fredag 28. oktober 2011

What is the point of discussing genre?


I have never really understood why people are so interested in what genre a certain type of music is. Of course putting music into different genres has its purposes, but sometimes putting it into a genre becomes the purpose itself.

I have a good example of this. In university I studied linguistics among other subjects. However, when you come to think of it, this particular field of science is based upon how people talk in real life. All they have done is to write down how the rules of the language works at the present time and put it into writing. Then, when the language is subject to change, they pull out the linguistics rules and hold them up as the law, which then has become outdated because it originally was based upon the contemporary language at the time when the rules were made. The person then claims someone’s writing or speech to be incorrect.

This very same principle can be applied to music and genres as well. All the time I see two or more people discuss what genre a particular band belongs to. If they both enjoy the music and know what the music sounds like what does it matter…?

Hope you guys can give me some feedback on this...Do you agree or not?


1 kommentar:

  1. I think music genres today are more difficult to place than before.
    Many artists today combine genres to comply with the current desires from the audience.
    They need to renew themselves to meet new listeners.

    However - I agree with you. What is a genre?
    Why is it important?
    Maybe we just need to have a way to categorize.
    We do that with many other things in our daily life - why not with music aswell.
    But as long as the music is good - I don't care what genre it is.

    SvarSlett