Masthead
One of my photos

Unclassified

October 22nd, 2007 · Posted by Skuds in Music · 1 Comment · Music

How many times have you seen in an interview with a band or musician somebody saying something like “our music does not fit neatly into any category? All these classifications, categories and labels exist like punk, rock, reggae, soul and no musician will ever admit to fitting into any of them.

You can see why they do it. Nobody wants to be classified as just another metal band/boy band/rapper: they want to be known for themselves. And yet these labels do exist for a reason. As a consumer, if I find that I like a lot of reggae artists, for example, I might like to go to the shop and have all the reggae in one place so its easier to find artists I haven’t heard of but might like.

A lot of web 2.0 sites now work on that very principal, except they try to be a bit more precise. Order a Bob Marley CD from Amazon, or even just look at one, and you will find yourself being recommended other CDs based on that interest. LastFM does something similar. Some sites work on the basis of trying to categorise bands or define similar bands or bands who influenced them or were influenced by them, others work on the basis of knowing that people who like band A tend to also like band B.

All this is the long way round to something funny I found tonight, and a good example of why bands are maybe right to avoid labels. I did a search for Crowded House on Ticketmaster to see when they are playing and got a page of information about them which said “Crowded House. Alternative/Indie”

Umm… I really like Crowded House. Got all the albums. And all the Neil Finn albums and Finn Brothers albums too. I saw them play a couple of times in the 90s. They were good, but they would never claim to be Alternative or Indie.

The terms are a bit hard to define exactly. Its one of those things you know instinctively but can’t put into words, but a good way to start defining Alternative/Indie would be to say “not like Crowded House”.

Just out of interest, I got Ticket master to do a list of everything under their Alternative/Indie and found The Zombies, Foo Fighters, David Gray, Carl Palmer Band, Sex Pistols, Human League, Squeeze, Madness and Bad Manners.

The other categories are no less strange. 10CC are, apparently, country/folk while Wishbone Ash are R&B/Urban Soul. UB40 and Enrique Iglesias are both ‘World’ and Gary Numan is club/dance. Brilliant. “R&B/Urban Soul” is a sort of code, a way of saying black music without using the word ‘black’. Wishbone Ash are a proggy West Country band from the 70s and if you were browsing for them R&B/Urban Soul is possibly the last place you would look.

I am glad I looked around the site though. Its amazing to see how many bands are still around that I had assumed would not be, including the Rezillos, who appear to still have most of the original members.

Tags: ·

One Comment so far ↓

  • skud's sister

    Although 10CC did play at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention a year or so ago so the folk link isn’t as odd as it sounds. Digence still does the Saturday lunchtime slot there each year – just about the same set each year but good for all that. Maybe I should send you the video of where he had the whole audience (c. 10,000 people) morris dancing….