For The People

Not necessarily disingenuous, but certainly impossible, as a large percentage of self-proclaimed 'active' listeners assume deliberately oppositional stances in order to not be 'passive', or whatever other reason.

That is, they don't WANT to belong. Vini Reilly = Ken Kragen?

Who?

universality is no bad thing (the essence of "pop", no? the only other option = "i just do what i feel like, and if other people like it, that's a bonus maaaaaaan.") however, to thoroughly misquote some art critic: "there's no possible goya who can 'mean as much' to an asian as a european."

we've had this argument before though, i think. i remember nitsuh and kate st. and maybe me had some interesting things to say about "listening outside yr sphere."

if music is "unreservedly inclusive", and belongs to everyone, then that would mean that musical labels are left behind along with musical foundations. i get so fed up and frustrated with labels... they attempt to "organize", but they simply build frontiers that shouldn't be there. and then of course, every musical label has a target audience. it's rare to see a mixture of labels and audiences.

in short, i think master reilly's idea of what the durutti column would be is both valid and appealing to me. i dislike listening to something and having to place it into a label. i dislike people trying to fit things into a label, and comparing it to something else. it limits the listening opportunities, i think. labels can be quite mind-narrowing.

i might have gone a bit astray here... but labels and target audiences are one of my biggest gripes. in my opinion, they are one of the reasons why music can't belong to everyone.