I wrote a paper in college for a Folk and Popular Music class that argued for the Grateful Dead as the greatest American Band because they represented the culmination of the various musical traditions: folk, country, rock and roll, and the improvisation of jazz. I borrowed pretty heavily from Mystery Train by Greil Marcus in which he has a similar analysis of The Band (who can't be the greatest freaking American band because they're Canadian for the most part, damnit).

This was pre-internet (well, pre-web... I was on rec.music.gdead and other usenet groups), and my professor, who was only passingly familiar with the Grateful Dead, was astounded as I included sections of the Deadbase that show the covers the Dead had done as an appendix for the paper. He called me into his office and asked me to bring the Deadbase and borrowed it for a while to look it over. He couldn't believe that people were so fanatical about a band and put that much effort into tracking them.

An original/experimental singer-songwriter that can pull off many genres.

Beatles
Tom Waits
Paul Simon
Ryan Adams
Etc.