Beatport has attempted to further delineate electronic music by introducing a new genre category. “Organic House / Downtempo” made its debut on the download store June 23rd, 2020.
An article on Beatportal attributes the decision to a “trend towards deeper, more meditative, and occasionally slower shades of house music.” Without listing specific hallmarks of the sound, it explains that such releases have previously been tagged as “Deep House,” “Afro House,” “Melodic House,” “Melodic Techno” or “Electronica.” Among its purported purveyors are Oliver Koletzki, Acid Pauli and Behrouz.
Genre Wars
Beatport has had a complicated history in regards to music categorization. The platform has mostly allowed for label partners to tag a track with whatever genre they see fit, which has led to confusion amongst users. In the mid aughts, for instance, artists like deadmau5 and Steve Angello categorized their style of commercial EDM as progressive house to increase its exposure.
More recently, Beatport consolidated all of its techno variants under two genre categories: “Techno (Peak Time / Driving / Hard),” and “Techno (Raw / Deep / Hypnotic).” The move greatly reduced the visibility of releases by hard techno labels like Dolma Records and Finder Records who previously didn’t have to compete with more mainstream acts on the Hard Techno charts.
Listen to the tracks comprising Beatport’s first-ever Organic House / Downtempo chart.
Image Credit: Pranjall Kumar
