Genre and Classification

I was at rehearsal last night and I was chatting with Kendra about a song of ours in which she raps the verses. As we discussed it became clear that neither of us could really define the genre of the song. We originally thought of it as a rap song or a rap/rock song, but Kendra doesn't think it sounds all that rap or hip hop like, and I don't think it sounds like other rap/rock songs, although as a song with rapping verses and rock instrumentation I suppose it is technically a rap/rock song. Neither of us really thought of it as such.

It made me think about classification of music and how sometimes we can be totally turned off of a song just by hearing how someone else defines it. Take the song that I was just talking about. I told some of my friends about the song and my buddy who can't stand rap or anything like it groaned. I totally understand why he reacted the way he did, but at the same time he hasn't heard the song yet, and I think ultimately he'll like it since he has liked the other stuff my band has done.

Genre matters. We like the things that fall into familiar categories. Whether it be music, movies, video games, comics, etc. We will be more likely to check something out if we know that it's similar to something else that we know we like.