The Ill Opinion #1: Genre Bender

For years, the use of genres has been considered a necessity to organize different musical acts and albums for shelf spacing and purchasing at the stores.You could consider it to be a commercial innovation, something that caught fire with others and stayed around in music for years, an unquestionable part of the game, much like chords and the general structure of an average pop song.

For better or worse, genres have been an institution. However, a gradual effort to break the walls down and mix other genres with each other has slowly caught steam in the modern scene of music and what was considered an act of insanity bound for failure, is now seen as normal.



More and more songs on the radio are integrating elements of other genres, taking sprinkles of various types of music and making them a part of their songs. Guitars, once considered mutually exclusive to rock music, now pop up frequently in hip-hop/r&b songs as part of the instrumentals and the live show as well. Electronic influences, like synthesizers are also making themselves known more and more known in rock music as well.

Credit it to the mashups/DJ culture that has taken the music scene by storm over the past year, but one can say the barriers of what can and can't be done in music has officially ceased to exist. The possibilities of what we can see and hear is now more and more open.

It's refreshing, especially for those who have lived in years where genre collisions were seen as "selling out". Now, it's seen as " the evolution of the sound".

However, in acknowledging the advancement, we have to look at the risk-takers, the people who endured the initial backlash of being daring....

Mike Patton

I would obviously say that he's the grandfather of the genre bender, for his work in both Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. He just doesn't care about what he does, he just does it.

Blondie-Rapture

Let's give them credit, the idea to integrate rap into the genre-bender of a song was viewed as risky, but it paid off in a hit on radio and fondly remembered track.

RUN-DMC x Aerosmith-Walk This Way 

Aerosmith fans can thank 2 MC's and a DJ from Hollis, Queens for saving the band from drug-induced destruction and for what's it worth, it's a great mashup, taking two styles and slamming them together into 1 cohesive track. A true blue stroke of genius.

Jay-Z/Linkin Park- Collision Course

 

For a "retirement", Jay-Z sure did a lot of things during 2003-2006. Collabs, remix verses, running a label....but this was a great idea, and the band going back into the studio to redo parts of this to make it more of a full-fledged project was cool, and on the charts, it worked wonders.

Travis Barker

I will be 100% and say that in the early 2000's, I was not a fan of Blink-182 (and I'm still not). However, Travis Barker gets my respect, because he actually gets it. He gets what makes rock, what makes hip-hop and does his best to respect the differences.

Deftones- Lucky You

What can be considered a huge left turn for a band that is as risky as you can imagine, Lucky You oozed with '80s ballad atmosphere and the band (or in this case, Chino and DJ Crook) did something so unique with a song that feels more at home in the 80s, than a nu-metal album in 2003.

Buck 65- Blood Part 2

Try wrapping your head around this, a cover of a song remixed to a spoken word/rap fusion combo. It's a great idea and I feel that for music, it's important to see/hear songs like this, that want to take risks.

So in closing, I want to believe that music today will be open, that the war of elitism and ego will give way to openness and more experimentation. At least, I would hope.

And that was....the Ill Opinion. Stay gold.