As we have pondered on the previous topic, it's hard to think of trip-hop without considering the contemporary electronic music, and it might be easy to understand: trip-hop is electronic music. Its origins bare reference to it, music produced electronically, and if we go backwards through the evolution of the electronic genre we'll find that one which has started it all and influenced all other after sub-genres:  house music. The importance of house transcends it. It's not just the first sub-genre and the one which has influenced the following ones, but also the one which did establish the greater border line for the electronic genre. Those who are familiarized with electronic music do know that there are 2 greater groups inside of it: downbeat vs. upbeat. They are not exactly sub-genres, they are more properly a joint of the sub-genres in 2 different categories, according to the beats per minute (bpm). "As simple as that?", that would be an usual question from those who aren't habituated to the genre. And the answer would have to be: yes, as simple as that. Everything on electronic music bares reference to the beats, at least this is the main way used to fix differentiations. And, in this broad view, the border line is settled by the house music in 120 bpm. Faster than that there is upbeat, slower there is downbeat. For sure that's a classic vision, and even sounding simple it won't be ever that easy. Certain songs have their bpm around that border line, a grey zone, being hard, though, to know if they tend more to upbeat or to downbeat. Yet, it's usual a variation of beats on songs, and many times a same song will have parts that are faster than 120 bpm and other slower moments.

Similarly to the classification upbeat x downbeat, we have slowtempo x uptempo. They are, as a rule, used as synonym (slowtempo and downbeat, uptempo and upbeat), even though 'beat' refers just to the beat and 'tempo' to a more complex idea. 'Tempo' refers to the process of a musical composition, and the speed at which the composition is to be played, or should be. It points each single part of a composition, all its different parts with different moods (e.g., 4x4, 6x8, 8x8). For electronic music it'll talk of its essence, once the beats are the basis for which ever electronic genre (4x4 or 8x8, depending on how you count, and variations according to it).

Inside upbeat the main sub-genres are house, techno, trance and breakbeat variants (as jungle, drum n' bass, big beat). Inside downbeat we have essentially trip-hop, downtempo and lounge (ambient is a sub-genre apart); there are, also, some other genres which float around and have a close relation with electronic slowtempo, as synthpop, IDM and abstract hip hop. An important note can be made here. You'll find around the term 'downtempo' being used as synonym of 'slowtempo' (or 'downbeat'). It'd have a generic meaning, as well as the term slowtempo has. Thus, 'downtempo in generic sense' would, the same way, bring together trip-hop, lounge and downtempo (now in a 'specific sense'). But it does not sound interesting, in my opinion, to use just one word to refer at the same time to 2 different things (ample category and strict sub-genre). Because of that I prefer to use 'slowtempo' or 'downbeat' as generic terms, and keep the word 'downtempo' only for the specific meaning. But realize, in no way 'downtempo' and 'trip-hop' are synonyms.

Here again, inside downbeat, the tempo will establish the differentiation between trip-hop and downtempo. Trip-hop is essentially slowtempo. Downtempo at its turn has a mood a bit faster, from medium-slow to medium. This is the classic division, and technically it's the way that there is to classify. Even so, considering what both sub-genres have been producing, we can try to bring some other differences. The acoustic and organic side of the songs is a more important thing for trip-hop than for downtempo, which tends to be more electronic. Also we can notice a more frequent incidence of instrumental music on downtempo (and also on lounge) than on trip-hop. Anyway, these are just facts we can tell after listening to several artists. The technical classification bares reference to the tempo indeed. But there's no border line here to say what is slow tempo and what is medium tempo, there's not a classic bpm which settles the limits. The differentiation might be got, then, from the mood of the songs. As you can imagine, due to the fact there is not a standard border, in here it's even more difficult to identify the tempo, and because of that the divergences are not unusual. You'll be able to find, for example, people saying  Zero 7 are trip-hop, while others will say they are downtempo. In fact, the tempo of most of their songs can be understood as slow as well as medium; they are on a grey zone.

Lounge, at its turn, is even more amorphous, embodying both slow and medium tempo. The difference is in the influences, lounge has its deeper roots on 60s and 70s easy listening. In the 90s the genre got a new shade and a  modern vibe inside the electronic perspective. In this context, we can notice that lounge tends to be more ethereal and more stereophonic than the other slowtempo sub-genres.

Realize that, even if referring to the speed of a composition and thus mainly to the beats, this isn't enough to catch the idea of 'tempo'. Tempo is also strongly related to the idea of 'mood'. Certain song can have a faster bpm, more than 120, and even so have a down mood, slower than house. This would be enough to make this song able to be got as downbeat. So don't read "120" as something absolute. We mentioned it in here as a "classical point of view", because that's the way house music was conceived, with its down border on 120, and, thus, less than that would be downbeat. But this is just a tendency that was made up along the decades of existence of electronic music. Nothing disallows a downbeat composition of using 124 bpm for example. The 120 mark is just a standard, a common parameter which tries to establish a distinction. And, as almost everything in life, things are something till a certain level, and aren't till a certain level too. There's nothing saying "things are always a certain way and they'll always have to be like that". Try, then, to get your ears used to it e realize the mood of the compositions, more than keep yourself just on counting beats. Keep in mind that the world does not need to be black or white, it can easily be grey.

Even so, specially nowadays, sub-genres do not have an absolute demarcation, once the artists generally don't bare reference to just one perspective. The rule is a combination of many elements to create the atmosphere, and, that way, to say that some artist belongs to a certain sub-genre can be something questionable, at least something not absolute many times. In fact, a classification isn't that important, it just makes things easier when someone is trying to find similar artists, to talk about it. If one has a notion about the sub-genres and about what one's listening to, I think it's enough. I don't believe any absolute classification is necessary (and inside electronic music, specially downbeat, the absolute does not exist).

Have also in your mind that downbeat classifications are many times denied by artists, specially oldskool ones. You'll find around interviews with Massive Attack where they deny the label trip-hop, saying they are just 'Massive Attack'. You can find the same opinion from Portishead. Laika on their official biography do even make a joke of it, saying they "confound expectations at every turn; they’re not a rock band, but they play guitars; they’re not an ‘electronic’ group in the usual sense of the term, yet they meld and twist samples with the best of them". Morcheeba have ever defined themselves as a pop band... More than being or not trip-hop, some artists just don't like to be labelled. Again, a label isn't very important indeed, but it has the evident ability of making things easier to be understood.

What does it all mean in Tripofagia?

The title of the site says 'trip-hop & downbeat'. It tries to express that Tripofagia's preference is trip-hop, at least was the original idea; even so which ever downbeat style can be featured on the website. And 'downbeat' is used here with the most generic meaning, and not just reduced to the triad 'trip-hop, downtempo, lounge'. Being electronic or with electronic influences and slow, it's enough for the site. Thus even some experimental music can appear around Tripofagia, as well as adjacent genres such as synthpop and abstract hip hop. Even so, we reinforce, trip-hop is our priority, and right after it comes downtempo (lounge is not our intention). That's what we'll try to bring in here, as a rule. But our horizon can be enlarged sometimes.