(ThyBlackMan.com) “Black rock” doesn’t just mean the subgenre it’s all-Black or predominantly Black bands, Black musicians who perform rock, punk, and heavy metal throughout the diaspora.
Wikipedia notes that the genre is also known as “psychedelic soul”. I believe psychedelic soul is a subgenre that is mainly played by Black musicians but Black rock is more of a movement. Black rock can be psychedelic soul, black metal, thrash metal, hardcore punk—anything rock.
The Murkiest of Subgenres?
My ear isn’t trained for psychedelic soul or most stuff in that soul and R&B family tree. It’s tuned to rock and hip-hop mainly. However, having listened to a lot of psychedelic rock and funk, I don’t hear the psychedelia in this branch of soul.
Hell, even the Wikipedia entry for this has notable songs in the genre or the wave of soul. A lot of it sounds closer to disco. Trust me, I’ll give it more listens and drop a comment of some recommendations below. I’ll shout you out and do a review of it!
I’ve seen this happen with some metal bands getting lumped in with glam metal bands just by association. My theory is that there are definitely psychedelic soul acts that have a heavy psychedelic sound to their music.
However, you have acts who are heavily influenced by some of the same acts such as the likes of Parliament-Funkadelic and The Chambers Brothers—both mentioned in that Wikipedia entry—and Mandrill who feature heavy psyche in their music.
Over the decades, that sound takes different forms. Sometimes it’s some new form of psychedelia and other times it’s there but not as pronounced as decades past.
It could also be media labeling something. Media loves to be the first to discover something new and sometimes genres with no ties to a wave of music or a genre get labeled as such. It’s how we got nu metal in the 1990s or why metalcore was polarizing in the early 2000s.
Finally, there’s being labeled by association. This ties into the above with the media labeling a genre. Bands from that location or ones that play shows with bands that represent that genre tend to get lumped in together.
You probably have festivals geared towards a certain genre or a certain wave but there are psychedelic soul artists who get booked on the show as well.
It could be a mix of this! The birth and mixing of genres is weird and interesting.
Black Rock? Psychedelic Soul? Why Do We Need Labels?
Many of us have been around the comments sections of video sites, blogs, and just social media for a long time. When it comes to music, you’ll have the one person who really knows their stuff either as fan or a musician comment.
Often times, it’s either about playing or singing ability/technique or pointing out a specific subgenre. It’s the latter of the two which brings along the other person who says “It’s rock. Why do we need labels?” or “It’s hip hop who cares about labels?”
As someone spends a lot of time researching, loves the history of things, and categorizes his Apple Music playlists by genre and decade—there’s like ten or fifteen of these playlists, folks—I’m 100-percent for labels in all music.
Labels help us know specifically what something is within a larger genre. That goes for music, literature, film—whatever can spawn subgenres. In music, we have subgenres that have different sounds from the main genre—which is a base.
Those subgenres even have subgenres and so on. It also helps bands and solo artists market their music to potential fans interested in their sound. I mean it takes acknowledging that an act sounds similar to other acts before them or their contemporaries but if words help in defining an act’s sound.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken a gamble after hearing “I don’t use labels, I let my music define itself” only to find that I listened to an entire album and didn’t enjoy the music overall.
Without Labels in Music
They help us find other bands of a similar sound. Imagine looking for a band that sounds similar to Thin Lizzy or Judas Priest and having sift through thousands a rock bands from several decades of music and none of this stuff is labeled.
It’s all just listed as “Rock”.
For our hip-hop heads checking this out, let’s say you love that Wu-Tang Clan sound and you want more of that. However, since everything is just listed under “Hip Hop” or “Rap” you’re in for a hard time.
Do you love R&B? Then you know that there are different styles of R&B based on location and different waves of the genre based time period when that subgenre was dominant.
Some of it overlaps! Contemporary R&B, quiet storm, neo soul—it goes on. The funny thing is that even though bands and artists often embrace labels, music platforms still keep it simple as hell.
At the moment, I’m on trap, drill, and speed metal. Those are the sounds that have really caught my attention but we still have “Hip Hop/Rap” and “Rock/Metal” as the main labels. Both of those are deep pools of music!
What do you think? Do you tend to use genres when it comes to talking about music? Or do you use it depending on who you’re addressing?
Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to drop those recommendations for psychedelic soul! Tracks, albums that define the sound—drop them below or send them in Twitter.
Staff Writer; M. Swift
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.