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Even the word experimental is fair game to become tainted by mainstream media and ad execs when more of them get hip to the idea that hundreds of thousands or even millions of American kids would flip for a certain spazzy style if only they were made aware of it.
Words that describe musical genres always go through a cycle, and this is the chronology...
(1) A few musicians begin making music of diverse influences which are so diverse that the resulting new music defies easy genre categorization.
(2) A few musicians become a few more musicians until there are a buncha musicians--perhaps only in one geographical location--combining diverse elements of influence.
(3) Frustrated with having to launch into two or three paragraphs to describe the sound of this new music, either an influential impresario or a writer for a zine or local journal comes up with a single word or short phrase to describe the music, and that word or phrase begins to resonate with the fans of the new music and make some of the uninitiated kinda curious.
(4) As the word begins to build critical mass, promoters of the scene and critics pin the label on a particular band, a milieu of bands, and perhaps also a record label which becomes known for preferring to release records by bands of the new genre. Eventually one or a few of these bands spearhead the growing awareness of the new style.
(5) A second wave of bands most often fail to understand the depth and width of their favorite bands' influences, preferring to emulate only the traits of their favorite bands which they find most appealing. Thus, what was a very broadly-influenced new genre begins to streamline down to a rather inbred form as even later-comers choose elements of influence from an even more limited palette.
Hence, when a whole new generation of young people became fans of industrial music 15 years ago thanks to Ministry and KMFDM and Skinny Puppy, many of those fans could not conceive of the early music of Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle as "industrial."
More recently, after the second Lightning Bolt tour played to twice or triple as many kids as the first, there were a few kids who were inspired to wear masks and have antics and be spazzy and play on the floor. And many of these kids only valued these traits, completely overlooking any need to concentrate on creative song ideas or technique. Much of this resulting music was completely unredeemable. Meanwhile, others sought to emulate the playing technique specifically, and some idiot printed it somewhere (and even more idiots printed elsewhere after that interview with Muse which cited Lightning Bolt) as "a new form of music called skronk." And what kids who found Lightning Bolt through the Muse interview don't know is that skronk was something that edgey boppers and free jazz pioneers first did with saxophones and other horns.
In fact, Sonic Youth themselves are a gateway band from no wave and other weird, arty, and edgy forms of punk and (as broadly defined as possible) post-punk. By the early 90's when SY had built considerable critical mass, several bands were emulating certain traits of Sonic Youth's guitarwork especially. Whether they chose to explore alternate tunings or ripped ideas directly from Thurston and Lee, many or most never knew about Glenn Branca de-fretting and re-fretting guitars with almost 50 frets to emulate an Eastern texture or map out on a guitar an Eastern scale. SY just sounded neat to them, and that's what they wanted to do, too.
The post-SY generation of indie-rock had some great bands, but also a lot of crappy ones. The disciplined or very experimental approach to tunings was dumbed down over short generations, and of course, with Nirvana being even more influential during that time, many guitarists were pleased to play guitar with a sorta messy edge...even the pop bands, and hence the Modest Mouse generation.
A step six in the chronology is the introduction of atavistic elements, or elements which have become unpopular or completely missing from music over a period of time, and this can mean strictly retro bands or new bands creatively integrating atavistic elements with contemporary ones, and for the latter especially, a debate will begin in a particular music community over whether they belong in the genre or not, and certain stuffy people who like to pigeonhole everything cleanly and neatly will require a new genre name to describe this band which is straddling one of more fences.
This is why talking about genres--especially nowadays on message boards--sparks all kindsa drama.
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