Has genre ever been anything more than a tool for segregation?

[phil.]

Last year I read Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll, and there's some information in Chapter 7 that's stuck in my mind, though I haven't re-read it. Wald mentioned that records were originally cataloged in stores according to label, and then serial number. The first aesthetic categorizations were based around instrumentation, records featuring violins vs pianos vs banjo etc. But one of the first stylistic categorizations for music were "race records," music recorded by black artists separated out for white consumers interested in the material.

I don't believe that the purpose or effect of using genre as a means to categorize music has changed one bit since the invention of "race music," but I'm interested to hear if anyone disagrees.

 

[needful]

is genre in fact just simple racism? All genres should probably just be filed into 1) african tribal 2) white supremacist

 

[phil.]

All genres should probably just be filed into 1) african tribal 2) white supremacist

This is effectively how Billboard has been organizing its charts since 1942, which is in turn one of the reasons for this thread.

 

[needful]

yeh perhaps but do you really think genre is really the tyranny you're after in that case.?

 

[phil.]

I'm not after any tyranny. You don't seem to understand the question.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm calling it: argument between two bots, right?

 

[Clinamenic]

I'm calling it: argument between two bots, right?

Close: not just any bots, but Deep State-controlled wokebots, or “wobots” as they are colloquially known.

 

[Clinamenic]

The AIMS subfaction trained on the Judith Butler oeuvre.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Close: not just any bots, but Deep State-controlled wokebots, or “wobots” as they are colloquially known.

This made me laugh, as the actual @Woebot is a staunch old-school Tory.

 

[thirdform]

in Turkey genre was a form of radio and nightclub segregation. for instance, trt would refuse to play what they dubbed the fatalistic eastern arabesk (a kind of turkish blues with heavy egyptian film influences.) Because it was seen as a reversion to the Ottoman past, and they were intent upon pushing the synthesis between turkish folk and western music, which didn't really work out anywhere but in anadolu pop, where it was successful, but this was always insufficient for their lofty ambitions. Of course, attempting to fuse turkish folk music with highbrow western sources often by nature ends up truncated and like an unappetising mixed pickle precisely because of the way the two traditions developed in substantially different ways (western equal temperament music is simply too colourless and lacks those inbetween pitch bends.)

I am not sure how record stores used to categorise at the time but even thatwas a luxury for certain urban dwellers. The reason precisely why cassette took off so much in third world countries was their easy duplication.