Does anyone know what the term "Generic" means about music?

[Drealm]

Yes, I read that on the internet but I'm not sure what it means.

Here is the sentence that I read that contain the word (it's a review of a video game soundtrack):

"The music just seemed to be missing something; both the Oriental "Village of Tragedy" and Arabian styled "City of Commerce, Lohan" sound generic, and most other pieces despite trying to be stylistically different come off bland."

So can anyone help me here?

[ambernector]

Is it trying to depict mainstream, or unoriginal? Very vague.

What was the video game soundtrack being reviewed?

[Iota]

Yes, this seems to express the mediocrity of these tracks but in my opinion the term isn't chosen quite well. In German generic has three different meanings; a biological, a grammatical and sort of a 'general' meaning; all of which can't describe music at all and since the etymology is the same (latin genus=race) there can't be huge differences in English.

I think the author of this review wanted to come across as being intelligent and cool but actually shows how much of a moron he really is.

[Drealm]

What was the video game soundtrack being reviewed?

The soundtrack to the playstation game "The legend of dragoon".

[Drealm]

I was thinking that it may refer to the bank of copyright-free music that anyone can use for any purpose.

So maybe generic may means that it sound like this type of music, you know, without any real value like this "free to use" music probably sound.

And this leads me to a new thread...

[sriramved]

Generic music generally refers to a particular kind of music which has other kinds of music as its sub categories. Among us musicians, the term is often used to describe 'stock' or very common parts in a song.

[Drealm]

Generic music generally refers to a particular kind of music which has other kinds of music as its sub categories. Among us musicians, the term is often used to describe 'stock' or very common parts in a song.

Thanks, that's a good point.

[rfarrah]

I agree with Drelm. The review was probably referring to royalty free music which is often generic by definition or in this case probably simplistic, primarily for use in commercial spot announcement sound tracks, some cheap movie sound tracks and quite possibly video game intros.

Ric

[Jerome]

Unoriginal, bland, middle of the road, common.

[SteveO]

pedestrian