Thanks for the detailed reply to the points that I raised, Gavin B - sorry if I misunderstood some bits of your previous post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gavin B.
If you read my post carefully I think we're both saying the same thing . I completely agree that it's appropriate to have country music in the same forum as folk music but other forms of unique roots music like rural blues (pre-WWII folk blues), bluegrass, Celtic music and other regional music should be included. I'm actually arguing that the genre content of this forum be expanded.
|
^ Good to know that we´re on the same page after all, and in fact, if you dip into some of the threads here, you´ll see that bluegrass, Celtic and rural blues are already represented here - along with a zillion other sub-genres.
Quote:
|
You're right, international music is really the odd genre out in this forum. And we both agree that it could be remedied by merging it with the reggae music forum. I don't think reggae music should be moved into folk/country/international forum, however. It would be a lose/lose situation. Adding reggae music to the mix would really confuse readers about the nature of the country/folk/international forum.
|
^ Didn´t entirely follow that bit, so I´m going to re-read it later.
Quote:
As it currently stands the country, folk and international forum has become a catch-all forum for musical forms that aren't that popular with the masses... or at least the masses who participate in music forums. If I ran the zoo, there would be a single forum titled "Reggae and International Music."
The total sales of country music (55.8 million units in 2012) makes it the fourth most popular musical genre in the world but apparently country music fans don't participate in music forums. In fact country music sales were up 42% in 2012 compared to 2011 sales figures. That makes country music that fastest growing genre of music in the world... if you measure success purely on economic terms. Apparently few of those devotees of country music have found the Music Banter forum. Maybe country music fans don't read or write about the music they love.
|
^ I had no idea that country music was so popular.Thanks for the stats.
Quote:
|
I really do believe that each forum can be packaged in a manner that increases readership and a lot of it has to do with the stylistic presentation of each forum, not the content.
|
^ My understanding is that the style of an MB forum is dictated by the famously inflexible admin, and all we get to do is add our little bits of content, but perhaps you mean something else.
Quote:
I'm going to go ahead and start my Outernational thread in this forum but I think it's out of place in a forum that includes country music and folk music.
|
^ Well, that´s great news! I look forward to learning what Outernational music actually is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
I'm still not entirely sure where you're getting this idea that international music & reggae are similar things. I mean what have dancehall or dub & scottish bagpipe music got in common?
|
^ I´m quite happy with the way the forums are split at the moment, Urban. I guess I was just trying to rationalize why various types of music are bundled together and put in the "Country, Folk and World" section. In the absence of any clear definition, I came up with this:-
Quote:
|
I think MB´s world music forum is for music from anywhere in the world that retains some regional element, so that when you initially hear it you think, "Ah! That´s Russian!" before you think, "Ah! that´s jazz!"
|
By that criteria, ska and reggae - like Scottish bagpipe music - have strong regional elements as far as I know, and so, logically, could be considered as belonging in the "world music" forum. That they sound completely unlike each other is a point that somebody else highlighted when they asked, "Why are Tibetan and Brazilian music grouped together?"