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“Bands are discovered through the artists they cover”
Let that sink in for a moment…
That's right. As catalogs grow, genre alone creates too much noise and not enough signal.
Physical media required exclusive categories.
Digital discovery allows overlapping identity.
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I’ve been thinking about something lately…
Maybe genre-based discovery is becoming outdated.
Not completely useless — but outdated as the *primary* way musicians and bands get discovered online.
Genres made perfect sense in the physical world:
\- Record stores needed shelves.
\- Libraries needed categories.
\- Newspapers and venue guides had limited space.
“Rock.”
“Jazz.”
“Funk.”
“Wedding Band.”
Simple.
But the internet changed discovery.
When planners hire bands today, do they really think:
“I want a pop band”?
Or do they think:
“I want music that feels like Bruno Mars, Dua Lipa, Journey, Earth Wind & Fire, or Taylor Swift.”
That’s a very different search behavior.
“Pop” is too broad now.
Two bands in the same genre can feel completely different emotionally, visually, and energetically.
I think modern music discovery is shifting from:
Genre-based → artist-intent based.
People don’t buy genres.
They buy feelings, familiarity, nostalgia, trust, energy, and specific musical experiences.
Curious what other musicians think about this.
Are genres still the best discovery system?
Or are they just leftover architecture from the physical media era?