I can't say I've ever heard of Clutch being referred to as "beardcore".

Sounds like they were just trying to be funny.

I don't know, you said it was "utterly ludicrous" a couple minutes ago.

To add on to your post, discussions about metal would be far more confusing if sub genres didn't exist. Especially when getting into a discussion about death metal or black metal.

amusing post title

OP, rest assured it's not just metal that has OCD people flipping out over categorization.

With Mankys simple word bank, you also can create your own sub genre of music.
Simply choose a word from each column.

Column 1: Progressive, Extreme, Post, Brutal, Low-Fi, Electronic, Experimental, Underground, Melodic, Ambient, Psychedelic, Furious, First Wave, Second Wave, Third Wave

Column 2: Thrash, Sludge, Hard, Soft, Blackened, Doom, Avant Garde, Pop, No Wave, Synth, Indie, Tribal, Traditional, Garage, Acoustic, Noise, 'n'

Column 3: Punk, Metal, Rock, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Rap, Ska, Bass, Reggae, Core, Emo, Screamo

Post Blackened Reggae is my favorite genre I think.

I quite like third wave garage jazz myself.

...I would listen the hell out of that.

Oh, I really would like to check out some Extreme Soft Punk too.

Everything serves a function. And there's always something to be outdone in a lot of these genres you're mentioning. I don't really have a feeling on electronica, but Metal, Jazz, & Punk have a sense of elitism attached to them on a stronger, more consistent basis than say Blues, Rock, or Country.

For example you tend not to get a lot of "Oh thats not real [genre]" in most of the latter genres I listed. Bluegrass is, inexplicably, starting to become elitist as well, and you're starting to see things like Nugrass, Newgrass, and Chambergrass pop-up.

I'm not intending to pick on Metal, but that was the topic given to us.