Music's New Mating Ritual
August 18, 2007; Page P1
Indie Hindi, socaton, skurban. You may feel like you need a dictionary the next time you go shopping for music.
The music world is getting thick with hybrids, or cryptically named blends of established styles. Indie Hindi, for example, is traditional Indian vocals tinged with edgy American-style rock. Socaton is dance music that has elements of rap, calypso and reggae. The number of genres is up more than 40% over the past four years, by one measure -- Gracenote, which maintains the music-classification system used by major sites like Yahoo and iTunes, now recognizes more than 1,800 genres. It recently added "hyphy," a jittery form of hip-hop from the San Francisco area.
Defying standard genres has traditionally been a risky move for bands in part because it's difficult for retailers to figure out where to place them on the shelves. But increasingly, fans are finding music in less conventional ways -- like perusing strangers' online playlists, or following a trail of links on MySpace -- paving the way for bands to define themselves in more exotic ways. Bands are also keenly aware of the recent commercial success of blended genres like reggaeton, a Jamaican-Latin-rap mix, and popera, radio-friendly songs done with operatic vocals.
Even some genres that don't hit commercial high notes are finding followings. Take "nerdcore hip-hop," rap music that revolves around geeky subjects like videogames and J.R.R. Tolkien books. The father of the movement, Damian Hess, performs often around the country and says he makes a comfortable living selling his albums and merchandise. But nerdcore hasn't registered with mainstream listeners. Fans of the genre have fallen short in a petition drive to get MySpace to add nerdcore to its list of 127 genres.
Mr. Hess, who goes by "MC Frontalot," is hardly discouraged. "Top of the esoteric fringe is really the ideal place," says Mr. Hess, who sports a short-sleeve shirt and necktie on stage. See Mr. Hess's Web site.
Jazz singer Jacqui Naylor decided to try something different after getting one too many requests for "My Funny Valentine" during a tour of Japan in 2001. Her arranger and piano player Art Khu came to her with a translation of AC/DC's hard-rock anthem "Back in Black" as an instrumental vamp. Into that, Ms. Naylor wove the familiar melody to "My Funny Valentine."
The process, which Ms. Naylor calls "acoustic smashing," marked a turning point in her career. Her first two albums of straight-ahead jazz didn't get much notice outside jazz circles. But her most recent albums, including "The Color Five," have gotten play on some rock stations. Her next album: "Smashed for the Holidays," which includes a fusion of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama."
This is, of course, not the first time musicians have blended styles to create genres (that's how rock 'n' roll came about), but the number of sub-niches has been growing at a remarkable clip. It's being fueled by the migration of music online and a "mashup" culture that has spawned everything from spoof movie trailers to fan-made music videos. At dance clubs this summer, DJs are spinning "baile funk," a dance-rock fusion from Brazil. Recently at No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart was the crossover hit "Party Like a Rockstar," a rap-mashed-with-distorted-guitar number by the "hood rock" group Shop Boyz.
Meanwhile, Falguni Shah, a classically trained Indian vocalist who records under the name Falu, uses the term "indie Hindi" to describe her New York band's sound. (Her producer coined the term.)
While everyone from the bands to bloggers to fans come up with the names for new genres, ultimately it falls to music-cataloging companies like Gracenote and All Media Guide to decide whether to acknowledge them for posterity.
Gracenote, in Emeryville, Calif., supplies the information that pops up when you put a CD in the computer, like the title, artist and genre.
About 40 music analysts, including some working in Japan, Russia and other countries, use an internal Web site to nominate genres. They make their case by citing important bands and media mentions. A small group of editors makes the final call. Not all the genres are new -- among some 30 currently on the table are several subcategories of folk music, including "prison songs" and "hokum," a blues style marked by comedic patter.
While the editors agreed to add "hyphy," the San Francisco rap sound, "snap music," which has inspired dance crazes in the South, was deemed a passing fad. Meanwhile, some newer music-recommendation services like Pandora and iLike are moving in the other direction and doing away with genre labels altogether.
Marketers smell an opportunity in the proliferation of genres. Klee Irwin, a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur whose main business is selling vitamins via infomercials he hosts, has launched a group of rapping skateboarders called Board Bangers. His idea draws on the growing number of black skaters, a culture merge referred to as "skurban." His hope is to sell Board Bangers music and merchandise to suburban white kids. See Board Bangers' Web site.
Mr. Irwin says he spent $150,000 building a recording studio, and more than $1 million on 19 music videos to promote the group's debut, including an upcoming album release. He had to audition over a hundred teenagers to find his crew. "Every time we found cool, aggressive street skaters, they couldn't rap very well," he says.
Anupamaa
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
