Talk:Ho-kago Tea Time/@comment-24162773-20140515024424/@comment-30764484-20140520225533

I didn't just pull genre names out of my head that sounded best, I looked through Wikipedia etc and looked all all the very technical definitions of what dozens of genres really are what (and in doing so, learned a lot too). HTT has quite a diverse sound range, so this is focused on the songs that they play within their time in high school specifically, meaning less focused on the OP/ED and character songs, which are more musically diverse. I definitely don't mind going back over everything and writing out my process for figuring these out, but that will take a little bit. Music genres are far more technical and organized than I thought before looking into this, it's not a "gut feeling" thing and there's very little room for subjectivity. I would probably not have thought Pop-Punk to be ideal genre description for HTT either.

Despite being terms in common usage, J-whatevers aren't really genres; there's no "J-Metal" genre, it's just Metal (or rather whatever specific metal genre it happens to be). J-genres are marketing/commercial terms, rather than proper genres of music.

Yep, I'm back exactly where I got to the first time I did this: They're a mix of Rock & Roll, Power Pop and Pop Punk, which are essentially like evolutions of the same genre over time. Basically.

They have a lot of Power Pop influence thanks mainly to Ritsu (I should fix that, it's more accurate than the similar Hard Rock), along with Mugi's signature '60s-style (Rock & Roll) organ sound. Then Azusa and Mio throw a little bit of Jazz influence into the mix too. Mugi's Rock & Roll sound is fairly present too since she's the main music writer. Yui's low power chord and distortion-heavy, almost rhythm guitar-like style is much more modern and Pop Punky. Mio's is the hardest to pin down, instrumental kind of stuff, though it is Jazz-influenced too.

Ugh. Trying to explain all this with one single genre name is like trying to combine all the girls into one person while keeping all of their individual personality traits. Each of their playing styles is unique like this too, they don't find a middle ground of style, they all play what I've put with them above, so the band is literally all of these genres at once. Every member plays their own very different styles while all the others do too, there's no sort of compromise of style where they all meet.

They're Pop Punk, Power Pop, and Rock & Roll all at once, with a bit of Jazz. Like I said though, those three genres are, in a sense, an evolution of the same genre over time and in relation to the other sounds of the time. They can also all be put under the umbrella of Pop Rock, which isn't really a genre to itself, but a term that covers a number of proper genres. Another way of looking at it is that they're a modern take on Power Pop, which is a pretty good description, though not really a genre.

I think Pop Rock is the best we're going to get, the band just has too much sound and style diversity within itself to be anything more specific.