Indie/classical repertoire of the 2010s presents the question of how genre is “continually enacted and reenacted” (Drott 2013), as its participants were likely to disavow the question of genre altogether but nevertheless held onto certain genre-conventional approaches to form, timbre, and paratextual content when creating and distributing their art. To describe the dynamics at play, I propose a model of genre interactivity including four strategies: crossover, splitting, blending, and negating. These allow analysts to capture specificities of genre positionality that may go unnoticed in vague “genre-bending” rhetoric used by artists themselves, and they highlight the fact that genre is not a static entity but one that is constructed over time through strategic acts.

This paper particularly focuses on the dynamics of genre crossover, perceived motion from one genre context into another, and genre splitting, maintaining an artistic output in two differentiated genre contexts, through the case studies of two recording collaborations between indie artists and chamber “new music” groups. In the first, I analyze singer-songwriter Ben Folds and chamber sextet yMusic’s 2015 collaborative album So There, in which Folds used orchestration techniques common in postminimalist music to strategically “cross over” into yMusic’s contemporary classical genre context. Next, I look at composer/songwriter Merrill Garbus’s work for the vocal octet Roomful of Teeth, which includes two pieces written specifically for the ensemble (“Quizassa” and “Ansa ya”) plus the group’s feature on the opening track of Nikki Nack, the 2014 album by Garbus’s indie band Tune-Yards. Garbus’s intentional separation of her composing work from her more pop-aligned Tune-Yards work is evident through the opposition between verse/chorus and ternary form and between spatially realistic and collage-like mixing of the voices involved. Meanwhile, Folds uses “classical” timbre (as constructed both via orchestration and in the recording process) and adaptations of traditional verse-chorus form to fit the affordances of yMusic’s personnel. This produces the generic positioning of So There as Folds “going classical” or crossing over from a starting point of pop songwriting.

Melodic, “twinkling” guitar riffs are a characteristic feature in two closely related genres: emo and math rock. They can act as a sonic cue, “framing” (Frow 2006) the music for listeners. The riffs function similarly in each genre; therefore, the cue is ambiguous and could stand for either genre. Despite the similar syntax within the riff, each genre, emo or math rock, brings with it other associations, so the same conventions have different meanings in each context. Alternatively, if listeners can mobilize multiple generic frameworks to make sense of one piece of music (Drott 2013), then closely related genres are likely to be deployed in tandem. This paper posits that a particular feature can tie together two closely related genres, and that listeners use both simultaneously to make sense of the music. While the riffs take on different meanings when mediated by one genre or another, the relationship between those genres is simultaneously mediated in part by this shared feature, and it is this relation that structures interpretation.

First, I borrow from schema theory to highlight the similarity of the riffs across emo and math rock. Second, I examine the different associations each genre brings to the riffs. Third, I turn to forums to see how fans negotiate between two closely related genres, showing how the relationship between the two is not perceived equally or neutrally. One genre takes the lead, the other is viewed through that frame, and the relative (sub)cultural capital associated with each leads to different interpretations of the riff itself.
I show how the discourse created by critics, fans, and the bands themselves shapes conceptions of genre. Descriptions of math rock bands as “math pop,” or of emo bands as “mathy emo,” highlight the close, but unequal, relationship between the genres. In each case, both contexts are used to make sense of the same features, and both impinge on the music’s meanings in different ways. Twinkling riffs tie together emo and math rock, bringing them into a relation which frames the music, shaping interpretation.

Genres are flexible entities, with many actors negotiating what constitutes a genre’s musical elements and extramusical values (Brackett 2016; Drott 2013). While determining generic boundaries may seem like a fraught process, I argue that studying humor can help articulate the lines between genres, because musical humor often relies upon the juxtaposition of two or more genres (Harper 2020). Using the concepts of genre space (Howie 2024) and genre frames (Frow 2006), I demonstrate how artists on the Punk Goes… albums used timbral conventions from punk and other genres close in genre space (hardcore, ska, pop punk and post-hardcore) to provide a foil to antithetical genres, thus generating humor. Each album in the series positions punk against one antithetical genre. In each case, different punk-adjacent genres are used in order to provide clear contrast with the antithetical genre. In Punk Goes Metal (2000), the genre of hardcore was avoided due to the significant timbral overlap between it and metal. However, with the album Punk Goes Pop (2002), it became a closely related genre since pop was the antithetical genre. Finally, I show how post-hardcore, as a genre that blended timbral elements from punk, pop, and hardcore, was used on Punk Goes Pop Vol. 2 (2009) to reopen space between pop and punk — a space which had been closed by pop punk’s rise to popularity in the early aughts. Overall, I argue that musical humor and genre relationships are dynamic and subjective and that, by studying humorous covers, one can examine where generic boundaries lie.