What more proof do you need that the Gork is a living relic of the Indie Sleaze era?!
Way back in the MySpace days, there used to be a function where you could look up bands by genre, and you had to list your genre as well so that people could find you and check out your music.
In those days, I was really interested in the idea of making Gorky a band that could play all genres, which is something I think we've achieved. There's Gorky rockabilly, vaporwave, country, metal, R&B, even hip-hop, bluegrass and psychedelia.
Anyways, while digging through the vaults, I came across these lists I'd written down by hand, where I had gone through every single genre of music MySpace had listed, to see which genres we'd incorporated, and which ones we hadn't yet.
Wouldn't you know it…in doing this little exercise, I've created a historical artifact!
So below are the musical genres we had incorporated and not, as musical genres were understood during the era of Myspace.
What do you notice? How have our understanding of genres changed since then?
✅ INCORPORATED (or familiar to):
Acoustic (1940s, USA)
Alternative (Early 1980s USA & England)
Americana (1940s, USA)
Blues (Late 19th Century, Southern USA)
Classic Rock (x)
Country (1920s, USA)
Emo (Mid-1980s Washington D.C., USA)
Experimental (1960s USA & England)
Folk (1950s–mid 1960s, USA)
Folk rock (1960s, USA, Canada, England)
Gothic (Late 1970s, England)
Grunge (mid-1980s, Washington, USA)
Indie (Early 1980s, USA and United Kingdom)
Garage (Late 1950s USA/early 1960s Canada)
Glam (Early 1970s, England)
Jazz (Early 1910s New Orleans, USA)
Minimalist (1960s USA)
New Wave (Late 1970s, USA and England)
Pop (1950s, England and USA)
Pop Punk (mid-1970s USA/England/Canada/others)
Post punk (Late 1970s, USA & England)
Powerpop (1960s USA & England)
Progressive (mid-late 1960s USA, UK, Italy, Germany)
Psychedelic (mid 1960s, USA and England)
Psychobilly (Late 1970s, England)
Punk (mid-1970s USA, England & Australia)
Reggae (Late 1960s, Jamaica)
Rock (1960s USA/England)
Rockabilly (Early-mid 1950s, USA)
Ska (Late 1950s, Jamaica)
Surf (mid 1950s, USA)
Shoegaze (Mid-late 1980s, England)
❌ NOT INCORPORATED:
2-Step
A cappella
Acousmatic/Tape music
Afrobeat
Ambient
Big Beat
Black Metal
Bossa Nova
Breakbeat
Breakcore
Celtic
Chinese pop
Chinese traditional
Classical
Classical–opera vocal
Club
Crunk
Death Metal
Disco House
Downtempo
Drum & Bass
Dub
Dutch pop
Electro
Electroacoustic
Electronica
Emotronic
Flamenco
Freestyle
French pop
Funk
Fusion
German pop
Ghetto tech
Gospel
Grime
Grindcore
Happy Hardcore
Hard House
Hardcore
Hawaiian
Healing & Easy Listening
HipHop
House
Hyphy
IDM
Idol
Industrial
Italian pop
Jam band
Japanese classical music
J-Pop
Jungle
K-Pop
Latin
Live Electronics
Lounge
Lyrical
Melodramatic Popular Song
Metal
Neo-soul
Nu-jazz
Pop
Progressive House
R&B
Rap
Reggaeton
Regional Mexican
Roots Music
Salsa
Samba
Screamo
Showtunes
Soul
Southern rock
Spanish pop
Swing
Tango
Techno
Thrash
Trance
Trip hop
Tropical
Turntablism
Western Swing
Zouk