There is a fine line between crap-core and just plain crap. Crapcore is less a musical genre or style and more a method of thinking, and an approach towards creating art. While crap-core music can range from simplistic acoustic tunes to avant-garde operettas made by screaming into a hand-held tape recorder, what remains constant is a naive ability and willingness to create despite an awful environment and / or the necessity to use the most rudimentary, broken-down tools. And beyond this simplistic and haggard bum's work-ethic, crap-core always has an underlying ugly-ness. The crap-core artist is simultaneously a cynical and pretentious rip-off artist and an "outsider" idiot-artist. He or she will continue to create flawed artwork no matter the situation because of a compulsion and an inability to function within the "outside world."

Many novelty or crap artists often confuse their work with Crap-core. Some people assume crap-core is the same as so-called "rap-core," a usually awful, ultra-caucasion rock n' roll / hip hop hybrid. Crap-core music is closely related to freak-out, core-core, far-out and avant-unlistenable, in that it is likely sloppy, lo-fi, fueled by alcohol or drugs or widely considered extremely irritating, however a wide spectrum of diverse artists could also be defined by such wide definitions. Some "popular" crap-core artists include James Call, Hasil Adkins, Daniel Johnston, Pope John Paul the Third and Moondog.