I just read Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. This is really an eye-opener for me, who so far have pieced Blues history together from various websites and cd inserts. The popular history of the Blues is quite different than what evidence suggests. The book has a lot of myth debunking, and at the same time, the author tries to be as upfront about his own ‘predispositions’– which are generally in line with popular history, and the romantic view of the bluesman as an outsider, or naive artist.
Throughout, the author reminds the reader of the danger of genres. The only purpose of genres is to make records easier to find in a record store. And yet we tend to apply them more universally, drawing arbitrary lines between artists and albums. Thus you end up with people arguing whether ‘Mississippi John Hurt’ is blues or country, rather than simply enjoying his music. We forget that we’ve arbitrarily and subjectively applied these labels, and treat them as if they were natural laws. We seem to do this more often than not, in most areas of our lives.
I’ve only been able to use 2 genres consistently and without confusion, and I wish to apply similar logic to other areas of my life as well.
My music collection is sorted thusly:
Genre 1: Music I like
Genre 2: Music I don’t like
Genre 1 I keep, Genre 2 I leave at the record store.
Works for me.