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Take a look at this question:

https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/45218/rhythm-blues-vs-blues

It has been put on hold for being off-topic, because genre placement is off-topic. Now, the only reason this seems strange to me is that we have a tag for genres. Why is this if this site is not for questions about music from a listener's perspective? What is the genre tag used for then?

The genre tag only has seven questions in it, and two of them have been marked as off-topic. Also, the genre tag has no description. If we make a description in the future, should we include (brief) guidance as to how to avoid using it?

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    I vaguely recall a few questions about the history of certain genres that were quite good and should be tagged with this -- if we decide to keep it. I'm not sure whether it's useful as a category. Thanks for bringing this up.
    – user28
    Jun 10, 2016 at 2:14
  • AFAIK, genre is one of the topic that can be so opinion-based, for certain genres (especially, new genre). Can't say about one which has stood for decades though...
    – Andrew T.
    Jun 10, 2016 at 9:31

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In my opinion, the genre tag does not make sense on this site.

The main reason being genre isn't a music concept it's a music industry concept. Genres exist not only due to the music that is made, but to many other marketable aspects such as image and location which takes away from the part which we care about and are about which is the music.

The second reason is most genres don't have clear cut definitions and what a band/artist is sometimes left up to interpetation. One band of the top of my head that has this property is Coheed and Cambria which is described as many diffrent genres including pop punk, prog rock, and post hardcore which none of them describe them accurately.

When someone talks about genre on this site most of the time anyway they are talking about the of music which we do have a pretty popular tag for that.

Of the questions tagged with genre, two of them the tag makes no sense on and I have removed it. Of the remaining questions that are open there is only one question where it kind of seems necessary is the question about creating new genres. Even with that tag the elements that it is focused on the creation of a new style absent of any traces of what we currently have which can be discussed without using the term genre.

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