Last night during my Radio 1 & Radio 1Xtra show, I had a trance fan post several times on my Facebook page that they thought Skream, Benga & Artwork’s Magnetic Man are a Trance act rather than Dubstep as they have used a ‘trancey synth’ on “I Need Air”.

Immediately I disagreed – while ”I Need Air” has some synth elements that some may associate with Trance music; the song structure, tempo, sub-bass & drum pattern for me, places the record firmly from the Dubstep genre. Not to mention the record is made by 3 of the main producers responsible for the creation and development of the Dubstep genre itself.

While I don’t agree that MM are making Trance music simply because they’ve used a synth line (in the same way that Raekwon’s “Only Built For Cuban Links” wasn’t a soul album simply because The Rza used Soul samples in most of the tracks), this got me thinking – how do we define the genres we’re making, listening to and buying these days?

Electronic music producers such as Redlight, SBTRKT, Doorly Chase and Status & Zinc are creating hybrid electronic sounds that share some characteristics with House, UK Funky, Garage, Breaks, DnB and Dubstep but are more of an amalgamation of those styles than a pure example of one particular genre.

A lot of my younger listeners seem to be classifying anything with a heavy bassline as Dubstep while a large portion of the online Grime scene seem to be classifying anything that Elijah & Skilliam or Logan Sama plays as Grime.

Dubstep producers such as Rusko, Skream, Benga and Doctor P are using old skool Hardcore & Rave elements in their beats.

Traditionally Hip Hop & Grime emcees and RnB singers are spitting over beats that contain arpeggiated synth lines (technical term for that ‘dah dah dah dah dah dah’ sound in tracks like 90% of Taio Cruz’s output) that are far more characteristic of Trance rather than Hip Hop or Grime.

DnB producers are dabbling with Dubstep but some have seemed to have created a Drum & Bass/Dubstep hybrid with half time rolling breaks & sub bass at 140bpm

UK Funky producers are using song structures, synth lines and basslines more akin to minimal Techno than the UK Funky we’ve come to define over the past few years.

While I personally think its a great thing that genre boundaries are constantly being crossed and new sounds are being created all the time, it does pose a minor problem for anyone who needs to categorise what music they make (mainly anyone in the music industry who needs to market or reflect music so DJ’s, radio stations, record labels and artists/producers themselves). As knowledgeable music consumers I know all mistajam.com blog readers are – I have a question: How do you classify the music you’re listening to?

If someone from the Grime scene makes it – does that make it Grime?

If it has rolling breaks & sub bass and is at around 175bpm – does that make it Drum & Bass?

You get the picture… Be interested to hear your thoughts.