it's true... genre definitions are a little muddy.

as others have pointed out here, genres exist to sell music to targeted audiences, not necessarily to define what it is.

also remember that genre music is a relatively recent phenomenon - owing a lot to the development of technology that created a popular music industry. before that (somebody correct me if i'm wrong), we basically just had various kinds of folk music (blues, bluegrass, sea shanties, gospel, and other little dities) and the highbrow stuff that we now call classical (what did we call it then?).

as anyone who has studied the history of modern taxonomy knows - large systems of classification always seem grow more complex as more people get to have input in them, and as the systems get applied more and more broadly to more and more things.

add to the mix the fact that almost all music made today takes from multiple different song traditions in one way or another. whether that's because more people get exposed to more music, or because more people need to sell more music to more different groups -- i'll leave that for someone else to sort out.

in the mean time, i'm proud to call myself an urban-folk-rock-insurgent-country-protest-blues-indie-punk



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kit malone
http://www.kitmalone.com

kit malone
http://www.kitmalone.com