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Introduction
The term 'trip hop' was first used by Mixmag in June 1994 to describe the track In/Flux by DJ Shadow and other similar artists on the Mo' Wax record label (Phillips 2009). Subsequently, Bristol-based artists such as Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky were grouped under the trip hop label, although these artists have consistently and thoroughly rejected the tag. This discursive conflict raises the issue of whether the label itself is meaningful and appropriate.
Authors in the field of popular music studies have implicitly argued that the validity of labels is not necessarily dependent on acceptance from the artists. As Fabbri (2007) notes, it is the community that accepts the rules of a genre, and that community is not limited to artists but also includes fans, journalists, record labels and academics. Accordingly, artists do not have carte blanche over how their music is categorised, and yet their opinions cannot be discounted for the same reason: they too are a part of the community. The challenge is then to reconcile the divergent viewpoints. This article seeks to mediate in this discussion by examining the work of artists labelled 'trip hop' through the lens of genre and style. This approach allows one to identify points of musical continuity across a range of artists, while also acknowledging the points of musical difference.
This article proceeds as follows. The second section provides further background to this debate by briefly discussing some of the reasons new genre labels are invented, and why the term 'trip hop' was so maligned. There are several reasons the trip hop tag was rejected, not least because many artists reject any attempt to classify their music, viewing labels as restrictive stereotypes that suggest formulaic composition (Walser 1993). However, I argue the rejection was due to two processes in particular: genre naming as a merchandising strategy, and genre naming as cultural appropriation (McLeod 2001). I conclude the second section by briefly discussing the term 'Bristol sound', and note its synonymous use with 'trip hop'. The third section, following Fabbri (2007), provides definitions for the concepts of genre and style. This sets up a framework for the subsequent analysis. The fourth section discusses the work of nine trip hop artists and focuses on...