Smithy said:I can understand the need for sub-genres, there's a clear difference between a house, trance and techno song. Yet all could be labeled under 'dance music'.
Not to me there isn't. Plus, if you asked me what "House" was, then I have a very different concept to you because for me, house is something that I remember from 1988 or so that became enveloped in the Rave scene of the 90's and is probably significantly different to what you class as house because the "genre" has moved on so significantly since then. Okay, so it's a sub-genre of "old-skool house" or something, but it's all just a form of dance.
No to help describe to somebody actually into a genre I can understand why you need more descriptive terms. I do get why it's needed, but anyone who criticises anyone not into a genre for not getting the precise the subgenre correct is a pretentious twat.
It's like with rollercoasters. To describe Nemesis to an enthusiast you only need to say, it's a B&M Invert and they know pretty much what kind of ride to expect. To anyone else, you say "you hang under the track and it goes upside down". They may call them an invert, but chances are "a hanging coaster". Likewise, you couldn't say "Leviathan is a B&M Giga coaster" and expect them to know it's over 300ft tall. Plus, the term is meaningless because each giga coaster is a very different ride experience, in the same way that every hyper-coaster model is very different.
So the point is, the sub-genres shift constantly and so become meaningless* and that to criticise anyone, or be a "know it all" because you're into a genre makes you a pretentious twat
Plus, I didn't realise that NIN had stepping into Dubstep and I quite like their dubstep track, so I possibly need to change my vote
*Like Led Zeppelin when they hit were called "Heavy Metal", yet the term simply does not cover that type of music today because the metal genre moved on so that it's far and away beyond the sound originally made. Led Zeppelin would now be considered 70's rock, folk-rock or bollocks. The world moves on, building on the musical foundations that went before it and so the genres constantly shift and can't keep up - so it's best to keep things simple unless you really need to be specific to somebody who really knows/cares what you're talking about.