Listening by genres

Um - what does "listening according to genres" mean exactly, and what's the alternative?

I mean if we assume that most CDs fit within a genre, then isn't most listening listening 'by genre'?

I presume Lee means he went through phases of listening solely to a genre, or maybe he started assuming he'd like something because of its genre.

As for obscurity warranting obscurity, this is drivel (if I understand you correctly). There has never been a necessary connection between fame and worth, and I don't suppose there ever will be.

To clarify: listening by genre: there was a time when I was, wow, this Tricky fellow, he sounds good, I want more stuff like this. And so I checked out Mandalay, Hooverphonic, Morcheeba, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Monk & Canatella, etc., or, Hey, DJ Shadow's keen, how about DJs Krush, Cam, Vadim, etc., all of whom are under the trip hop genre, and good at the generic sound itself, but otherwise uninteresting. And I was listening almost exclusively to trip hop. Needless to say, my head started to soften.

The second point. More towards IDM: it's the (stereo)typical music geek thing, though I feel it's especially prevalent in the IDM community. It goes, "Autechre,"; "Oh yeah? Funkstorung."; "Oh yeah? Jega."; "Oh yeah? Fizzarum."; ad nauseum.

Ah OK I understand now (and agree with you I think).

This sounds like another term for "listening like a male". (You are a dude, Lee?) Not so much a DESIRE to find more music that shares qualities you like, as a NEED to systematically acquire-through-listening all specimens of a classification. Look, if the second or third knockoff band doesn't repeat the joy for you, shouldn't that tell you that the genre ain't what's bringing it? Why continue all the way to DJ Zed?

If you take enough types of music under your wing, eventually, your taste will begin to blanket everything and a bunch of artists will blur the lines between the genres you've been prepped with. More associative links, crossing genre lines, will become apparent and your listening habits will be FREE from genre-particularity at this point. "Short experience as a music lover".... will not be the thing to say much longer.

Monk and Canatella? Thanks for reminding me of their existence. I'm going to have nightmares again tonight...

Lee, I suppose there's something to that, but I'm hesitant to say that if it's obscure, it's obscure for a reason (i.e., it's not that good). This seems a bit too reductionistic and simplistic - after all, there are a lot of reasons for obscurity. I would have never discovered the Comsat Angels if I had stopped at Joy Division and Wire. In a different vein, though related, I wouldn't have discovered Kraftwerk if I had stopped at present-day electronic stuff. Trip-hop and first-wave Warp IDM *are* pretty limited, I'd say. You should figure out what it is you like about the artists you listen to in these genres and pursue those strands, rather than attempting an All-Music-Guide-style connect-the-dots of increasing obscurity. If you like, say, the precise, detail-oriented sound play of Autechre, etc., and you don't mind house beats, then check out Herbert, Luomo. (Wow, I sound like a lame and ineloquent self-help guru - forgive me.)

About the only genres I really do this for these days are uk garage and microhouse, and what defines both is that they're somewhat amorphous stylistically but sharply defined moodwise (the main thing that makes a track a UK Garage or microhouse track is that it thinks it's one). Which boils down to something wanky about searching by "feel" being preferential to searching by stylistic markers. With the latter approach each deviation from the original artist is more likely to take you towards something that sounds similar but doesn't do it for you.