What music genres is Spotify responsible for creating?
Genre isn’t as important as it used to be. We would often massively rely on categorisation when looking for new music, whereas now, different styles of music are loosely applied to artists without having any real impact on who listens to them.
What has changed? Well, to put it plainly, the means with which we listen to music has largely impacted the way that we label it. People used to listen to music that they bought on vinyl, unaware of what an album would sound like before purchasing. As such, they wanted a good idea of what they were buying before officially making the purchase, which meant genre was used so that fans of a certain style of music knew that they were buying an album which fit within that style.
In the modern age, while people still like buying physical albums, they don’t necessarily need to buy them in a bid to listen to new music. Instead, they can check out an album on a streaming site, and if they like it, they can buy its physical copy. This means that labelling artists isn’t as important anymore because listeners are able to simply discern from the streaming sites whether or not they like what they are hearing.
Because of this unwillingness to subscribe to a specific genre, there are bands and artists out there who are more than happy to merge various sounds together, creating a sonic fusion in the process. It’s not that artists hadn’t merged genres before streaming sites, but in the modern age, such a merger is a lot more common and isn’t seen to be quite as groundbreaking as it was in the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s, or ‘90s.
In that sense, Spotify has helped to create some different genres of music, because without listeners having such easy access to music, artists might not have been quite as willing to merge different sounds. However, the question remains: are there any specific genres that Spotify can be heralded as being the creative force behind?
So, are there any genres Spotify is responsible for creating?
A lot of people would argue that hyperpop is the by-product of Spotify. The artists who are most frequently credited with establishing this style of music are Charli XCX, 100 gecs, Caroline Polachek and Sophie. While the term was coined by Spotify, it wasn’t responsible for the creation of the actual style of music, merely the labelling of it.
Even that aspect of the genre is controversial, as while each of these artists has something in common and there are overlapping themes within their music, many believe the term “hyperpop” is merely a lazy label slapped on the sound. It wouldn’t be the first time that giants in the music industry have been accused of lazily labelling a number of artists who only have small aspects of their art in common. For instance, the Grammys’ broad application of the term “world music” has persistently been scrutinised.
Spotify hasn’t created any new genres; however, the ease with which it allows listeners to access music means that artists are less worried about labels. Equally, the way that they label genres has given rise to new terms. While all of this is true, it would be a stretch to suggest that Spotify itself is responsible for actually creating any style of music.
