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What is a "genre"?

rhodesdr	Date: November 29, 2003 @ 4:24 AM I know what the word is SUPPOSED to mean, but in today's day and age -- are there any artists on this site who only fall into one "genre"? Are we just using this term to help define our audience, not the music itself? And it seems as time goes on, and more and more cross-influences occur, there will be no identifiable genres of music anymore -- is it a matter of carrying on "tradition" by conforming to a certian style?
Veracohr	Date: November 29, 2003 @ 6:55 AM I think genres are a necessary inconvenience. Necessary because without them, people can't really know the general style of the music without listening to it. People don't usually want to listen to every song and/or artist they come across just to see if they might like it, so they rely on genre placing to determine if they should even bother. It may eventually inhibit creativity if the artist starts to identify too much with the genre they place themselves in, but without the system all would be chaos; left would become right, up become down, black become white, and all manner of things would be changed! DMusic is good about not getting too in-depth with the genre placings. I don't think you could get much more generalized than the genres here and still have it useful.
pog	Date: November 29, 2003 @ 7:06 AM pog play metal now...
ashleighj	Date: November 29, 2003 @ 11:59 AM genres are a hold-over from before we had computers everywhere. what we really need is a relational database where someone can go in and say "i wanna hear songs with high lead guitar notes, a 4/4 beat, lots of kick drums, lots of distortion, a dj scratching, a choir providing backing vocals, and no bagpipes used in the song". and then you get a bunch of songs that could easily be exactly what you want to hear. but for now, all you can do is look for someone in the "alternative" genre (alternative to what? anymore..) and hope to find something with hip-hop and maybe soul influences. p.s. actually, i kinda like bagpipes.
fallfandave	Date: November 29, 2003 @ 1:09 PM Stop bein the same as me ...i am alternative not u... i use bagpipes on me 30 sth album
jenspen33	Date: November 29, 2003 @ 1:19 PM I hate genres, because I don't know why style I fit into. I'm NOT alternative, and I would have chosen pop had it been a category, but it wasn't. I should have used electronic, probably, but that name shuts some people off to it.. I wish that there was a genre that said "Electronica-vocal-pop-hip-hop-rock" and that is where I think I'd sit. ~J
rhodesdr	Date: December 2, 2003 @ 3:14 PM In the words of someone (I can't remember who right now)... "I want to be different just like everyone else." I suppose we just need to start making up new words, as well, to describe our music... I think I'm going to call my style "Elefunjazmic"!

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