Lack Of Eclecticism=Prejudice?

[rubah]

jussie, you should've used another word than 'genre' because you made him think he's right

[Momiji]

jussie, you should've used another word than 'genre' because you made him think he's right

Good point.

I could say that Metallica and IOSYS are comparable because they fall under the genre of music, but since they have absolutely no similarities otherwise

If they have no similarities other than their genre, then you have just proven my point. Nay. All my points.

No. What I said and what you see are two apparently different things. While it is true, (still following my earlier example) Metallica and IOSYS both fall under the CATEGORY (how's that?) of general music, they sound NOTHING alike, thus causing a difference between how they sound, which is why categories (I'm refusing to use the 'g' word, because it apparently sparks delusions in your mind of you thinking you're always right) exist-- to put it simply, not all music is the same, and thus they must be categorized as such. Without general categories to place artists/types of music in, and putting it all in the general group of music as you said, does nothing but make it more generalized and confusing.

[The Ceej]

That's the way people who talk to me imply it.

"Turn off that -insert genre here- music. -Same genre they said before- is crap."

I tend to reply with, "So, you don't like the one song you hear, or maybe you're just not giving it a chance. You're prejudiced."

If only they'd have been nicer and less prejudiced about it. I may have accommodated them with a different song or genre.

[scrumpleberry]

The way that you're so adamant that genre is a bad thing really scares me.

[The Ceej]

Genre induces prejudice, anger, assholism, douchebaggery, and the impossibility of finding most artists in a music store.

I'm sorry if I think this trumps any benefits it may have.

Let me ask you a question:

What's the difference between country and southern rock?

What genre does Linkin Park fall in?

Why did the "rock band" think they were playing country and the "country girl" think she was playing rock at the event I talked about in my other Lounge thread?

I could keep asking these types of unanswerable questions all day, but I must go to work, so I think three examples is enough.

EDIT: Sorry that I'm skipping over a lot of posts. They're coming in so fast, that I don't even realize they're there until later.

[rubah]

the difference between country and southern rock is teh difference between Garth Brook and CCR imo

Genre is subjective, but it's still useful in certain situations. By labelling my music in genres, I can be more or less certain I will hear a certain sound or style in listening to them, even if they aren't all songs that I like.

[Bunny]

What's the difference between country and southern rock?

Different influences.

What genre does Linkin Park fall in?

<s>Crap</s>. They are most often put into the Nu Metal catagory because of their blend with hip hop and rock music. Though some of their songs are just categorized as Alternative rock because they do not use hip hop lyrics in all their songs.

Oops, sorry, were those supposed to be unanswerable? Bands should not be categorized into genres because every band plays a variety of music that differs from song to song. If you look anywhere that has a listing of genres that bands qualify as, you'll notice that every band out there has at least three different genres listed for themselves.

[Wolf Kanno]

Genre induces prejudice, anger, assholism, douchebaggery, and the impossibility of finding most artists in a music store.

I'm sorry if I think this trumps any benefits it may have.

That's called socializing my friend, if you have a different opinion than others it will cause all the symptoms you described. Its just life, I can't say I feel removing the whole damn system will improve things. Its just human nature to categorize things.

I'm pretty much in agreement of Bunny and RubyLapiz on this one.

[Caraliz]

So your thread title is saying "Lack of being like me equals prejudice" technically right? It just helps back up this crazy thought that I have that you think everyone who does not posses characteristics of yours is a "bad" person.

Anyways, to actually get into this, no, not being like you doesn't make me prejudice.

I consider myself to have a pretty strange musical taste myself and just because someone says "yeah I listen to mainly rock and I don't really listen to much else" doesn't make me think less of them. I just think "ok, they probably don't listen to half the stuff I listen to, so I'll talk to them about what they probably listen to and what we have in common instead of calling him a close minded asshole for not listening to what I listen to"

which is pretty much what this thread's about, right?

[Moon Rabbits]

I consider myself to have a rather eclectic taste in music. I believe that there's good and bad music in every genre. Every genre I've ever heard had just confirmed this opinion.

[o_O]

Genres are a way of compartmentalising music into categories in order to enable listeners to judge a particular artist or song without listening to a great deal more from them, because that's how human beings think. Just because "ridiculous" genres exist doesn't mean that it doesn't work, nonetheless, to help a user form an educated opinion of what they're listening to.

And there's no reason why a genre isn't valid - a genre is not defined by the songs in it, but rather a song is categorised into a genre. To say that songs can't be grouped according to similar features is like saying that classifying food into areas in a supermarket is invalid, since it should all just be considered "food." Obviously genres aren't a black-and-white thing - you'd have to be a fool to argue that - and there's always going to be some crossover between them, but to me there's a pretty clear distinction between the double-kicking and distorted guitars of a metal song and the thumping bass and atmospheric synths of a trance song.

[XxSephirothxX]

What's the difference between country and southern rock?

Southern rock is heavily rooted in the blues. You're also not going to find country songs with the virtuosic multiple lead guitars that you see in archetypal southern rock bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd.

[Roto13]

You think of music genres like each one is a completely separate thing, and it's not like that at all. Of course some genres are going to be close to each other, or subgenres of other categories, and some are going to be crosses between other genres, etc.

[The Ceej]

Genre induces prejudice, anger, assholism, douchebaggery, and the impossibility of finding most artists in a music store.

I'm sorry if I think this trumps any benefits it may have.

That's called socializing my friend, if you have a different opinion than others it will cause all the symptoms you described. Its just life, I can't say I feel removing the whole damn system will improve things. Its just human nature to categorize things.

Including the inability to find what I'm looking for in a music store? Yeah. I get your point, but I had to bring that up.

Genres are a way of compartmentalising music into categories in order to enable listeners to judge a particular artist or song without listening to a great deal more from them, because that's how human beings think. Just because "ridiculous" genres exist doesn't mean that it doesn't work, nonetheless, to help a user form an educated opinion of what they're listening to.

And there's no reason why a genre isn't valid - a genre is not defined by the songs in it, but rather a song is categorised into a genre. To say that songs can't be grouped according to similar features is like saying that classifying food into areas in a supermarket is invalid, since it should all just be considered "food." Obviously genres aren't a black-and-white thing - you'd have to be a fool to argue that - and there's always going to be some crossover between them, but to me there's a pretty clear distinction between the double-kicking and distorted guitars of a metal song and the thumping bass and atmospheric synths of a trance song.

Very good point. Let me think about that for a while and reorganize my thoughts and see if I can't develop a new opinion.

_______________________________

EDIT:
I was hoping someone else would have replied as I wanted to do this in a new post, but okay.

I've had some time to think, and this is my newly founded opinion, so I apologize if it's a little disorganized.

Video games have genres as well, and I'm not a big fan of first person shooters. I prefer RPG's, or rather, when RPG's were still RPG's. However, that's gameplay. And, the games are all stored in alphabetical order on the shelf, and not by genre.

Movies, it depends on where you go. Sometimes, they're stored by genre, and sometimes they're kept together. Movies are a bit more like music in the sense that it's a passive activity rather than active like video games. I'm more eclectic there, than with video games, but I like more movies out of some genres than others. I've never dismissed an entire genre of movies.

So, yeah. I guess genre can be a good thing. It helps you get an idea of what the music is like, but it still can't be used as a definitive answer of whether or not the music will be good. Even if you don't like Genre X, that doesn't mean you can judge Song Z before you hear it simply because it's in Genre X. And I still think we should have either one or two sections in a music store. Actually, two should work. Like our library. There's the classical music section and then there's the popular music section which is all the other music. Music is so much easier to find at the library than in the music stores, and that's just wrong.

So, maybe, someone can dislike a genre without disliking all the songs in said genre, but as long as they give any given song a fair hearing regardless of their opinion on the genre in which the song lies, that's fair. However, if they dismiss the entire genre or refuse to listen to a song simply because it's in said genre, that's prejudice.

[Jebus]

It depends on whether they disagree with my opinion.