The problem with using genres in the metal industry

I have walked the foodcourts of metal for more than twenty years and I have tasted most genres out there. Some are so delicious they ended up becoming my go-to genre at any time, some were good for special occasions, while others were simply not my cup of tea and ended up in my proverbial dumpster.

The more I got to know a genre, the more I found myself wondering whether this band or that band should actually be classified into the said genre. Before I knew it, I started to ponder the whole practice of using genres. I realized at the end that there are at least three problems with using genres for metal bands, which I will explain in more detail here.

Why do we use genres, to begin with?

Before we do that, however, let’s all agree that using genres is a very human thing to do. We categorize every single aspect of our lives. That is how we process the world. Wouldn’t it be weird if all of a sudden we find bananas in the soda aisle at the supermarket?

So too with music. Metal is metal because it is not pop or dubstep. Blues is not jazz just as jazz is not chamber music. A piano belongs to the string family, while a xylophone is a sibling of the drum set. If any of this would be different, we would need to reset our brains.

Psychologically speaking, using genres is a normal thing to do. It is important we can classify bands in a genre that is defined by certain characteristics because it allows us to make sense of the music world. Of our world.

Metal is a musical movement spanning decades. However, within that movement, we made it into a literal sport to create a complex web of classifications to bring structure to a genre of extremes.

And that is where problems start.

3 problems with using genres in the metal industry

1/ Genres only work as long as the band classified as such keeps coloring within the lines that define that genre.

Take Whitechapel, for example. They were at the forefront of the relatively young deathcore genre. For years they successfully pushed out chest-pounding breakdowns, deliciously demonic gutturals, fast-paced riffs, and low-tuned guitar noise. For years, they were a clearly defined deathcore band…until they weren’t. In 2019, Whitechapel released The Valley. If anything, this album is marked by a massive twist – three out of the ten songs featured on the album showcased singer Phil Bozeman’s beautiful clean vocals.

Clean, you said? Yes, clean singing on a deathcore album. The album got high marks from the professionals (and rightfully so!). The deathcore community, however, was divided, to say the least.

In October 2021, Whitechapel released their most recent album, Kin. The album was filled with a masterly mix of classic deathcore, slow-paced songs, progressive elements, and…clean singing. Again, the community was divided. Many hailed this new path the band is on. Many others dropped the band because…this wasn’t the deathcore they signed up for.

But, how would you call it what Whitechapel produces these days? Progressive deathcore? Death metal? Progressive metal? Groove metal?

Do you see what is happening? As soon as Whitechapel decided to color outside of the lines of traditional deathcore, the genre they were associated with for years stopped working and people got confused.

2/ Genres promote elitism among fans

Metal fans have the tendency to be extremely loyal to a certain genre.

As a power metal fan, you may taste the forbidden fruits of extreme metal but at the end of the day you will still don your Helloween t-shirt and sing along to the catchy choruses of Powerwolf. Once a power metal fan, always a power metal fan. Death metal fans, on the other hand, often feel that anything that does not involve gutturals and gore is not real metal. Black metal fans go to extremes to show their loyalty to “the scene”, while Heavy metal fans have a thing for leather and studs.

However, it feels to me that the more extreme the music, the more extreme the feeling among fans of owning the genre.

Now, something called elitism comes into play.

Elitism is when fans feel they are the gatekeepers of a certain genre. They decide what goes and what not within the confines of the community. Bands are supposed to follow in line and do what these fans feel is best for the genre.

This is poisonous as hell if you ask me.

Point in case – Lorna Shore.

In October 2021, it was announced that Lorna Shore, a band well on their way to becoming deathcore legends, would drop out of a European tour with other deathcore mainstays Carnifex and Chelsea Grin. Instead, they would hop on the tour bus and join mainstream metalcore bands Bring Me The Horizon and A Day To Remember for a full-on stadium tour.

The deathcore community went bananas.

I read comments of fans calling Lorna Shore “sell-outs”, “traitors to the genre” and “choosing money over fans”.

To me, reading these comments, it felt as if these fans did not care that their favorite band would get an opportunity of a lifetime to show their worth in front of a stadium full of people; to get their music out there for all to see; to break through these enormous walls metal genres have thrown up for themselves; to achieve greater success and recognition beyond the deathcore scene.

As YouTube reactioner TankTheTech aptly explained in his rant against these elitists, Lorna Shore will for sure not get rich off this tour. In fact, they are lucky if they would break even!

This was never about money. This is about recognition. And any fan should appreciate and support that.

To wrap this up, loyalty towards a genre is good and necessary. Loyalty defines us as metal fans. However, it should never, ever stop a band from pursuing greater recognition, if given the chance. No band deserves the backlash Lorna Shore got in October 2021 for trying to be successful in an industry as suffocating as the music industry.

3/ If it doesn’t fit the genre, let’s create a subgenre instead!

Because the definition of a genre is pretty rigid and not particularly forgiving towards the evolution of bands, the metal world invented something to make sure we never lose our ability to categorize everything in the industry: all hail the subgenres! And man are we good at that!

What do you call a death metal band that likes a bit of rock and roll? Death ’n’ roll of course.

“Ok, but what if I secretly really love sea shanties, surely there is nothing out there for me?” No worries, we got you covered with pirate metal.

Do you like your metal blended with some hardcore punk? Go with metalcore. Not enough melody? Try melodic metalcore. Too soft? Deathcore. Not complex enough? Mathcore. Oh, you like a few synths, do you? Electronicore. What? Did you grow up in the nineties? Bloody Nu metalcore.

Oh and on your way out, please don’t forget to check out the section with grindcore, deathgrind, goregrind, electrogrind, and…pornogrind…because, well, why wouldn’t you?

The list goes on and on.

I get it. We like to have a system in our lives. Heavens forbid if we heard a power metal band using gutturals and we wouldn’t be able to slap a label on it. Powercore, anyone?

The point is that all these subgenres kind of defeat the point of the whole genre system. If we keep creating a subgenre whenever a few bands paint outside the lines of the “mother” genre, it will all end up becoming one major blend of everything, and the organization we are looking for will descent into utter chaos. Genres become pointless and we will all feel lost.

Thank the metal gods we still have our fallback in case it all goes bottom’s up.

Because at the end of the day, regardless of the subgenre a band is part of, every single band can at least be classified as one thing: being “metal”.