When I started this blog I thought it was important to tag each post with the musical genre of the song being featured.
Occasionally, a song would come up that would be difficult to classify; sometimes a song would be out-of-charater for the musician singing it, for example. What then? Tag the post with the genre of the song specifically? Or the style that the artist is more commonly known for? Or both?
I started to suspect that tagging posts with genres was not important. Still, it might be useful. Readers might want to explore similar tracks, right?
I guess the problem with musical genres is that they are not discrete categories. A hip hop song might get remixed and classified as techno. A pop song with a banjo might wander towards the country genre. Genres are more of a spectrum. Except that a spectrum usually operates along a single line…so it’s more like a double spectrum with both an X and Y axis. Try too hard to map all the genres and you end up with colour-coded madness.
Some genres are so dead set on their own definitions that they end up drawing arbitrary (and often self-contradictory) lines around themselves. Take country music for example. The de facto gatekeeper of all things Country is the Country Music Association (CMA). This organization proudly declares on its website that it has a “commitment to inclusivity” – yet this is an organization that decided “Old Town Road” was not a country song, that the Chicks (formerly known as The Dixie Chicks) were no longer allowed in the club, and that seems to just have a problem with women generally.
Kacey Musgraves knows all about this: despite winning seven CMAs, including one for the album that this song comes from, the CMA has deemd her new album too pop-like to be eligible for an award…even though one of the songs on that album is eligible on its own.
I guess it’s time to admit it: tagging posts by genre isn’t important, and it’s barely even useful. But at least it’s interesting.
So I’m still going to tag this song as “country.” But if you’ve decided that musical genres are bogus, you’re probably right, and more power to you. You get to enjoy this track without worrying about how to classify it.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The vocal melody is as catchy and pop-ish as can be, but her enunciation and tonal quality really channels country stars from decades past.
2. The lyric “Texas is hot / I can be cold” is a great way to summarize the tension between Musgraves’ creative ambitions and the restrictive limits of “country music.” And she sings it as a banjo plays in the background.
3. The bass is pretty invisible for most of the song, but at 2:27 during the bridge it really goes its own way, as if tired of being limited to the root note of each chord.
Recommended listening activity:
Filling a sticky note with labels you’ve been given all your life, and then burning it.