I stand corrected..

[Masternate2071]

Do you think I could get the same result if I moved all the religious texts to the Fiction section of my local bookstore?

HAHAHA. I actually thought of doing the same thing. Numerous times. I could help the cause by editing the bibles. "In the beginning" would become "Once upon a time."

[epp_b]

Dang, that song is going to floating in my head for a week...

[bone]

Yup, I agree on that one. Music stores are notorious for misplacing genres of music. Heck, MTV does it all the time and everyone thinks it's a reliable source so they take after them. They're the people that classify dancehall as reggaeton and trance as "euro" there's no such genre as euro, where the heck did people dig it up?

That being said, people's genre-ignorance doesn't limit at MTV, I have to constantly deal with my romanian friends who clasify house as dance and light rock as blues ... to my own frustration.

well, tbh, i have the same problem, for half the music, i have no idea what i should label it

so in my library, everything with a guitar is rock, everything made on a synthesiser is techno, and if they rap, it's hiphop

massive attack, audio bully's, radiohead, gorillaz, moby, ... you can't just put a genre on them, there are influences from everywhere, and they fit in multiple ones

[Shawn]

Well in Canada they're in the same section because they're often put under pop/rock. Can you imagine a store that had sections for like 12 different genres? Hard rock, soft rock, country, pop, rap, hip-hop, folk, R&B...

But as you say you can't really define pop music. In a sense pop music is anything that isn't classical, in another sense it's just new junk you hear on KISS FM. That's why I hate when you rip a CD and it either puts the genre as rock or pop, as if that's the only two types of music.

The Police, The Who and Queen are in the same category as Backstreet Boys.

[toma_alimosh]

well, tbh, i have the same problem, for half the music, i have no idea what i should label it

so in my library, everything with a guitar is rock, everything made on a synthesiser is techno, and if they rap, it's hiphop

Folk and country use guitars very often, in fact it's the basic formula for them. It it also sometimes is use in Hip-Hop, very popular in pop (especially electric guitars), balads ... and others, too many to count.

Synthesizers are also used in hip-hop, rock, pop and even reggae. Jazz regularly employs synthesizing organs in their repertoire, as does a lot of modern music.

As for rap, it is also used in House music quite frequently, sometimes in trance and also almost always present in Reggaeton.

So I guess you can't really separate them in categories by instruments. It will always vary, and a lot of instruments are cross-genre. The only real way of separating them would be by how they sound, although that might be a bit difficult sometimes, if you listen to music a lot you'd easilly tell hip-hop from reggae, house from trance, rock from folk, etc. You can always get them mixed up, mind you, and I would expect perfectness of anyone but myself. But honestly, if you classify Techno as Blues like my friends do, you need a lesson in music.

massive attack, audio bully's, radiohead, gorillaz, moby, ... you can't just put a genre on them, there are influences from everywhere, and they fit in multiple ones

Gorillaz = hip-hop (no, not all hip-hop artists are "from da hood", wear bandanas or braids, swear like there's no tomorrow, and have generally horible pronunciation and grammar. Gorillaz are the prime example of clean hip-hop. As for the fact that they use guitars in their songs, some of the biggest names in hip-hop have already done it.

Moby = Definitely techno, and a bit of progressive, but that can be classified as techno as well.

As for the others, never heard any of their songs, so I really wouldn't know.

In general every artist has a genre, although most of them will do a few songs out of their own genre, just to change the mood a bit. However, they won't go really far from it. For example, reockers will go for light rock or balads, techno heads will go for some house, and hip-hoppers will go for some reggaeton. But that's like going right next door, because all of those genree evolved from one another. Most likely the artists have grown listening to one genre and then once the other appears, they get really into it, but they keep the second as a favourite.