There’s a big problem with popular music today. It’s too fractured.

I can’t just like rock music, apparently. Do I like post-rock? Experimental rock? Punk rock? Which kind? It’s silly. Music was once a uniting force, and now it divides people.

Post-rock may be different enough for it to stand out on its own as a genre. It really isn’t rock at all. However, it still falls into that terrible trend of post-genres that seems to be robbing music of its uniting factor.

It’s true that some genres don’t coexist as well as some others might.

Blues and metal seem to be polar opposites, and I don’t think the average fan of teenage bubblegum pop is going to appreciate the  insanity of The Fiery Furnaces.

And sure, the rockers and rappers might not have united through their genre of choice, but all the rockers could agree that Led Zeppelin ruled (because they totally did,) even if Led Zeppelin might have been in different places in their top ten lists. What I really miss is when people would argue about two specific groups. The Beatles/Rolling Stones dichotomy is a classic. In the ‘80s it was more of a Smiths/Stone Roses split, and the ‘90s had the incredibly violent Blur/Oasis battle.

These may seem divisive at first, but it really isn’t.

These arguments are mostly about who has the number one spot and who has the number two. You can like both of these bands, but you always like one more.

That’s just how it is (For the record: Beatles, Smiths, and Blur).

Now, it seems that any arguments are about genres and sub-genres. Some people don’t care who they’re listening to, but what. It may be more important to listen to dubstep than a particular artist. Or maybe you’re really into listening to only genres that start with “post.”

We can’t ignore genres entirely, but we can certainly stop trying to define them so much. There isn’t that much difference between reggae and first-wave ska, so why bother being a stickler about it.

Also, if the same guy is on the Wikipedia page for noise rock and post-hardcore, they’re probably not distinct enough to be entirely different genres.

The ridiculous human need to categorize everything has gotten out of hand. There are sub-genres for sub-genres now.

Metal is the worst for this. It makes me feel old, but back in my day there was only one type of metal: heavy.

I don’t need death metal, doom metal, viking metal, black metal and glam metal.

Just stop it.

When you divide it up into all these separate sanitized worlds it robs music of spontaneity. Don’t worry about making a genre, worry about making what you want to make. Music isn’t science, it’s an art. Art doesn’t always fit one description perfectly. It’s all right for musical descriptions to be general.

So stop adding “post” to everything, stop creating new genres for one or two bands, and stop making lines where lines do not to be made.

I’m looking at you, hipsters.