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let me explain.
to me ("TO ME") a genre is defined by common general characteristics in sound and style that are later to be taken into the hands of an artist for him to make sense out of it and give his/her own interpretation of it. but, once these genres are redefined into smaller categorizations (it doesn't help to be commercially successful), boundaries are erected and people are less willing to express themselves artistically and try more to belong to a certain group and be accepted.
like metal; sure, i'm the first one to say "not all metal is dumb and the same", but once you go into subgenres like death metal, you have thousands of bands who play an invariable style; granted there are artistic innovators that go one up and dare do something different (cryptopsy, and dissection to give you two examples) but then again, someone (probably journalists) gives it another name like "blackened death metal" or "brutal death metal" and there you have hundreds of bands trying to figure out how to not infringe copyright laws and still sound like the bands they try to copy. so why bother with something like "blackened death metal"? chances are, i'm going to steer away from something like that after hearing a couple of lame bands defining themselves that way and perhaps missing out on a band who are actually pushing the limits or are just plain good at what they do.
and that can be applied to a bunch of genres/styles/whathaveyou.
and power electronics, of course not everything sounds the same, listen to whitehouse then grunt and well they hardly sound alike, but there are elements to that style that are invariable like the synth tones and the
distorted mic screaming, it's not like there are guitar based p.e. bands...hell! there's people who debate whether a band is p.e. if the lyrical content (alone) is not about mysogeny, racism, violence, etc!
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