The Trip Hop genre....

ok people, This is my first topic I am creating, possibly my last......

When I came across this site I had been listening to bands such as Portishead, UNKLE, Massive attack, DJ shadow etc for some time. I am relatively new to this style of music, and I was rather surprised and in my own opinion rather disheartened that it has been categorized like all music in general into a genre such as trip hop.
Surely by applying a label and the connotations with such a label, such as trip hop then surely a formulaism (sp?) starts to arise and eventually bands become stale. In addition bands become less creative. The lesser adventurous bands will fail to deviate from what their typcial trip hop fan would want. Im not sure. Its by far a problem of music as a whole.

So from a inexperienced trip hopper whatta all think on the 'trip hop genre' and its growing emergence since the mid 90's?and Its effects on the artists?

Just a passing thought, if its been said before I apologise.