what genre is lo-fi

dimerocks

ive put graham cozon the sky is too high onto my computer and real one player appears to have made up a genre called lo-fi or has it???

sceptre

"Lo-Fi" is one of the default genre tags in ID3v2 (it's probably in v1 as well). Originally (up to the late 80s) it would literally have meant "low fidelity" (in other words, crap-sounding mp3 that you'll label as such and get around to making/downloading a better one[1]). Since then (while it's still used in its original sense as a contrast to "hi-fi") it's become a genre in its own right, generally used to refer to the type of artist who records work on a four track before handing that over to the evil record company to release (or in the absence of a record company, cutting independent tapes rather than cutting limited-run records as it suited the college audience a lot of these bands were gunning for). Like Springsteen did with Nebraska, though this was long before it was regarded as a musical genre (I only remember this because they had dreadful trouble getting a proper master from his recording of the stuff. In any case, Springsteen wouldn't belong there, even with Nebraska).

These days, we'd use it to refer to things like REM in the early IRS days, Pavement, Beck, Beat Happening, Olivia Tremor Control (all good stuff so far) and indeed Mr Coxon (Blur would belong in "alternative" or "sellout whores" depending on the album). So it's a genre usually used to describe the type of (alternative) rock where someone might cut a demo and just release that. That's not a strict definition though, otherwise Nebraska would be in there, as would most of the Polyphonic Spree's first album and a host of others that wouldn't belong in there. Categorising music isn't fun (see below).

Real One's being pretty precise and good luck to it for that (and bad cess to it for being a crap piece of software you really shouldn't be encouraging by actually using the damn thing). It's really a sub-category of rock obviously.

I just dump them all into "alternative" myself because I'm lazy and have better things to do than deciding what somethingn is (except for REM, I throw them into Rock). OK, I have to justify in the back of my mind somewhere as to why I've put OTC, Beck, Alanis Morissette, Green Day, Portishead, TMBG, Sarah McLachlan, the Pixies, the Smiths and Massive Attack in the same all-encompassing catch-all category but if I could justify categorising everything the Beatles did, together or separately, as "Pop" (putting the poor craturs in the same boat as Betty Boo) then I can justify the above. I still use "lo-fi" to mean "crap-sounding" so take your own choice on whatever suits you.

[1]Yes, before the resident anal types strike in, I realise that Fraunhofer hadn't developed the codec in the late 80s. It's being used for illustrative purposes, smarty pantses

dimerocks

that is a damn comprehensive answer, i have no problems with real one i find its preety good for ripping things to my hard drive ill use win amp for playing the files though. but anyway thanks great answer now what about math rock(dont answer that)

sceptre

Math rock wouldn't be my kind of thing anyway (if I want complex I'll listen to a drug-addled Brian Wilson). What are you listening to - Chavez or the 90 Day Men or summat?

dimerocks

na i wasnt listening to any of i just remember te mars volta being described as it before.

munkeehaven

i guess mars volta are just progressive rock really.

Doctor J

They used that term to describe the likes of Pavement, Shellac, Slint, Royal Trux, Sonic Youth etc etc etc - pretty much anything that appeared on No Disco when Donal Dineen was hosting...

Any music where the emphasis wasn't on crystalline production values in the studio, where sloppy musicianship and poor tone were the norm, see the output of the SST label perhaps.

John

Doctor J wrote:

Any music where the emphasis wasn't on crystalline production values in the studio, where sloppy musicianship and poor tone were the norm, see the output of the SST label perhaps.

I wouldn't call the playing in Black Flag sloppy musicianship.

delorentos

i think its a way of making music too...
it it just kinda means 'no frills'.
no expensive production, no massive guitar solos, no light show.

the opposite of muse so..