Are Punk Sub-Genres Needed?
 

Do you feel punk sub-genres add anything? Do they really make it easier to catalog bands? Are they even needed? Do most people even apply them correctly?

I suppose I can understand a handful of them. Pop-Punk, Horror Punk, Hardcore, etc. Fusion genres make since to have their own sub-genre. But Street punk, skate punk, garage punk. Do these labels actually add any value?

What are your thoughts?

That assumes that Punk is needed.

In all sincerity, genres are an extension of adolecent us-vs.-them-ism and only serves to senselessly divide music along lines that are neither

a. accurate or
b. useful.

The idea of musical genre is shocking in its longevity because bands more increasingly move toward "indescribable" and while I'm sure thats great for recod labels (a sound you've never heard before!) it doesn't help us.

In the most general sense, music genres at the macro level allow us to sum up peoples tastes a little quicker, it allows for more directed (or rejected) conversation from the jump.

I like roots, jazz, noise, whatever.

But lets be honest with one another, if its a website, the douchebag probably put songs/bands/albums in his username and you can sum him up in a quick second. If its IRL, well...everyones prejudice in this town.

"nice ripped jeans toolbag, how's the Whitesnake collection going."

Also: Welcome to Musicbanter~!

I think high level genres are useful. Rock, Rap, Classical, Pop. It allows us to easily filter music on radio, looking through CDs at the store, searching for music to listen to in our music players, etc.

But I feel that sub-genres have reached the level of absurdity. Mathcore is a sub-genre to a fusion-genre. I'm sure there are examples of even deeper genres that exist.

Do these genres help us any more than the band name itself at this point?

Thanks.

Well, genres segregate and bring people together at the same time... So really, if you keep adding on sub-genres you're just going to make several smaller groups of people who hate each other.

Although on the other side, I like being super-specific and giving things complex tags and meanings. I figure, "What the hell, we have the language, why not use it?"

Pop-punk really just seems like alternative to me.

Also, people go overboard with these.
Christian Metalcore, Christian Deathcore, Jazzcore, Mathcore, Skate Punk, Street Punk, Garage Punk, Semi-Punk, Posi-core, Straight-Edge Hardcore Punk, and so on and so forth.

I never understood using life style choices and activities to dictate musical genre. Queercore, Straight-Edge Punk, Skatepunk. I might as well say I listen to "Web Designer Punk" or "I like to drink Rockstar energy drinks punk"

i'm a big fan of quitessential no-wavecore

Skate Punk isn't even consistent like the other ones (Straight-Edge Punk, Queercore, etc.) Now, people usually use it to refer to pop-punk acts, such as blink-182 and Sum 41, but it's also used for hardcore punk.
I'd say the same thing goes for Grunge. I was listening to a BTBAM song on YouTube, and there was a whole discussion going on about how Grunge isn't a real genre, or how it can pretty much mean the same as punk. It just doesn't work.

Straight-Edge Punk has been applied to bands that weren't Straight-Edge or had one person in the band who was. How does it work that choosing not to do drugs becomes a musical style?

subgenres are definitely necessary for punk, although a lot of punk has the same sound for the most, nowave and anarcho have their own unique sound, hardcore and crust have their own unique sound. older punk sounds pretty different than 80's and current punk.