From rbc3 Sent Sun, May 3rd 1998, 22:17
Nuutti-Iivari Meriläinen wrote: > Categorising > music by genre is either a masculine trait inherent in all human life or > a genial ploy of the marketing powers-that-be. Wow! Categorizing ANYTHING is part of every known culture and language. It's our way of helping us describe the similarities in things. If we had to take the time to explain the details of everything, we wouldn't even have time to sleep! There's nothing wrong with categories. Literally speaking every instance of anything never happens twice. Everything is different. Everything is random, but within this randomness there are repeating similarities that occur in patterns. This is why we categorize. Humans, both women AND men, can see these patterns and therefore group things categorically. So then, why should music be any different? Sure every song is different. Even the same recording of every song played back is going to sound different given the changing acoustics of our surroundings or the random placement of our ears at any given moment. So based on your argument we shouldn't even name songs, because all music is different from listen to listen... If I start a thread declaring Two Bad Mice deserved to be discuss on this list, I'd get shot down in seconds. Sure several of the list members may like it, that's not the issue. It's a rave anthem! It's not the least bit cerebral. It's a speaker thumping, dance-floor moving, throw your hands in the air warehouse rave track. Hell, it doesn't need to be intellectual. Who can be intellectual when pumped full of e at a rave? It's extremely paranoid to pronounce categories as marketing ploys. Hell, most marketing firms aren't creative enough to come up with their own classifications. What makes marketing geniuses is not the ability to create a category, but the ability to exploit them. So it's not enough to say that people who purchase music or even build their identity on categories are fools. Instead you should say that people who buy into marketing ploys which exploit natural classifications in order to profit are buying into a commercial identity. People should stop being so lazy and express their own free will by exploring beyond what the commercial industry is feeding them. Besides, IDM wasn't a term coined by the industry. It was a term coined by a few net heads who wanted to start a list about this new style of Techno that began to emerge in the early 90's. It was seemingly a more "intelligent" approach to a scene that was driven by the dance floor and a mindless beat. There's nothing wrong with expanding new territories and there's especially nothing wrong with naming those territories. By identifying the boundaries of style it allows someone who wishes to create art within that boundary to explore the edges and push our understanding. -rbc3 robot