Around a year ago, I developed a surprising taste for a specific band’s sound that I otherwise never thought I would have enjoyed. What’s all the more peculiar is that this particular band is still very much part of the super-genre I listen to: Rock ‘n roll. Rock is the bread and butter of my musical taste—or “dad rock” to be specific (even if disparaging). Even those outsiders to the genre would be aware in passing that rock ‘n roll is no monolith, however, and saying it is would be akin to calling “drama” a single genre of film without distinguishing between its endless stylistic and creative variations.
I call rock a “super-genre” for a reason: Within it are innumerable different subgenres that were folded into it across a history spanning from after around the mid-twentieth century, and well into the present (even if the genre lacks the staying power it once carried decades ago). Discerning as always, many listeners to rock ‘n roll typically claim their fealty to a couple genres, eras, and bands. It’s by no means different to the ordinary listener having a taste for several completely different genres. It’s not determinative, but that preference can define the direction a given rock listener moves in when selecting their most liked or listened to music, which also means it can define the subgenres you’re less partial to.
So. If you had told me years ago that I’d be regularly listening to a band that is not only held to have created its own genre, but also operates within the space of metal and grunge (both, with very limited exception, among my least favourite forms of rock), then I probably would have shrugged with indifference and gone back listening to Dark Side of the Moon in my sanctuary of carefully defined taste. Despite that, I found that new hitherto unchartered ground in Kyuss.
Kyuss is an unusual beast. It sits in a discrete space within music commonly known as “your favourite artist’s favourite artist”—for Kyuss, this was within the grunge and alt rock scene of the 90s. They’re not unlike what MF Doom represented for the rap scene: Favourite sons of their respective genre who marshalled its artistic potential towards exciting new heights, but for whom mainstream success largely remained elusive.