Is Soundtrack an Actual Music Genre

[fatalrendezvous]

I was only being half serious with the comment. Most genres are referred to in the singular (jazz, rock, metal, pop, country, etc.). Nobody says, for example, "I really enjoy listening to rocks."

(Unless you legitimately like listening to rocks, which... all the power to you in that case)

But ultimately, I don't think soundtracks classify as a genre because it's an umbrella term for something which could potentially be any genre. The soundtrack to a high-fantasy film might sound a lot different than one to a noir film, different to an action thriller, different to sci-fi, and so on.

In those cases, the types of music are clearly different, but they're all "soundtracks."

 

[Torsty]

It's a label. If someone says they dig "soundtrack music" or "film music" you have an idea of what they mean by those terms. You're not going to think "Oh well, 'Boyhood' included songs from Coldplay, Bob Dylan and Arcade Fire so I guess he/she digs those artists because their music were in that movie blabla."

When I hear someone say they like soundtracks, I think of artists like Hans Zimmer, 2 Steps from Hell and Ennio Morricone. That type of music.