When we talk about evolutionary theory, we talk about a shitload of biology that I really don't even approach understanding. Chromosomes and shit. But there's also a theoretical component that I find fascinating, not least because it can be understood without having to memorize terminology or numbers, and can be applied to humanities fields along with science. The idea of natural selection can be applied to sociology, anthropology, history and such because it's a malleable theory, and one that possesses a certain inherent truth that can transcend a bunch of science-y bullshit I don't understand. So can it apply to all the shitty bands I listen to?
It shouldn't be too great a leap of imagination to analogize genres of music, say, 2-Tone Ska and Drone Doom Metal, with random species, say, the jackal and the panda. If we follow the development of genre classifications the way a biology researcher would follow the development of hummingbirds, I figure we'll get basically the same general conclusion. First, this ought to clear up the notion that different genres of music are just free-floating things that come ingto existence arbitrarily on their own, without influence from the past. Not that anyone is claiming that, but fuck it, it's cleared up now. It also helps to fully dispell the notion that there is some sort of linear path that music could be said to follow, ever, at all. Like species, the evolution of music is convoluted as shit. No musical great chain of being, no arbitrary ranking of genres, just a gigantic tangled web.
The analogy between genres evolving into other genres should be fairly obvious, but I find it odd that no one's ever proposed a natural selection type method driving genre volution as in the evolution of species. If a style of music can influence future generations of musicians (produce offspriing), it can survive. If it is unable to adapt (I'm looking at you, yodelling), it becomes extinct. Another parallel that can, potentially, exist between species and genre is the issue of breeding compatability. In the animal kingdom, a horse and an alligator can fuck and produce nothing, but a horse and a donkey can sire a mule together, so it should follow that such rules apply within the musical kingdom. Metal and hardcore have fucked (rhetorically) and given us grindcore and crossover thrash. Ambient and techno have borne out ambient techno. Conversely, if anyone's tried to fuse hip hop and polka, they have failed miserably. Of course, to assume this analogy is perfect is to kind of not give science enough credit.
Music isn't governed by the same sorts of laws as, I don't know, genetics. For genetic anomalies to occur, improbable mutations have to take place that defy human imagination. For musical anomalies to happen, all we need is some asshole with a guitar. To my knowledge, no species can just suddenly ressurect some gene that was prevalent three hundred yeaars ago into its gene pool. On the other hand, bands can bring in the influence of antiquated genres, or fuse entirely separate styles, sometimes to surprisingly successful effect. However, these bastard genres rarely end up having any influence on the future. I love The Pogues, but I can't seriously say there have been any good bands to fuse punk with celtic folk since. I apologize if I've chagrined any Flogging Molly fans or whatever, but fuck them. Wierdo genre combinations don't work because they're good ideas. They work because they happen to be pulled off by people who are, in and of themselves, gifted songwriters. The reproductive fitness of genres ultimately has more to do with how adaptive they are and how wide their appeal is, and not whether or not they happen to have a few people oln baord who are really talented.
Another bullshit notion that the birth of rock music was some sort of catalytic event to which we should attribute, like, everything that has happened since. It seems a little silly that, to this day, we call the majority of music (insert preface here) rock, wehn really, it bears no more relation to old time rock and roll than it does to god knows whatever other genres. In genetics, once speciation has occurred, we don't still refer to the animals as being new kinds of the animals they evolved from. So, in music, it seems kind of idiotic to be referring to, say, math rock as a form of "rock" when it clearly has evolved into something entirely separate. This also applies in metal, where bands like Emperor and Mayhem still apparently qualify as a subgenre of "rock," and other entirely new musical species like shoegaze, which, again, is still considered a form of rock. What the fuck? The "rock" influence is clearly nominal at best in cases like these, and we could just as easily fall under the umbrella of "country", considering that influence is only a few years behind rock. Stupid, eh? The aburd overuse of the "rock" genre tag exists because people continue to believe the dumbass creation myth that when Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley and such started playing, something that totally transcended and destroyed everything that came before was created. Therefore, it's completely rational to assume that any genre that could be argued to have rock as a distant influence is thus rock as well. How dumb. If that were truly the case, Michael jackson would just be an elaborate version of monaistic chanting, Defend that statement, assholes.
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