The following is an edition of Mac’s Tracks, The Mirror’s music column. All views, thoughts and opinions belong solely to the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Drury Mirror. 

Newspapers and websites are far from subtle when it comes to their accusations of industries that millennials have killed. We’ve ruined American cheese, Buffalo Wild Wings, the diamond industry – you name it. Anyone with some sense could tell you all three things listed above benefit absolutely no one.

Perhaps the wildest blame pinned on millennials – and by extension, us poor middle-ground kids from ‘98 till ‘03 – is that we’ve destroyed defining music genres.

Music is more available to more people than ever before with streaming sites that bypass the need to purchase an album – that removes a lot of risk of not liking it and having wasted $12.99. It also allows listeners to branch out from radio hosts and critics determining what’s good and what isn’t.

Rules are made to be broken. When artists exist in a vacuum in which pop music sounds like this and rock sounds like that and if you cross the streams everything burns down, nothing new is achieved.

One does not have to look far for examples, either. Ariana Grande’s new album, “thank u, next,” dominates the Apple Music Top 10 – a platform that attracts a large rap audience. 30 Seconds to Mars and Maroon 5 both exist in rock-pop purgatory with their latest releases. Dance Gavin Dance, a metal band, put out a cover of “Semi-Charmed Life” (shock covers like this have actually proved to be a successful marketing scheme in the digital era).

Ask anyone what music they listen to and the almost-guaranteed response is “anything but country.” Rather than being a cop-out, that might be the closest any of us can get anymore to describing what we like. Most modern artists refuse to get tied into a single label. Although Lana Del Rey is marketed as indie pop, her 50s-synth sound with features from ASAP Ferg cover much more than that.

“Different styles of music still exist but, increasingly, nobody cares,” explained Peter Robinson with The Guardian. The crossing genres combat against complaints of homogeneity in sound, too. Mainstream pop songs are not always distinguishable from each other and the same can be said for many guitar rockers and mumble rappers.

Janelle Monae, for example, demonstrates exemplary prowess when it comes to blending sounds. Her 2018 album “Dirty Computer” continued her theme of futuristic tech and androids – yet broke from it as well. This motif itself is pretty inventive, as the cyber-dystopia genre has largely been dominated by male musicians in times past. Monae’s “Computer,” apart from rightfully deserving Album of the Year at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, highlighted her funk influences, gave her ballads a chance to shine and let her hip-hop side explode.

Outkast’s Big Boi and Prince aided her on her musical journey and witnessed her genre-bending firsthand. In an interview with Intell, Monae stated that she “wanted this [Dirty Computer] to be for everyone.”

“I just try to be my true self. If people want to listen, great,” she emphasized.

Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder and Grimes all had a hand in shaping the album – a weighty combination of names spanning an eclectic collection of music. The result? Absolute magic.

Crossing genres is a chance to try something completely new. The world now seems to exist on happenstance, where no set patterns apply anymore, so why should music be any different? Artists are constantly reinventing themselves and branching off into fresh side projects that resist a single image or definition. These smashed boundaries may reflect the information overload we all live with. It’s hard to be just one thing when there is so much opportunity to do it all.

Article by Maclen Johnson.