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So, this thread piqued my interested enough to google "neoclassical polka punk" and see if was actually a real thing. Turns out it's not (yet) but it did lead me down a TvTropes kick, and a few hours later and I've learned I think I may potentially like symphonic metal, and I'm DEFINITELY a fan of electro swing.

The problem is, for every genre I discover, there seems to be five more, all with their own history, and influences, and artists, and sub-genres. And honestly, as lame as it makes me sound, I find it all a little overwhelming. I mean, there's all this cool stuff out there, but I can't seem to keep track of it all.

So what do you music enthusiasts do? Is there some sort of taxonomy and chart with relevant data that you've internalized over the years? Or am I just thinking about this too hard, like usual? And if that's the case, how should I think about this? Because as unwieldy all these different genres are, they are useful, since they help me find music that has a certain type of "feel" and/ or "mood" and/ or "sound", so I don't feel like just ignoring them is the best solution.

Electro Swing is amazing tbh.

Anyway, I feel like a lot of the super complicated genres you see today are the result of artists trying to differentiate themselves from "the rest". If you're the only one making music that's labelled a certain thing, than you have no competition on what people then perceive as that "certain thing". As for keeping track of them, I have no idea if anyone actually does. I think people just look for certain words that describe things they like, like "metal", "jazz", "electro", etc and ignore the rest for the most part. But if there's any audiophiles to prove me wrong, please say so.

The first thing you should know is that that taxonomy is difficult with horizontal gene transfer. Basically, with most animals, they get the vast majority of their genes from their parents, with a generally completely negligible amount of outside genes (through things like virus or bacteria).

Music has the potential for a huge amount of horizontal gene transfer however. For instance: I was recently listening to Kancolle music. Some of it is "inspired" by the game, but most of it is different versions of the background music in the actual game. Because of this you have Metal, Classical, Electronic, Jazz, and other versions of the exact same piece of music. They generally sound like their own genera, but if you've listened to the Metal one, you can follow the same tune (albeit at a different pace) as the classical one. Would you say that these are more musically related to their own genera or to each other?

The super specific genera are sometimes useful, but really only once you already know what it is, or know the related genera or "Supra-genera". A Person really into jazz may know the specific kind of jazz they like the most and which types of jazz they tried and did not like, but to someone who really prefers Bach, or Beethoven all Jazz is basically the same.

Also, if you think you might like symphonic metal, I would recommend Nightwish.

While I do like some metal, I'm really not a fan of the inaudible screaming that accompanies what many people think of when they think of metal. Nightwish almost completely avoids this.

When I want to dig into a new genre, I first listen to the most basic/noteworthy examples of the umbrella genre (for example, I want to dig into electronic-based music, then I'll listen to the most popular albums based in the electronic-based genre that cover different genres within that umbrella genre, such as trip-hop, ambient and techno).

Once I've listened to the most popular ones, I listen to more albums within the vein of the ones I liked (for example, if I liked the album "Blue Lines" by Massive Attack, I'll try and find more albums within the trip-hop genre, if I liked the album "Selected Ambient Works 85-92" by Aphex Twin, I'll try to find more albums within the ambient genre, and so on).

This tends to help break down the big task of musical exploration and make it more easy to find particular music that suits your tastes.

Also, I find that genre classification can be immensely helpful, since if we were to just refer to jazz as just jazz, it'd be very hard to find albums for someone who likes a particular aspect of jazz that they might like (or someone who likes lounge jazz might even get recommended free jazz lol)

Of course, the only genre which is a huge umbrella term (and as such, probably lead to the joke about all these wide number of subgenres in music) is metal.

Like just take a look at them subgenres lad!

Also, many unknown artists don't want to label themselves as unknown genres, as this usually makes it a lot more complicated for them to be critically or commercially successful, and more often then not, if they choose to stick to unknown genres, they become niche musicians (take a look at vaporwave artists for examples of niche artists). Like, the most popular artists on internet music communities tend to be artists who take typical genres such as hip-hop and heavy metal and put a completely new take on it.

Usually when artists or groups become critically acclaimed or successful, they usually tend to explore other genres more often then not (for example, the Beatles or Radiohead).

However, in just regular music discussion with people, it's considered more "approachable" to list musical catch-all genres that more people might know more about, such as "Rock" or
Hip-Hop", rather then saying classifications that aren't exposed to the general public, such as "Post-Rock" or "Abstract Hip-Hop".

So all in all, if you're not really "experienced" with music, you most probably will find there may be an unnecessary amount of sub-genres all around, however, these sub-genres tend to help classify music in a way that helps you find more of what you're looking for.

Also, many times musicians tend to incorporate various genres into their music, making what they find appealing to them.

Of course, the only genre which is a huge umbrella term (and as such, probably lead to the joke about all these wide number of subgenres in music) is metal.

Like just take a look at them subgenres lad!

I should bring up the fact that some of thase (Such as Latin Metal and Dark Metal) arent actual genres and more stuff that some people in the press have used to describe certain bands.

Though if you want a good place to know metal subgenres I suggest you use Map Of Metal