EVERY GENRE PACKAGES: Idiosyncratical (5 January 2025)

Idiosyncratical: Unexpected Fusions and Far-Flung Genres

Jan 06, 2025

Idiosyncratical: Unexpected Fusions and Far-Flung Genres

More than perhaps any other form of media, music’s fluidity and cross-language resonance allows for a great degree of experimentation, transfusion, and genre crossovers. In this continued recap of the genres I loved covering in last year’s column, we’re taking a look today at genres that stand out for the elements they’ve puzzled-pieced together.

Music teaches us to expect the unexpected, to be awed by ingenious strokes of artistic ingenuity recorded for our benefit. These genres were some of the most exciting days in seeing how musical craftsmanship was able to puzzle-piece culturally or sonically disparate elements into a single form. Some met more quickly due to geographical proximity, like Puerto Rico’s reggaetón and Dominican bachata combining into bachatón, or Indian immigrant communities forming a major part of the cultural fabric in Trinidad and resulting in chutney as their instruments were incorporated into regional sounds like calypso.

Others form in striking contrasts, the clashing of elements that immediately piques your attention like kawaii cuteness and metal intensity finding each other; two aesthetic extremities as one. Organic house flips house’s sampler and synthesizer-indebted origins on their head by producing innovative four-on-the-floor beats with organic elements, which in turn expands the boundaries of the house universe. Electrotango is an inverse, suspending traditional tango instruments in a space for them to be de- and reconstructed, manipulated, and to draw new colors from the sound with electronic techniques. Pop punk attempts to align punk cathartic aggression with the resounding spirit of pop euphoria, and if the rapid demand for the MCR reunion tour later this year tells you anything, it was a successful blend.

Some crossovers are less of a jump in musical compatibilities than aesthetic ones; gothic country redefines Americana and melancholia in radically reimagining the types of stories country could tell, and the macabre manner by which they can. Psychobilly resuscitates rockabilly’s rebellious spirit for the punk era. Some jumps are social—classifications like blue eyed soul raise questions about music and cultural authenticity that continue to loom large in conversations in so many genres as genre distinctions become increasingly muddled on the charts.

Another category of genres I encountered on-and-off were genres flung across cultural realms or continents, some without an obvious rhyme or reason before diving into the history. The example that comes to mind first is Vietnamese bolero, a genre story in which the Cuban bolero that swept the world in the mid-20th century became a rare joyful touchstone as the country suffered through the Vietnam War and remains a cultural pillar. Luk krung formed similarly in American jazz, 1960s Latin dance crazes, and the local language became the sound of Bangkok’s chic clubgoing circuit. As synonymous with Louisiana as zydeco is, its Canadian roots recall a dangerous history of displacement. Northern soul is a fascinating history of a far-flung scene, of Manchester residents who’d surely be on RateYourMusic nowadays becoming infatuated with a very specific American soul moment in the 1960s.

For my own personal album choice to fit the visionary, idiosyncratic theme, I chose to listen to a hip house album, a meeting of two of the most important musical movements that took off in the ‘80s. Popularized by Azealia Banks, the preeminent Shadow Wizard Money Gang (like an even more unserious Odd Future for the TikTok era) delved into that world on this set from last year. CHRIST DILLINGER and friends’ brand of absurdism perfectly fits the dizzying club space developed—at times, the ‘90s Eurohouse piano is so irresistible as on “Im Back” that it threatens to take precedence over the bars. But when the elements cohere best as in the frenetic “Gypsy Rose”, you’ll be moving, laughing, and grateful for all those willing to genre-hop with the ease of a private musical plane.