Everything in society seems to have a certain label of class that it belongs to. The ironic thing is that ninety-nine per-cent of the time we say how stereotyping is bad and only leads to negative things. Just ask George Dubya, he’ll tell you that stereotypes are non-existent (silly red neck). But why then do we (speaking as a society) feel the need to group music and put it into these nice little categories? Doesn't that too lead to bad things? Is it because it’s just simply easier, and besides, it’s only music? But music, like everything in society, doesn’t need nor should have any sort of title or class which causes restriction of freedom to do as you wish.

It seems like today most music is trying to conform to certain stereotypes or be associated with a certain image. And hell, it’s not entirely the musicians' fault. The way that things are run, major corporations dictate what is cool and what “style” of music a group or artist should play. It’s crap. There doesn’t need to be any sort of “genres” of groups of music. And yes, this is entirely possible, it just means that TRL and all of that other festering garbage will no longer have a name to sell. Picture this; music that is just that, music. Not rap or hip-hop or rock or heavy metal, just music. Granted this idea is just that and really isn’t practical for the real world, but never the less, there has never been one time in history that the grouping or labeling things has ever turned out to be a good thing. So next some one asks what kind of music you like (like it’s a fucking basis for what kind of person you are) tell them music. Maybe after a while the corporate shit-! heads will catch on too.

--Raymond Mallory
raymond@thezone.org

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