Anti-music
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The best example of the anti-music is John Cage's 1952 composition 4′33″, in which the entire performance consists of four and a half minutes of utter silence. The musicians are instructed not to play their instruments. All the audience can hear is the sound of themselves.
In this famous and controversial piece, John Cage presents silence as the antithesis of music. Thus, the absence of all audible content becomes music's anti-genre. There are, however other examples.
If music is the artistic arrangement of sound, then the non-artistic arrangement of sound might be a suitable candidate for musical-negation. Non-music becomes noise, rather than artful melody and rhythm. Examples of noise music range from guitar-based feedback recordings and live performances (The Melvins, Nine Inch Nails, Jimi Hendrix) to the screeching sounds of Screamo, Grindcore, industrial music or contemporary dance electronic styles like Gabber, Terrorcore, Breakcore, Glitch, etc. Indeed, the entire ethos of the Punk subculture was based on nihilism, which by its very nature seeks category annihilation.
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