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| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
That has to be the most clumsy clusterfuck of an explanation I've ever read.
Also, it's been bought up quite often during my time here: people saying "You're just a genre compartmentalist! You can't keep cramming music into all these little perfectly labelled boxes! Music defies that!"
That's a ridiculous sentiment, because that's the whole reason genres exist in the first place. If music has certain characteristic, yes - it can and should be labelled as whatever it is. Obviously there are cases where a certain piece occupies more than one genre or style, but that doesn't change the state of play. |
You really didn't get that it was tongue-in-cheek? I mean I called the TB-303 a bird for christ's sake! 
I think it's all well and good to be a genre 'compartmentalist', but there's really no point, unless you're trying to sell or buy records. That said, I think there are other more useful ways to label music that are more current than the traditional genre paradigm, namely by tagging music to describe the constellation of influences, sounds, collaborators, and context that comprise it. I would love to be able to walk into a record store and be directed to music based on these multiple dimensions.... but alas, the limits of cartesian space. I like it best when record stores divide things up by artist or label, or if they do genres, i like when it's a very broad genre and not all splintered, where the price tags have a couple good descriptive words for those records that I'm not familiar with.
As far as talking about music history goes, genres in this way really don't accurately describe the reality. It's more useful to talk of them as cultural movements, like we do in art history. Talking about the genre as we know it today doesn't have much to do with the actual history of its content. However, it is interesting if you look at genre in a diachronic way to see how the genre itself changed in definition, perception, and importance. That could almost be a field of linguistics 
Ishkur's guide kind of does this - it has the genres as kind of different stars in these blob constellations. Interesting to note his description of 'acid':
| quote: | | Raves weren't actual raves until this came along. 1988, the Summer of Love, the Hacienda, Shoom, Heaven, and all that. Well, first they were called acid house parties, then they were raves. The music itself is actually pretty moody and sinister compared to today. We always think of the music at parties to be upbeat and energizing. I think the whole motif of this evil-sounding, mechanical 80s music in dark rooms with minimal lighting and hundreds of people squashed on drugs swaying about like automatons to be quaintly cool. Of course, at the time this must have freaked out the suits. It would've freaked me out too. It's definitely lost its edge since those seedy days. Rave-oriented music now is just too warm, receptive, and pleasant-sounding to give its origins any justice. |
not a mention of tb303, and he talks about it as a cultural movement and motif/theme. While most of the samples he provides are pretty TB-303 heavy, it seems that he considers the motif and effect to be more important to the definition than the instrument itself.
And other tracks he labels as 'classic' like 'bring down the walls' and 'can you feel it' have the 303 sound..
i don't think that guide is particularly accurate or authoritative, though.
Last edited by nefardec on May-14-2011 at 19:32
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