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A microgenre is a specialized or niche genre. Historically, they were designed by writers seeking to coin a new style of music by linking together a group of disparate artists. Additionally, genres are sometimes retroactively created by record dealers and collectors as a way to increase the monetary value of certain records. Some of the earliest examples are Northern soul, freakbeat, garage punk, and sunshine pop.

By the early 2010s, most microgenres would be linked and defined through various outlets on the Internet, usually as part of generating popularity and hype for a newly perceived trend. Examples of these include chillwave, witch house, seapunk, shitgaze, vaporwave, and cloud rap.

1970s–1990s

Microgenres are usually designed by writers seeking to coin a new style of music by linking together a group of disparate artists.^[1] For example, when Lenny Kaye invoked the phrase "garage-punk" in liner notes for the 1971 compilation Nuggets, it effectively created a style of rock music that, until then, was nameless and lingering in obscurity.^[2] The process of recognition for "power pop" was similarly formulated by a circle of rock writers who advocated their own annotated history of the genre.^[3] Music journalist Simon Reynolds referenced the "genre-as-retroactive-fiction" to as early as "Northern soul" and "garage punk", both coined in the early 1970s, and later followed by "freakbeat" and "sunshine pop". These kinds of genres are also sometimes designed by record dealers and collectors to increase the monetary value of the original records.^[4]

Successful attempts that resulted in widespread usage include "post-rock" (Reynolds) and "hauntology" (Mark Fisher).^[1] In the mid 1990s, Melody Maker journalists went so far as to make up fictional bands to justify the existence of an updated New Romantic scene they dubbed "Romantic Modernism". That same decade, there was a trend of electronic and dance music producers who created specialized descriptions of their music as a way to assert their individuality. In the instance of trance music, this desire led to "progressive trance", "Goa trance", "deep psytrance", and "hard trance".^[1]House, drum-n-bass, dubstep and techno also contain a large number of microgenres.^[5]

21st-century

The 21st-century "microgenre explosion" was partly a consequence of "software advances, faster internet connections, and the globalized proliferation of music".^[6] By the early 2010s, most microgenres would be linked and defined through various outlets on the Internet. Examples of these include chillwave, witch house, seapunk, shitgaze, vaporwave, and cloud rap. Each of them, according to Vice writer Ezra Marcus, were "music scenes [created] out of thin air".^[7]Pitchfork's Jonny Coleman commented: "The line between a real genre that sounds fake and a fake genre that could be real is as thin as ever, if existent at all. This is the uncanny genre valley that publicists-cum-neologicians live in and for."^[8]PopMatters' Thomas Britt argued that the "staggering number of niches created by writers and commenters to 'distinguish' musical acts is ultimately binding. If a band plays along and tailors itself to a category, then its fortunes are likely tied to the shelf life of that category."^[9]

In 2010, The Atlantic's Llewellyn Hinkes Johns referenced the succession of chillwave, glo-fi, and hypnagogic pop as a "prime example" of a cycle involving the invention of a new category that is quickly and "brazenly denounced, sometimes in the same article".^[10] Chillwave—termed sarcastically in a 2009 blog post^[11]—was one of the first music genres to formulate online.^[12] The term did not gain mainstream currency until early 2010, when it was the subject of articles by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.^[13]Grantland's Dave Schilling describes the label's designation as a pivotal moment that "revealed how arbitrary and meaningless labels like that really are. It wasn't a scene. It was a parody of a scene, both a defining moment for the music blogosphere and the last gasp."^[14]

List of microgenres

See also

Lists of sub-subgenres

• Heavy metal genres


• Industrial music genres


• Punk rock genres

References

Further reading

Look up microgenre in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• 
  Britton, Luke Morgan (September 26, 2016). "Music Genres Are A Joke That You're Not In On". Vice.