Who Needs a Label

Absolutely. I don't even know what label you might use to describe that music, but I can begin to imagine what the music might sound like by thinking about the artists in those lists.

Labels are broad, and don't always mean the same thing to different people. (Jethro Tull? Hard Rock/Metal?) But even when an artist's style varies, there's something specific and distinct about the music that tells me much more than a broad label.

When I ran a little indie record label, telling people about one of my artists, Amy X Neuburg, it was more effective using other artists as reference points than trying to describe her sound. Saying it was electronic pop with vocals left people thinking "Laurie Anderson"; mentioning that Amy's influences included XTC and Frank Zappa suggested the humor and experimentation in her recordings.

Kristi

("You sound like Air Supply meets GWAR - in a good way" - Kevin Gilbert, "Suit Fugue")

It's hardly new - read any pop/rock journalism from the 60's or later, or a jazz criticism, and a great deal of time is spent situating an artist genealogically. this really shouldn't be surprising, since what is commonly referred to as 'genre' isn't really genre in it's usage in a western art music tradition - the distinctions the term is used to organize are far more stylistic, and far more permeable and prone to re-negotiation.

at least it avoids the trap of thinking of 'genre' as a classical categorization– often composer/musician names are simply used as a stand in for feature or technique, and so allow for Familienähnlichkeit to be taken seriously.

A real problem, though, is that said genealogy is so often simply an assertion; we run the risk of taking posture as something more, or of allowing (necessary) descriptive language to crowd out history.