Why Are There So Many Music Sub-Genres?

Today we discuss the ever growing list of music sub-genres, and if we really need 300+ of them.

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Music in this video:
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Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
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🎵 Track Info:

Title: Lovely by Amine Maxwell
Genre and Mood: Hip Hop & Rap + Calm

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Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
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🎵 Track Info:

Title: Finally by Loxbeats
Genre and Mood: Hip Hop & Rap · Calm

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[jean-philippecollins-houde]

This is the problem of categorisation of something that is closer to a tree, a spectrum or just a chaotic mix. Categories can be useful for our brains to put order in all that diversity and to help us find similar songs and artists to the ones we love, but are an imperfect tool, as in reality none of these categories have clear boundaries and can have vastly eclectic influences. Using categories to describe an album, like saying it has blues and traditional malian influences, or psych with jazz elements, can be useful when talking about music and discovering something new! But arguing if a band is in trip-hop, LoFi or downtempo is just a loss of energy and time.

[TomsHitParade]

I have very little use for genres, let alone subgenres. Aside from the obvious other areas, like soundtracks, comedy/spoken-word, and holiday music, I separate my library into two groups: music (all or mostly) with words, and music (all or mostly) without words, and that suits me and my listening habits just fine.
I feel like all those subgenres are meant for marketing purposes, or for the listeners who let genre labels define what they listen to. Hey, if that works for some people, who am I to poo-poo on them? But, as you said, there's just so much overlap and blurring of the lines, that slapping a subgenre label on something is essentially useless, and probably 90% of the time it sells the music short.
One of my biggest gripes about subgenre labels is the overuse of two words: "post-" and "-core". But believe me, it wouldn't take me long to list my other complaints. Oh, one final thought: if "pop-punk" and "punk-pop" are the same thing, when is it a subgenre of pop and when is it a subgenre of punk...?! ;)

[ericsilberstein]

Many of the subgenres you speak of fall under Alternative.

[twofromthetrunk]

When I was young it was rock soul heavy metal blues jazz and pop. I don’t count disco at all lol

[asaprabbit]

I think the better term for Floyd would be " psychedelic rock" but that's just me

[ericthompson]

I think that sub-genres of sub-genres are actually called micro-genres. Music can get way too technical and confusing the more you dig deeper into all the different genres.

[theheepster]

Short answer: Because many people need pigeonholes, not only in music.

[darlenegoodwin]

Isn't music music? I love lots of ARTISTS, black and white, male and female. Who the hell cares about that?