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After the recent Wall Street Journal article about chillwave that cited Carles as the inventor of chillwave, many chillwave purists have been 'pissed off', because there is no way that one blog/human could 'invent' a genre of music.

I have always wondered how genres of music r invented. It seems like there hasn't really been a good genre name for the past 10 years before chillwave. Everything is 'alternative _______' or 'indie ______.' Most stuff involves the words "rock", "wave", "core", and "gaze." What does it take to get a genre to 'gain traction' and evolve from something that '1 random ass hole made up' to being a hot topic worth discussing?

What are some of the most important elements in the art of genre naming?

• Timeliness
• Relevancy
• Quality of Product / Artists / MP3s
• Effectiveness/Utility of generalization
• Stupid name that makes u giggle
• Entry level music critics/regional publications that really 'buy in' to the name
• a roster of artists who are actively touring and promoting their product

Who deserves the credit for 'inventing' a genre? Do the artists deserve the credit because they actually made the music, or is it the responsibility of a music critic / music blog to determine these genre names?

Does n e 1 know how other genres of music were invented?
Was it just one bro from a popular magazine saying something sounded like 'shoegaze', then it catches on?
Is it the responsibility of a band to make up their own genre?
Is it the responsibility of a publicist to determine how to classify the artist?

Did chillwave catch on since there was an underlying controversial element about 'sampling'/authenticity?

Just trying 2 figure out what makes a 'genre' meaningful....
Just trying 2 figure out what makes a 'genre' a real 'genre'...

Full Disclosure: This post was an advertisement for the Genre Shirt.

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