Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well.

Today, we are doing another episode of our ongoing Impossible Genre Quiz series, this time with an in-house guest, the amazing and talented and wonderful Emily Harpist, who has come through and voluntarily allowed herself to be quizz on a variety of real and fake genres.

I'm going to be asking her through a series of multiple choices, which genre in these batches of four is the real one? Emily, are you at all prepared for this?

EH: No, I am absolutely not prepared. And to be honest, I'm a little nervous about this. I don't know genres. Sometimes I see a genre, I'm like, 'That's made up!" That's in news articles. I see genres and they sound made up, so I'm terrible at realizing that they actually do exist. This is going to be interesting.

In your defense, even Even the real genres are totally frigging made up.

EH: Okay, but I'm ready. I'm as ready as I'm going to be.

Okay, well, here we go. Number one, here are your options. Which genre is the real one? Number one, we have bubble step. Number two, city pop. Three, bug rock. And four, rural jazz. Which of these genres is the real genre?

EH: Okay, well, I feel like Bug Rock, is it like the Beatles? What is that, bug rock? I feel like that would That could be real. This is what's bad about all these, that they could be real. Bubble Step, is that the opposite of Dubstep? Is that the opposite dubstep? Is that a related cousin? I don't know, a related person.

Could potentially be, yeah.

EH: City pop. That sounds like something that is real. Like, actually, like Bug Rock, Bubble Step. Okay, Rural Jazz. I don't know anything about jazz, so that could also be the real one, too. Okay, this is just round one, so I got to be quick. Let's say the real one is City pop.

That's your final choice?

EH: I guess, yeah.

That is the real genre. Is it? The real genre, yes. Okay.

EH: All right.

City pop is, in fact, a very popular style of Japanese pop. It's actually gotten even more popular today with the internet, bringing it a really intense cult following. Basically, the genre is intended to reflect urban life during the period of the country's booming economy, according to Rate Your Music, during the 1970s and '80s, during a contemporary Western sound and lush arrangement. So it's heavily influenced by disco and new wave and all sorts of stuff, musically, that was going on in the West. So, yeah, it's a very bright, shimmery style of foreign dance and pop music that, again, was quite popular at the time and has seen a bit of resurgence today on the Internet. So congratulations. You got the first one right, and you doubted yourself.

EH: I did. Well, because also like, Bug Rock, I was thinking, besides the Beatles, I was thinking maybe Eddie Ewy could do... He could be classified identified as Bug Rock because I don't know, it's like beegly. It's like buggy. So that one was probably going to be my close second choice. But thank you so much.

Like I say during these segments, you or anybody watching is free to basically make any of the fake genres themselves. So if after this, you feel inspired to create Bug Rock yourself.

EH: Yeah, please do. I want to hear it.

Go ahead and do it. Make Bug Rock happen. Okay, let's move on to round two, our next batch of genres. Which one is the real genre? Here we go. Four more for you. We have at number one, Post-Latin. At two, we have progressive club. At three, new school trance. And at four, it's Moogsploit. Moogsploitation.

EH: Okay, well, I know the last one is not real. If the last one is real, I'm going to be really mad. Mogesploitation? Yeah, Moogsploitation. That's fake. You made that up. Okay, so now we're down to three. We got new school trance. Progressive Club. What's a progressive club? And post-Latin. Yeah, post-Latin, I think, is not real either. It could be, but I feel like it's not. I think for me, it's between new school trance and progressive club. I can't really ask that many questions, right? Can I... Do I have a phone of friend? There's no lifelines. Okay, this is not okay.

You're just working off a raw intuition.

EH: You remember in school when you didn't know the answer, they would say, 'When in doubt, see it out.' They'd go with the third one. I'm not going to listen to that. I'm going to go with Progressive Club.

No, it's not Progressive Club.

EH: Was it C?

It was Moogsploitation. No, you're lying. I thought you would get that one.

EH: No, you're lying. That's real.

It's a series of Moogsynthesizer-led records dropped during the '60s and '70s that were often novelty albums like the Plantasia album or Wendy Carlos's records, like the Switched on Bach records, that thing. Those are considered Moogsploitation.

EH: I love those. I'm trash. I'm fucking trash bag. I love those albums. I didn't know what genre they fit into. I should just quit now. I'm a disgrace. It's only going to get worse from here. So this is only round two.

And you as a modular girly, too. I know.

EH: That's what I'm saying. This is awful. I have to stop using modular now. I don't fit in.

You're destroying your reputation.

EH: Yeah, my credibility is all gone. Yeah. I said more exploitation. Fuck that. That's a made up word.

Make sure not to gaslight yourself this time, okay? Okay. You know? Okay, number three, the next batch of ones.

EH: Oh, no. Okay.

The real one. Here we have number one, Irish Showband. Number two, West Coast Tape. Three, Space Lounge. And four, ESG.

EH: No, anything could be on the table because I wasn't thinking about modular stuff. West Coast tape could be a modular thing. I don't know. Space Lounge. I don't know. That sounds like a playlist name. You're not listening to Space Lounge. Irish showband. As a genre, I mean, that could be like a thing that you go see. Hey, tonight I'm going to see the Irish show band, but I don't think it's a genre. And then what the fuck is ESG? That sounds like MSG, which is bad. I'm just stalling. I have no fucking idea. I have no clue. I'm just really wasting time. Oh, God. Don't gaslight myself. I know all the answers are within me. All the answers are within me. I have the power to get this right. Space Lounge.

Space Lounge. Is that your final answer?

EH: I don't know. I don't know. Now, the second guess. Do you have to ask if it's my final answer? That makes me doubt it. But imagine I change my answer and then that's correct, and I'll get mad at myself. So I have to stay with Space Lounge.

It's actually Irish show band.

EH: No way. What? Phenomenal.

Lasting from the 1950s to the '80s, early during that period, often performed a mixture of currently popular music and skits. Yeah, just really a showy theatrical brand of popular Irish music. At that time period, according to Rate Your Music...

EH: Is Rate Your Music the ones who make this up? Are they the people in charge of making up these genres?

It's user-based. Okay. It's user-oriented, but it's- So it's all made up. It's got over 100 different releases in there.

All right, here's our fourth batch of genres. Which one is the real one? Starting with Nostal Chic at number one. Number two is yellow noise. Three is Two Tones. Oh, my hair. And four is harsh Kala. Collage.

EH: Okay. Well, two-tone.

Which is the real one of those genres?

EH: If it's two-tone, I'm going to be real mad because it can't be. Harsh collage. Yellow noise sounds like something that is real. No, that's probably the one color that's not real. They have like, brown noise. They have like, white noise.

They do. It's true. But also you have to think like, is it also a genre? Yeah, I know. Nostal chic. Some things are things, but they're not necessarily genres.

EH: It's French. It's not that one. It's got to be harsh collage sounds like a... Oh, that's probably like a... That's why a harsh noise genre. I feel like that one is correct. I'm going to go with harsh collage because in the noise genre, I feel like there's more options. I feel like there's more freedom to describe your sound. Yellow noise is a close second. I'm going to go with harsh collage. Final answer.

Officially on Rate Your Music, harsh collage is not a genre.

EH: No, no. Okay, is it yellow noise?

It's actually two-tone.

EH: There's no way. It I need to quit now. I am a disgrace.

Two Tone is a secondary name also for a second wave ska, which is the ska wave that was going on in the UK during the 1960s. Which combined elements of Jamaican Ska with new wave and punk rock and so on and so forth. Bands like the Specials, Madness, so on and so forth. So you've just basically outed yourself as not a ska girly.

EH: Not a ska girly. Sorry. Yeah, not a ska girly. I apologize to everyone with two-tone hair. I can't represent us. Okay, last one. Here we go. Okay, final batch. Oh, God. This one's the hardest one. What is that? What is that?

Okay, here's the last batch of tracks. The last batch of tracks. Apparently, the hardest batch. We have at number one, Congotronics, number two, Alt Klezmer, three, Outlaw Punk, and four, Anti Rock. Which genre is the real one?

EH: Congotronic sounds like a video game, and it's too closely related to B-tronics. So I'm not going to go with Kongotronics. That sounds like something you play on PS2. So Kongotronics, no. Alt Klezmer That could be real. It's got to be either Outlaw Punk or Anti-Rock because I feel like there's sub-genres of punk and rock, which also I don't know about. So I'm screwed. I have no idea.

It's actually Kongotronics.

EH: No, you're lying. This is insane.

You keep eliminating the right genre right out of the game. No way. No. Immediately. What the fuck is going on? Every time, you're like, Can't be the one that's the one. Can't be that one.

EH: I'm too indecisive for this game. I don't trust I'm not going to lose myself.

No, you do decide immediately that the right genre is not the right one. You're too decisive. I think I'm just dumb.

EH: Did I get the worst score out of anybody? Please tell me someone got worse.

I believe we've done an episode where we completely zero out of I'm really out of five to somebody. You had an instinct there on some level. You picked out the right one immediately, every time. But you said yourself, no, it's not that.

EH: But I said, No way. Well, you know what?

You said, No freaking way.

EH: Yeah, the game would have been better if it was reversed, if you If I had to pick the one that, I guess, sounded fake, I would have been excellent at it. I would say that was fun, but was it? But it wasn't. I'm really nervous. Was it fun?

We know that it's more fun for the viewer and it's torture for the guests. I appreciate you being brave and doing this.

EH: Well, thank you for having me. Can I go now? Yeah, you can go now. Okay, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Okay. There we have it. Latest edition of your shadows in the background. Oh, where do I go? No, there's nowhere to run. You've completely bungled the test. There's nowhere to run. That's it. That's it. Genre quiz, impossible genre quiz. Emily Harpist.

Anthony Fantano, Genre Quiz, Forever.