Amicrogenre is a specialized or nichegenre,[1] often used to describe narrowly defined subcategories within music, literature, film, or art.[2] The term has been in use since at least the 1970s, particularly in the context of music, where it refers to specific stylistic offshoots of prominent genres, such as the many sub-subgenres ofheavy metal andelectronic music.[3]
Originally, microgenres were labels retroactively applied by record collectors and dealers, often to increase the perceived value of rare or obscure recordings. Early examples includeNorthern soul,freakbeat,garage punk, andsunshine pop.
By the late 2000s and early 2010s, the creation and dissemination of microgenres had become increasingly associated withinternet culture, where online platforms facilitated their rapid emergence, which was often tied tointernet aesthetics and onlinetrends.[4] Notable internet-based microgenres includechillwave,witch house,seapunk,shitgaze,dreampunk, andvaporwave.
The term "microgenre" was originally coined in a 1975 French article abouthistorical fiction, alongside "macrogenre".The author defined microgenres as "a narrowly defined group of texts connected in time and space", whereas macrogenres are "more diffuse and harder to generalize about."[5] Further discussion of the microgenre concept appeared in various critical works of 1980s and 1990s.[3]
Historically, musical microgenres were usually labelled by writers seeking to define a new style by linking together a group of seemingly disparate artists.[6] The process of recognition for "garage rock" and "power pop" was similarly formulated by a circle of rock writers who advocated their own annotated history of the genre.[7] Music journalistSimon Reynolds has suggested that early examples of "genre-as-retroactive-fiction" include "Northern soul" and "garage punk",[8][9] both of which were coined in the early 1970s, but did not become widespread until years after the fact. These genres were later followed by "freakbeat" coined byPhil Smee in the 1980s, as well as "sunshine pop" which was coined in the 1990s.[10]
According to Reynolds, such "semi-invented" genres were sometimes pushed by record dealers and collectors to increase the monetary value of the original records.[11] In the early 1980s,Robert Christgau coined the term "pigfuck" to describe the music ofSonic Youth, the term later took a life of its own to denote a specific style ofnoise rock music.[12][13]
Successful attempts that resulted in widespread usage include "post-rock" (Reynolds) and "hauntology" (Mark Fisher).[6] In the mid 1990s,Melody Maker journalists went so far as to make up fictional bands to justify the existence of an updatedNew Romantic scene they dubbed "Romantic Modernism". That same decade, there was a trend ofelectronic anddance music producers who created specialized descriptions of their music as a way to assert their individuality. In the instance oftrance music, this desire led toprogressive trance,Goa trance,deep psytrance, andhard trance.[6]House,drum-n-bass,dubstep andtechno also contain a large number of microgenres.[14]
In the early 2000s, the concept of microgenres gained prominence during thedigital age, proliferating through the earlyblogosphere,[15] and despite its earlier history, is more often associated with these later trends.[16] The speed at which microgenres achieve recognition and familiarity also accelerated substantially.[17] This 21st-century "microgenre explosion" was partly a consequence of "software advances, faster internet connections, and the globalized proliferation of music."[18]
In 2009, a writer for theNew York Times observed thatindie rock was then evolving into "an ever-expanding, incomprehensibly cluttered taxonomy of subgenres."[19] By the early 2010s, most microgenres were linked and defined through various outlets on the internet. Each of them, according toVice writer Ezra Marcus, were "music scenes [created] out of thin air".[4]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."[20]
Although,shitgaze,[21][22] and blog era music genres likebloghouse,[23]blog rap andblog rock[24][25] predated it, "chillwave", coined by the ironic music blogHipster Runoff around 2009 as aninternet meme[26] was one of the first music genres to develop primarily online.[27] The term did not gain mainstream currency until early 2010, when it was the subject of articles by theWall Street Journal and theNew York Times.[28] Writing in 2019, journalist Emilie Friedlander, called chillwave "the internet electronic micro-genre that launched a hundred internet electronic micro-genres (think: vaporwave, witch house, seapunk, shitgaze,distroid,hard vapor), not to mention its corollaries in this decade’sinternet rap, which largely shared its collagist, hyper-referential approach to sound."[19]
In 2013,Glenn McDonald, who originally worked at the music intelligence firmthe Echo Nest, which was later bought by music streaming companySpotify, developed genre mapping data that later became built into various Spotify features, including its "Daily Mix" and "Fans also like" recommendation functions. Additionally, he created theEvery Noise at Once website which focused on documenting and categorizing internet-based music microgenres.[29][30] In August 2019, the use of his metadata in the Spotify algorithm contributed to the curation of the influential "Hyperpop" Spotify playlist, led by Lizzie Szabo, which has been credited with the wider popularization of the movement, as McDonald had previously added the term "hyperpop" to the platform's algorithm which drew fromEvery Noise at Once, in 2018.[31][32][33]
In 2010,The Atlantic's Llewellyn Hinkes Johns referenced the succession of chillwave,glo-fi, andhypnagogic 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".[34]Grantland's Dave Schilling describes the "chillwave" 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."[35]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."[36]
The spread ofdigital publishing in the 21st century led to the rise of ever-more niche microgenres in literature – fromAmish romance toNASCAR passion.[37]
In 2020,Netflix identified 76,897 different film microgenres in its algorithms, which it had used to develop successful series likeHouse of Cards andOrange Is the New Black.[2][clarification needed]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Bibliography