Classical vs Pop Music and the concept of "genre"

Hey Guys! Hope all is well! Today I’d like to talk about genres, specifically classical music and pop music, and how the divide between the two has affected musicians for generations, especially this generation.

Personally, I don’t believe in the concept of genre. What we think of genre today is really just style, the way that a composer constructs a song to make it sound a certain way and have a certain affect. Jazz for example, consists mostly of extended harmony, syncopated rhythm, and improvisation. Hip-Hop usually consists of spoken rhyme over a synthesized beat. The Blues is constructed over a pattern of 3 chords occurring at a certain order. Theoretically, you could take a song in any genre, change the core elements of melody and keep the harmony or vice versa, and get a very different song.

Style is a less restrictive idea than genre, so when a composer or artist moves between styles it makes a lot more sense to me. But the idea of genres puts artists in a box that’s hard to break out of it. One of my favorite songwriters is Joni Mitchell, who made several landmark albums in the 1970s. Most would consider who masterpiece Blue as “folk” and “singer-songwriter”. Her classic Court and Spark is more pop focused with elements of jazz. But her catalogue after that often eschews classification, shifting smoothly between jazz and pop sounds to make something entirely her own. It often seems that critics and audiences started to dismiss her late 70s catalogue because it couldn’t easily fit into a box, even though the material was just as strong. I remember playing a Joni Mitchell song for a friend and they asked me “what genre is this” and I thought to myself, “should it matter”?

Genre at times can also be used to lock certain racial stereotypes to an artist, preventing them from “crossing over”. Most recently is was the runaway success of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road”. Featuring a unique blend of country music and trap music, “Old Town Road” was deemed ineligible to chart on the country charts because Billboard didn’t consider a country song. Many pundits wondered if Lil Nas X’s race played a part in a decision that ended up fueling the song’s popularity. The Grammy Awards have struggled with this as well. Artists such as Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Kanye West have won over 20 Grammy Awards each, yet they are all in genre specific categories, such as Best Rap Album or Best R & B Album; the three artists have yet to win a major all category grammy award (sans Beyoncé’s song of the year win for “Single Ladies” in 2010). The upside to genre specific awards is more artists get recognized for more things, but it’s so easy to write off artists as “just a rapper” or “just a singer” when they could be considered so much more.

It might seem like I’m rambling a little, but here’s how the notion of genre has both positively and negatively impacted my music. Most of the music I’ve written I would consider “classical”, it’s either written for a series of orchestral instruments or for classically trained voice. But I’ve written a handful of pop songs as well as a full-length musical. Even some of the best compliments I’ve received for my music have been tainted with genre misconceptions. Most classical music written today (known colloquially as contemporary classical) is more experimental or avant-garde than the music I write. I have great respect for that style and those composers, but it’s not my voice and I feel inauthentic when I try to write that way. The classical music I write would often be described as “neo-classical” or “neo-romantic”, music that harkens back to the 19th century with modern idioms added. But I’ve often been told that my music isn’t experimental or avant-garde enough to stand out in the classical world, and while I do see the value in expanding my style and tonal language, I resent the idea that I have to concede and compromise my style to suit other when those same composers aren’t expected to compromise their style. I would love if my music was just appreciated on its merits rather it’s genre.

I’ve encountered similar roadblocks in pop music. While I am far from the best songwriter or lyricist, many people who’ve heard my songs say they remind them of musical theatre. While I am a great admirer of musical theatre, I’ve often found that comparison confusing. Musical theatre is simply a story told through song on a stage, it can’t be condensed into one genre any more that film can. You have the traditional golden age of Rodgers and Hammerstein, the contemporary pop rock of Stephen Schwartz and Jonathan Larson, the sophistication and complexity of Stephen Sondheim, and everything in between. To say stand alone pop songs sound like “musical theatre” is reductive at best and ignorant at worst.  

As much as I enjoy classical music, I listen to pop music a lot more, and would love to explore more songwriting with collaborators of different genres. But my attempts to do so have been thwarted either by people who see me strictly as a classical music writer, or people who don’t want to break out of whatever genre they confined themselves. There are so many times I’ve heard a great song by a young songwriter just to be disappointed when I see that their other songs all confine to that same genre. I’d rather hear a rock song and rap song on the same album than hear the same type of song simply written in a slightly different way. I’ve even met several talented classical singers who don’t use any of that same technique when singing pop music as if the genres are polar opposites, when in reality classical, opera, theatre, jazz, and pop singing/writing/arranging is much more a matter of subtle changes in style rather than genres that have no overlap with each other.        

If you think that you might fall into this trap, I’d suggest simply listening to something completely out of your comfort zone. I can personally attest that everyone has a classical album, jazz album, and a rap album that they would really enjoy, you just have to look for it. The beauty of the internet is that all music is widely accessible, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised what you find when you don’t restrict yourself to the idea of a genre.