Genre Definition Quotes

We're a rock band. We're proud of it. We're not an art band, a noise band, or an extreme band.

Science fiction is anything published as science fiction.

Hip-hop is limiting itself and that also goes for editorially. Magazines and websites are the gatekeepers of what people think hip-hop is, but they actually end up limiting what hip-hop can be.

I've always had creative freedom. Instrumental rock wasn't really a genre, but the success of 'Surfing With the Alien' legitimized my approach.

Where do you even draw the line between genres?

If a piece of music is under three minutes long, it's rock. Over three minutes, it's classical.

Horror is a reaction; it's not a genre. Somebody's life would have to be in danger for it [story] to be a horror story.

I'm not technically adept at music, but I'd love to be part of a discussion of where progressive rock ends and country music begins.

A great artist is not one who merely fits into a genre but one who defines the genre.

The success that the Tolkien books had redefined modern fantasy.

When you sit down and think about what rock 'n' roll music really is, then you have to change that question. Played up-tempo, you call it rock 'n' roll; at a regular tempo, you call it rhythm and blues.

There is only one definition of science fiction that seems to make sense: 'Science fiction is anything published as science fiction.'

I've been asked what differentiates war literature as a category, and I don't think there is anything.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don't know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

Rock music is a funny thing: You can actually take it too far sometimes, and then it's not rock music anymore - it's something else, but it's not rock.

When people think girl adventurers, they tend to think of a spunky, plucky tom-boy with a chip on her shoulder. I'm not saying that this makes for a dull character, but I think other types of adventurous girls exist. It's easy to fall into well-established tropes, believing that the tropes of a genre define the genre itself.

The distinguishing characteristic of the techno-thriller is technical detail.

If I can sing along to it, it's pop music.

The repercussions of what you put out and what people gravitate to in your music never registered at all. I never had that thing that maybe other bands have - a specific idea of what they are and what their sound is.

In some ways we want definitions that can help protect our own interpretations of the genre.

When I do an action thing, it speaks louder than the things that I've done that are dramatic and comedy. Actually, if you look at my resume, I have just as much comedic things as dramas, and I have far less action things than all of the other things, but I'm kind of defined as an action person.

I'm envious of the way that electronic dance music has organised itself. It has been able to understand what it ain't rather than what it is. And I think that slipped away from hip-hop as soon as the DJs lost the majority of the say so in the direction of the music.

Can we call the essay its own genre if it's so promiscuously versatile? Can we call any genre a 'genre' if, when we read it from different angles and under different shades of light, the differences between it and something else start becoming indistinguishable?

I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels.

I never had a problem with genre because a genre actually is like a uniform - you put yourself into a certain uniform.