"Rock" music?
 

Just to be clear, the point of this topic isn't to say "Oh man, how could you not consider Fun, rock!?" The point is to explore the meaninglessness of genres in today's world.

So, I heard people saying that Fun wasn't a "rock" band. Now, I don't agree or disagree with this statement because, to me, it doesn't matter.

To me, rock music is anything with a drum kit and a guitar, but there are tons of variations that can fit the bill. If bands wants to call themselves "rock" or "pop" or "indie" then just let them. Who the hell cares?

Honestly, do genres even matter anymore? The more time people spend trying to fit bands into genres and influencing them to coincide with genres, the more the creativity of musicians is stunted.

Thoughts?

Great response from suicidesaints:

It seems a lot of bands and songs anymore are a mixed bag of genres. I agree...who cares as long as it sounds good, but, there are a lot of music fans (especially from the 60's) that think rock songs are ruined if they get mixed in any way.

Great post.

Rock music is subjective. Does it Rock?!

Fun does not rock.

I don't care about people who want to force sub genres for the purpose of sounding like an elitest jerk, but when I ask someone what genre fun is, I would like an intelligent and well-thought answer.

Rock is anywhere from Alexisonfire to ACDC to The Black Keys in my book.

And I just don't think fun is rock.

I would not call fun. rock.

Let me ask you this:

Your ultimate question: There is this band, Band X. I want to know how their music sounds.

If you asked someone what genre Band X is in, and they said, "rock," does that really help you? Does that tell you anything about how they sound? Generally, maybe. Specifically, not really.

If you asked someone how Band X sounded, and they say "Oh they sound a bit like Band Y, and a little like Band Z. They have an acoustic foundation with piano and even some electric guitar, with catchy melodies," then you have a lot more detail than just a genre.

My point: Genres are becoming pointless and really don't do any band justice because they all sound different anyway. So when inquiring about Fun, you shouldn't ask for a genre.

This is exactly my point. Rock is subjective, meaning it has a different meaning to everyone. Fun isn't the topic of discussion here. You could take any band:

Band X, are they rock/do they rock?

Person 1: yes

Person 2: no

Final answer: ??

I think that's part of the reason why there's 27537626 subgenres these days. Saying fun is a rock band doesn't tell you much, but calling them an indie-power-pop-rock band (or whatever) helps to specify.

"Hey hey, my my, rock and roll can never die."

I'm primarily a metal head although I listen to just about every genre in some capacity, but the sub-genre thing has become really crazy in metal

I can't stand the labels... I understand that it sometimes helps people to identify a band's sound (ex: Have you checked out band X? No, what do they sound like? They're a groove metal band")

But like the OP said, it stunts creativity, and it limits our expectations... I know people that will simply not listen to a band because they were told that it sounded like a certain other band they don't like, or because it was described as a certain genre... music shouldn't be about genres, it should be about what sounds good, how it makes you feel, etc...

All of this.

People still care about genres?

you wouldn't think so, but it's VERY prevalent in metal... In a thread just the other day, the word "metalcore" was mentioned and everyone immediately went nuts about how bad metalcore was

Great stuff here.

That's what I've come to find out!