Music Genre Research

1. Musical and lyrical conventions
In consideration of Dubstep as a genre, it is important to comprehend that is not an independent genre and isn’t a ground breaking new discovery. It should be important to know that it is a compilation of many popular underground genres, such as garage musical contemporary rap, UK rock, electro and house. It takes into account various conventions of some of the best genres of music which enables Dubstep to become so versatile so that it can be incorporated with all most any type of music. This is one of the reasons as to why Dubstep has become popular amongst so many different social groups based on their musical preferences, people that are into heavy metal, electro, grime and house music which all greatly differentiate from one another, all have Dubstep as a common genre preference in their music choice.

As the genre has converged from other forms it allows it to form similar conventions. It often has a steady beat to begin with (usually sampled beats) or it might start with a harmony depending on the artist. The pace of the music is often fast and heavy with wreckage/scratchy type sounds which are referred to as bass rips, this feature is unique within Dubstep and is rarely found in any other music genre. As all this synchronized chaotic sounds fly about the track, the lyrical content is minimal, Chorus' are often repeated more regularly than usual, hooks are looped and played throughout the track as backing vocals or chords.
In the genre the relationship between the lyrics and music is so bias, not due to the music overpowering the lyrics, but the music having the same effect in the track as the lyrics would.

The lyics of any many songs are the centralized aspect and the music only supplements it, however in dubstep the lyrics give a semantic context for example when a song surrounds a controversial or taboo subject such as pedophilia or rape, the music working with it creates a sort of imagery to go with it, supplementing the mood being established. Which has been very usuful to music video directors when working with Dubstep music?
A Good Example of this is a video by Skrillex - First Of The Year (Equinox)



Iconography
Unlike mainstream music genres such as RnB and Hip Hop were expensive clothing and glamorous women houses and cars are used to represent it as a genre, Dubstep concentrates on the implicit side of music. The conventions do not try to show wealth or show romantic intimacy as is done in RnB, it concentrates on the raw power of music and influences its audience to "lose control", it would convey standard civilian clothing in its music video and if any intimacy is shown, it is usually more towards the controversial side as rough spontaneous intercourse may be shown, women being objectified.
Unusually many music genres always have a ethnicity group typically associated with the type of music, in Dubstep, it is predominantly young Caucasian males and females, this usually puts a social identity on any music genre, e.i. people who listen to a particular genre are are categorized from their class and status. For example: Only rich upper-class British people listen to Classical music, only london youths listen to Grime UK Hip Hop music. The common misconception that had been made about Dubstep is that it is a "chavy" type of music and only poor 'chavy' white youths listen to Dubstep, however, now that Dubstep is a growing phenomenon, first within the UK and now in the US, and as it converges showing all aspects of different music genres incorporated within it, this common idea about Dubstep beginning to change.
Themes
Reoccurring themes within Dubstep deviate from themes typically shown in music. In a weird way, Dubstep makes association with a lot of the themes shown in Heavy Metal music. Commonly shown in Metal music is the theme of destruction and anguish, letting out your anger as such. This theme has been recreated in Dubstep as it also promotes this theme of letting loose and going crazy to the music, which is why it is very hard to dance to music such as heavy metal and Dubstep, there is no right or wrong way of doing it, opposed to ballet for example where things are very strategic and fluent. Dubstep is what ever you want it to be.