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THE_NAMING_OF_MUSICS

                                  Dec 21, 1999
                             Rev: Jul  4, 2004


A music can be named after:

   o  the way it's created (electronic/techno/computer)
   o  when it was created (new wave/classical)
   o  attitudes expressed by it
   o  attitudes of the people who created it.
   o  spiritual functions it serves (gospel, gregorian chant)
   o  the kind of people who create it (Seattle grunge/japanoise/Aboriginal)
   o  the geographical location of the creators 
      (New Orleans jazz, New York Downtown)

Oh, and I almost forgot:

   o  the way that it sounds

      But how often does *that* happen?



Has a music ever been named
with an arbitrary made up name?

         What was jazz?
         Jizz?  Shit?


Gothic is very interesting.
An analogy to other artforms
(architecture, literature).             GOTHIC


    Pollock music.
    Wright music.

                   But I can't think of
                   a genre named after a
                   person...                Perhaps Piazzolla:
                                            a specific form of
                                            Tango with no other name.

psychedelic - another peculiar one.
After a kind of drug?
                                     Or were the drugs and the music
                                     both named after a psychological
                                     phenomena?

                                                    Similarly, there's
                                                    "acid house", though
                                                    there's some small
                                                    dispute on whether
                                                    that was originally
                                                    a drug reference.

                                                           (Circa 1990,
                                                            my impression
                                                            was that it
                                                            was a joke:
                                                            it was so
                                                            sample heavy
                                                            it was like
                                                            "having      
                                                            flashbacks".)


    IMP_PERVERSE



Some very artificial names have            (July 4, 2004)
been put over in recent years:
darkwave.  electro-clash.


  Darkwave is an odd one:
  a relatively commonly
  used term that appears
  to have no established
  meaning.

  The Projekt catalog was
  called "Darkwave".  So that            Going from a record label
  means it's dreamy stuff with           catalog name to a genre
  ethereal female vocals?                name is an interesting
                                         transition.
  It sounds something
  like a contraction                         It makes the idea of
  of "Dark New Wave",                        going from the Transbay
  so is it a synonym                         Calender to Transbay Music
  for Gothic Rock?                           more plausible.

  Different conflicting
  interpretations co-exist.

  As far as I can tell, the term
  has been promulgated largely        (A competing theory:
  because it looks cool on night      in germany at least,
  club flyers.                        it was used concurrently
                                      with "gothic".)
     (It's part of the
      great Gothic Denial
      of recent years...)     LATE_STAGES

Electro-clash appears to have
been put over by a single
promoter: someone started doing
a festival focusing on a kind of
poppy rock with electronic
sounds mixed in, and bored music       This proves that there
journalists picked up on it            are ways for a single
("Trend! Trend!  Employment!").        centralized agency to
                                       invent a new nomenclature.




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