We live in a post-genre world, maybe

Peter Robinson's bit in yesterday's Guardian suggesting we live in a world where genres are meaningless was in interesting read:

Last summer, a survey by “millennial insight agency” Ypulse surveyed 1,000 young adults. When asked about their favourite artists, many respondents couldn’t answer, not through ambivalence but because, it was concluded, “this generation is interested in so many music genres and artists”.

It found that while millennials are passionate about music (76% within the 13- to 17-year-old bracket said they wouldn’t be able to last a week without it), 79% of 13- to 32-year-olds said their tastes didn’t fall into one specific music genre. Just 11% said that they only listened to one genre of music. “It seems,” Ypulse noted when it published its findings, “that millennials are a genre-less generation”.

Maybe.

And you can see what he's getting at - people are less hung up on a pop/indie/urban distinction around what they're listening to. And, in part, that's down to the ease of discovery and consumption:

Samuel Potts, Columbia Records’ head of radio, puts YouTube at the heart of this. “Millennials or ‘digital natives’ are the first generation to literally have the entirety of the world’s music at their fingertips,” he reasons. “This influences the creators but also young fans in terms of taste. Online culture is inherently global, so genres that were distinct and contained to geographical locations are now cross-pollinated throughout the world. As a result, you get artists like 19-year-old Raury, who’s championed by the likes of Kanye and André 3000, and cites everyone from Bon Iver to Phil Collins as an influence.”

You can actually see the point where this starts to unravel - the idea that we're "cross-pollinating across the world" by bringing together Phil Collins and Kanye West. They literally mark the extremes of the entire global history of music.

What the article is really about is the less eyecatching suggestion that the mainstream has got a bit wider and a bit less regimented:

Even on The X Factor, acts were increasingly praised for their authenticity and their credibility; in auditions, songs by the likes of Kings Of Leon replaced Westlife’s Flying Without Wings.

This does require you to have believed that The Kings Of Leon were that much more credible than Westlife to begin with. And, sure, you might hear Sex On Fire on the X Factor, but that's about as far as it goes.
Perhaps if someone does Mauritia Mayer as their blind audition on The Voice, or Simbinbino gets covered by The 1975, maybe then we'll talk.

Because if we really were in this post-genre world, the news about Adele headlining Glastonbury wouldn't have had such a violently negative reaction.

What sort of music do you make, Justin Bieber?

Yes, yes, you might call it "inoffensive undescended bollock pop", but what does Justin Bieber call the genre in which he works? MTV news asked:

"Whatever comes out of my mouth is just what you guys are going to hear," Bieber explained of his lyrical stylings. "I don't know, it's not a specific type of music. Whatever music I write, I wouldn't say I'm pop or R&B or country or anything: I would just say it's just good music," he said with confidence.

To be fair, Justin, I don't think many people were going "is this country music?" when they heard your pillow-dry-hump soundtracks. Although possibly more people thought that than "this is just good music".

Klaxons no-glow

We were amused by a piece on Channel 4 a week or so ago on NuRave, where an intense young woman, surrounded by a crowd who looked as if they'd dressed expecting to be going on black and white telly, explained the difference between NuRave and Old Rave was that Nu Ravers care a lot more about how they look.

At least the first wave of rave had the excuse that they were off their cakes on cake and x to worry too much about what they'd started out wearing; to wear a smiley headscarf as a neckerchief and claim that you've thought out your outfit raises a cry for help to the level of an incessant, clanging bell.

Now, though, the Klaxons are confessing that NuRavers are actually following something they made up for a laugh (making NuRave the Scientology of musical genres), and asking people to stop turning up with glowsticks:

“We kept getting asked to explain it,” Jamie Reynolds explained Popworld Pulp magazine, “And it’s like, ‘Look, the whole idea of new rave was to take the piss out of the media by making them talk about something that didn’t exist, just for our own amusement.’ And they’d say, ‘I appreciate that, but can you tell me more about new rave?’”

We're clearing next Friday afternoon for the arrival of the New Wave of New Rave. Anyone want to join us?