What musical genre references itself most in song lyrics?
from streetfestival@lemmy.ca to nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca on 23 Mar 01:10
https://lemmy.ca/post/62210203
from streetfestival@lemmy.ca to nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca on 23 Mar 01:10
https://lemmy.ca/post/62210203
Based on my age and tastes, blues, funk, and reggae come to mind. I feel like if my mum were here she’d add disco to the list. Does any reign supreme?
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If it isn’t blues, then it’s gotta be funk.
Disco was possibly on par with funk in its heyday, but the disco drop in the eighties followed by a lack of return has to have let funk catch up and blow past.
But you know the Blues has more song titles and lyrics referring to the Blues, be it as a genre or the feeling, than anything else.
Metal barely gets an honorable mention, but it does get one.
Country probably falls right behind funk, maybe a little ahead. Hard to guesstimate that since I’m not a disco freak. But country does self reference a lot, though usually only in lyrics, whereas funk does both. Shit, “we want the funk” has to give funk the edge over country by itself lol.
Afaik, it isn’t really a thing in bluegrass.
Plain old rock n roll might have tied with blues, but referencing rock in rock songs kinda fell out of favor by the end of the sixties, so it fell off enough that I doubt it matches country at this point.
So, I guess my likely rank would go:
Blues
Funk
Country
Rock
Disco
Metal
Then maybe hip-hop/rap, but referencing rap or hip-hop in tracks fell off hard after the eighties.
I can’t think of any other genres that do it tbh.
Oh! Miami bass, as subgenre of hip-hop and/or electronica does self reference a good bit. The classic, genre defining track “the bass that ate miami” does a good job of it by itself. If you count that and bass music as a whole, and are willing to accept the word bass being a self reference, then it may well rank as high as the blues since damn near every bass track has the damn word in it, and in most titles. Only thing keeping it back is the lower production numbers. Just aren’t as many people doing it compared to full genres.
Hmm… I think that depends on what continent you were on, as disco was alive and well in Europe into the 90s, and self-referencing increased as it became more nostalgic.
And Rock & Roll?
And that’s just song titles… it was definitely self-referencing right up until EDM, pop music and Rock & Roll all finished fusing in the late 90s/early 00s. It was such a voluminous genre that it probably wins (with most of the songs not being popular or good).
Of course, various classical music pieces riff on each other all the time, since musical copyright didn’t exist. And ALL genres reference Ode to Joy via chord progression (although that wasn’t really the question).
Ngl, I was unaware of disco staying in place that long. I got the impression over here that it transitioned into europop before that. Mind you, we didn’t get any of that until well into the MTV era, so I can’t say I was aware of any transition at the time.
>metal
Counterpoint: Death Metal involves a lot of death.
\m/
💀
Great insights, thanks! One thing funk has going for it is that it’s the only genre I know that might mention itself 50+ times in a single song: “Gotta have that funk” 😝
Are lyrical songs in the Zeuhl subgenre categorically written in the fictional Kobaïan language?
Hmm, my initial thought was rap, but yeah, there’s probably genres which hardly have lyrics and just shout “Eurodance!” or the like every so often…
I feel like the phrase rock n roll comes up a lot in rock n roll music