Five most hated genres of all time, according to data science
It’s a fascinating and mysterious wonder as to how our musical genre tastes are shaped.
We can make speculative guesses. Just like sexual proclivities, taste in food, or learnt behaviours and mannerisms, our internal musical antenna may have been brought about by some degree of nurturing and social hone, be it the houses we grew up in or our teen peers’ influence, but fundamentally our creative intuitions and artistic preference can never be entirely scientifically gleaned.
We all may differ on musical genres, but virtually everyone likes music, period. From the dawn of time across every far-flung culture, be it the metropolitan urban dweller to the uncontacted Amazonian tribe, the joy in hearing music, its pleasing aural patterns, sensory arousal to dance, and satisfaction at crafting harmonies or melodies are a near constant of the human condition, despite its lack of survival necessity.
As Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker puts it, “Music appears to be a pure pleasure technology, a cocktail of recreational drugs that we ingest through the ear to simulate a mass of pleasure circuits at once.”
Yet, all of us want food, but one will baulk at the idea of a juicy hamburger, while another eyes up such a dish with wide-eyed salivation. Such curious differences amid a fundamental universalism were explored by a recent Headphonesty research piece, surveying thousands of music fans as the genre that irked them the most.
Five most hated genres, according to science:
Jazz
There’s perhaps no other genre that elicits such a sharp contrast of deep passionate love or utterly lost bemusement. For its century-odd existence, jazz aficionados furiously point out the old masters’ sublime harness of form and technical expertise, whereas detractors are bored to tears by the chaotic sax noodling improvising itself into a hectic mess.
“Philistines,” the jazzheads crow! Like every other entry in this list, jazz is a broad umbrella encompassing a rich and varied history behind it, including its fusion reaching into the DNA of rock and pop. Yet, 6.4% singled out jazz as their most loathed genre, its smooth and elder incarnations incurring less wrath than its bleating free and modern stylings.
Many will sympathise. Plenty who have tried their best to grasp John Coltrane’s hard bop genius or the godlike modal wield courtesy of Miles Davis’ trumpet can be left clamouring for some academic appreciation, while just left utterly cold by their brass honk.
Pop
Probably the most dubious offender on the list. Without getting too lost in poptimist treatise, but pop isn’t really a genre, more a sensibility that makes any song, from death metal to cardigan folk, spark with that pleasing elixir of hooky accessibility.
That said, 9.9% dumped pop into their musical Room 101, lambasting its supposed “manufactured” lowest common denominator and lack of distinct edge. It’s safe to assume that such objections lie mainly with the gloop of autotuned slop and overly produced chart fodder that chases trends without marking its own unique personality.
Well, yeah, there’s a lot of that, as bandwagon derivatives and studio-smothered wallpaper mush clog any of pop’s disparate chapters. While the scourge of suffocatingly safe pop numbers is very real, pop still ultimately stands as one of the 20th century’s finest relics, and at its best can command seismic cultural shifts and conversations that everybody from The Beatles, Madonna, to Charli xcx attests to.
Metal
For a long time, metalheads saw their mainstream musical shunning as a badge of besieged honour. Fully realised as a subculture amid the new wave of British heavy metal’s beer-soaked explosion, the cultural enclave of aggressively affirmed herotresoexuality and outlaw community positively revelled in the critical scoff and pearl clutching aghast from society’s stiffs at their unfashionable headbanging lifestyles.
This is all a long time ago now, metal having finally entered the realms of acceptable muso opinion outside of Kerrang! across the last couple of decades. Yet, to this day, it’s still common to hear people declare an open embrace of all music’s myriad forms “except heavy metal”, still lumbered with a baggage of adolescent uncool.
10.7% dunked on metal, one half alleging its loud din while another bemoaning the heavy world’s output post the 1980s. Metal’s enjoyed a diverse tapestry just like any other genre, yet in its own way, it’s always changing and always the same, to this day still occupying a strange terrain of acceptability that today’s metalheads wouldn’t want any other way.
Country
In much of the US South, country is less a mere genre and more a way of life. Living and breathing the songbook of Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash, country forms a potent element of Americana’s rich musical sediments that cradled rock ‘n’ roll til its 1950s flashbang.
So, where does the 15.5% hate come from? It’d be tempting to pin such fatigue on the genre’s rustic cliches, twangy guitars, lyrical conservatism, and patience-thinning blue yodel vocals, all fuelling country’s stale stereotypes.
Far from it, however. In fact, the common complaint was country’s modern curdle into tacky pop gloss. While the elder masters possessed a certain raw integrity aside from some of Nashville’s most syrupy offenders, the wincing dross excreted by the likes of Alli Walker, Brian Kelley, or Macomb County rich boy cosplaying red neck good ol’ boy Kid Rock has all shifted units while staining country’s golden heritage.
Rap/hip hop
In at number one and wrapped in the most controversy, hip hop has always been met with elite derision ever since Kurtis Blow first spat ‘The Breaks’ when rap was still conjoined to the disco underground.
Let’s be real. There’s always been a white rejection of the Black art form, a conservative delight had in rubbishing the sounds pioneered from South Bronx’s block parties and Los Angeles’ 1580 KDAY radio championing the new voices and dancers of the street. Then there’s the debate as to its musical credibility. Even as hip hop approaches its 50th year as a chart presence with The Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’, stubborn ideas that rap isn’t real music still persist despite the movement’s glowing track record.
As many as 29.2% selected rap/hip hop as their worst genre, owing to its perceived history of gangsta violence and hard time with vocalists “talking” over singing. Such a high admission in haters won’t make a dent in hip-hop’s stature in popular music, one of the most lucrative genres the world has ever seen and helping push some of its top stars to billionaire status.
