Music Genres Are Crap

I understand why they came into being, of course. Classification. A means of distinguishing between different types of music. There are genres for other media, such as movies and books. Literary genres are probably the most straightforward and objective. If a book is classified as fiction, there’s no room for disagreement. Either a story is invented or it isn’t. Movies tend to be easy to classify because, for the most part, their creators make no effort to stretch them beyond the preconceived notions of a given genre. If it’s advertised as an action comedy, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.
The trouble with genres in music is that they’re completely ineffective. There’s a complex spider web of sub-sub-sub genres, each of which can only be defined by using examples of the bands involved, or by comparing it to other genres. No two bands really sound alike, and if they do they’re not worth listening to (Rabbit trail: The most inane music category has got to be “pop.” Popularity has nothing to do with the sound of a group, yet there are plenty of people out there that will only listen to pop music, and plenty of people that will not listen to music if it’s played on a pop station. End of rabbit trail).
By committing yourself to a genre, you can really back yourself into a corner. Or worse, you could completely denounce one. It’s been my experience that music is about discovery, and if you completely avoid certain genres, you’re limiting yourself.
Challenging, stimulating music is hiding in every genre, and it may never be heard by the people that would enjoy it the most, because they “hate that kind of music.” Is it worth it to wade through the boring, uninspired drivel that typifies certain genres? Maybe not. But you’re cheating yourself if you just automatically tune out something because it belongs to a certain genre.