I ask because I just don’t understand the rules. Are there rules? Could someone tell me why Cowboy Carter by Beyonce is considered a country album? sure, there are a couple songs, like Texas Hold 'Em and some cameos by Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton, but not even singing, just talking, but everything else sounds like her normal pop/r&b stuff. I'm just trying to understand as I've listened to the album a few times now and barely hear a country twang or whatever it is called. It's a great album, don't get me wrong, but why labeled "country"? thanks.
Even Shabooozey and Post Malone I question because I hear so much more hip hop in their songs. And, I do like it all, just question the genres.

I guess it comes down a sort of consensus between musicians, labels, programmers, critics, and fans/consumers. Most people are going to "know it when they hear it."

Not the artist? I just don’t understand how CC is country.

"Who decides what genre a song is?"

This guy does ...

Nice!

The Song Genre Council does.

Or maybe it's The Style Council.

Hardcore nerdy/geeky gatekeeper types online, who have an OCD categorization mentality.

Some genres which are infamous for this are: heavy metal, techno, classical, etc ....

Musicians are artists, no?

That's probably true for all kinds of music. And nothing new.

The Grand Ole Opry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century and let performers use drums on its stage. Roy Acuff was gatekeeping before it had a name.

Heavy metal is really broad genre, but it has seemingly hundreds of subgenres and sub-subgenres that its fans can incessantly nitpick over.

The Animals went country with this song.

Have you read the novel? He has some good album reviews in there.


Metal? Definitely! Metalheads like to obsessively discuss what genre, or sub-sub-genre each band belongs to, including me.

musicians are most certainly artists. and they are called artists or musicians, but artists is definitely a viable label, not just imo.

OldBoy. Go look up why she did a Country Album and pay attention to WHO collaborated with her on the album.

It might make a lot more sense.

Are you asking him to Google something?

I know who she collaborated with, doesn't make the sound any more country than her other pop/r&b stuff.

Does a lot of country do the same?
I could draw a pretty straight time to this album and a bunch of Patsy Cline songs. Are you saying she's not country either?

From Harold. He's that most dangerous of creatures, a clever sheep. He's realized that a sheep's life consists of standin' around for a few months and then bein' eaten. And that's a depressing prospect for an ambitious sheep.

Who decides what genre a song is?

According to A Complete Unknown, it's Pete Seeger and the producers of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

For my record collection it’s either metal, soundtracks, or everything else. Genres be damned.

Interesting question. 93-year-old Blues legend Bobby Rush is listed in Rap as it gives him a wider audience than Blues would. So I think it's somewhat up to the artist what genre they are in.

Nope. They do.

The labels decide. In the beginning there were three genres. Pop, country, and what was called black music (blues/R&B). Three kinds of record stores. Three kinds of radio stations. Three kinds of charts. All segregated into three genres. Country records were sent to country stations and country record stores. Same with the other two genres. The major labels were all in the north and specialized in pop. The country and black labels, with a few exceptions, were located in the south. The three charts were compiled by polling the stations for airplay and the stores for sales. If a pop station would begin playing a country or blues record, and it caught on, it was considered a crossover hit. The big northern labels would sign away an artist from a small label if they were popular. This was a crossover artist. RCA signed Elvis away from Sun. Columbia signed Johnny Cash away from Sun, etc. Once country and black artists were on a major label, the label would try to get them played on both the countryblack stations and the main pop stations. The pop record stores would begin carrying their records.
Basically, the label would determine the genre based on which radio stations they sent a copy to, and which kind of record stores carried the record.
It got to the point record stores had to have sections for different genres. Stores would organize the sections based on which stations were playing the record. It's possible that records were organized into genres by the labels for stores to order them. Labels could have had different catalog number designations for genres also.
Bottom lines, it's the label. Crossovers are usually out the labels control and created by radio stations playing a song outside their genre. I suppose labels could attempt to create crossovers by sending a record to two kinds of stations.

In 1971 my dad was attending a convention in New Orleans. He took me with him. We stayed at Hotel Monteleone. I was 13. Directly across the street from front doors of hotel was a record store that specialized in black records only. I went in and checked it out. Nothing in that place would ever have been found in an Iowa record store.

Was going to say, not sure about other genres but in metal there are entire discussion boards set up to debate that shit. And we're not talking one level, we take defining genres 2-3 levels deep. You are just death metal, you are blackened progressive death metal. And then when a band slightly changes their sound you then debate on if they are even metal or not anymore. Really it gives strangers at shows something to discuss between sets.