Labels. These
can be applied to various items throughout our society. Whether it is labeling
the popular crowd at school, or the trendiest way to dress, we, as a society,
categorize nearly everything with labels. More specifically, under this broad
term, genres can be applied to such forms of media (i.e. movies, TV, music,
among other forms).
Think of your
favorite artist. Let’s say that the first singer that pops into your head is Ed
Sheeran. How would you classify his genre of music? According to iTunes and
Amazon, his music is a mix of folk, acoustic, hip-hop, grime, and pop. For one
single artist, how can his music encompass such a variation of genres?
When you first
begin to give your answer to which genre you think a specific artist fits into,
the idea may seem to be simple. Then, once you begin to ponder on what
particular genre the music actually is, you are stumped. The way the rhythm is
could fit into pop, but the style of instruments used can describe it as folk.
Suddenly, depicting a single genre becomes difficult.
Take Sheeran’s
song ‘U.N.I.’. This song relies heavily on acoustic guitar, and a hip-hop
delivery of the vocals. The lyrics focus on the harsh realities of relationships.
Contrastingly,
in Sheeran’s song ‘The City’, the use of beat boxing paired with unusual
musical arrangements offer a different sound to the album, when compared to
‘U.N.I.’.
To compare a
third and final song, Ed Sheeran collaborates with the artist Yelawolf on an EP
to offer music that is much more aggressive, and can be classified to be a rap genre. This strays away from Sheeran’s original indie, easy-listening folk
music that many people know and love.
The same applies to other forms of media. In Film, different
genres attract different crowds to theaters. Many men prefer action movies,
while women prefer romance and dramas. A large part of how we perceive types of media to be a specific genre is how the media defines them. For instance, when a team is marketing a movie to an audience, if the movie expected is to be an action film, then the way that the advertisements are made are to market the film as a jam-packed 2 hours full of action. The Avengers is a movie that can be classified under the genre of action. The look of the movie posters prove to promise an action packed film, full of gripping characters and suspense.
Similarly, The Notebook is a movie that can be described to be the genre of romance. The route that the artists took while designing posters focus on a relationship between two young people, promising a story of love and hardship.
It seems almost to be overwhelming at the abundance of ways different forms of media can be classified into simple genres. Gone are the days where a song was simply country, or folk, or jazz. No longer can a TV show be simply described as a comedy, or simply a western. As society becomes more complex with technology and growth, so does the way a form of media can be described.
