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Old 08-16-2008, 08:29 PM   #21 (permalink)
Minstrel
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The word "genre" has basically come to mean "description key words." These key words can be linked together into arbitrarily long chains, and they're varyingly meaningful to people.

Since Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and doowop, "rock" music has diversified constantly over the years. The more diversification, the less that broad genres fit individual bands. You can use these descriptor chains to drill down as far as you want...down to the individual artist level, or even down to the album level within an artist's catalogue (are all Bowie albums in the same genre? If so, which?).

I think the concept of "official genres" is definitely way out of date. Essentially, genres are simply another form of expression and opinion. If a band sounds to you like electronic dream beach foam pop, well, that's meaningful to you. Maybe it'll be meaningful to someone else, maybe not. Maybe all they'll get out of it is that it's pop.
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