I've gotten a lot of use out of thinking of genre in relation to timbre. Not as the only relevant thing, but part of a constellation.
In most genres you have a palette of timbres to work with for each instrument based on the genre conventions. You can push at the edges or add things in, but have to balance audience expectations carefully as you do it. So for example the way an electric bass sounds in contemporary metal is just not normally going to "fit" into a chicago blues band, even though both are heavily dependent on the sound of electric bass.
Different genres have different relationships to this constraint, for example western classical has a huge palette available in an orchestra but is relatively averse to using instrumentation outside of that collection. Except in percussion, where there is a lot more flexibility! Jazz has a fairly small & rigid set of acceptable timbres for its core instruments, but is fairly tolerant of experimenting with new instrumentation.
So then the two genre-timbre relationships I find most interesting are electronic and pop. Pop is, more than any other genre I think, curious about how timbre effects emotional response in music. An album by the same artist could have a huge range of different sounds for recognizable instruments, using the tension between them for different effects.
And then large swaths electronic music are built largely around active change of timbre over time through a piece. Something you see used conservatively and carefully in most genres becomes almost the central practice.
IDK it's hard to articulate and I'm not trying to set a reductionist framework about how music sounds or anything. Just a line of musical thought I've been exposed to and found valuable.
Well there is Dimmu Borgir, with an orchestra and a choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El4zsUZjsDc - and it is just nuts. Yes that's 90 minutes, but watch 5 and then decide.
I'm honestly thinking of dropping some money to get myself an A-tuned drone flute[0]. Drone flutes sound really cool, and the drone would be tuned to just about the highest two notes on the guitar... and if you work with it a bit, drums/bass/rhythm guitars helping with rhythms, chords and harmony could really push that somewhere really interesting.
In most genres you have a palette of timbres to work with for each instrument based on the genre conventions. You can push at the edges or add things in, but have to balance audience expectations carefully as you do it. So for example the way an electric bass sounds in contemporary metal is just not normally going to "fit" into a chicago blues band, even though both are heavily dependent on the sound of electric bass.
Different genres have different relationships to this constraint, for example western classical has a huge palette available in an orchestra but is relatively averse to using instrumentation outside of that collection. Except in percussion, where there is a lot more flexibility! Jazz has a fairly small & rigid set of acceptable timbres for its core instruments, but is fairly tolerant of experimenting with new instrumentation.
So then the two genre-timbre relationships I find most interesting are electronic and pop. Pop is, more than any other genre I think, curious about how timbre effects emotional response in music. An album by the same artist could have a huge range of different sounds for recognizable instruments, using the tension between them for different effects.
And then large swaths electronic music are built largely around active change of timbre over time through a piece. Something you see used conservatively and carefully in most genres becomes almost the central practice.
IDK it's hard to articulate and I'm not trying to set a reductionist framework about how music sounds or anything. Just a line of musical thought I've been exposed to and found valuable.