My taste in music is exactly that. A taste. I have a wide variety of sounds which I listen to, a variety of different flavors. If described this section by simply listing the band names or ‘genres’ I don't feel this would give a true insight into my taste and the meaning would be lost, also the ignorant would label. The last thing someone, who truly understands music , wants to happen to them it to get labeled. What this means is that you have been dumped in a category with a bunch of people that don’t appreciate music, they know fuck all. Music is too varied to be ‘labeled’; there are so many different types of music with such great style and structure which is why this is the last thing someone who appreciates music would want to happen to them.
    Labeling comes from another grotesque occurrence in music today, this is genres. Genres really are nothing, they are meaningless. Music has evolved to have so many influences which means that it cannot be simply dropped into categories, like with genre blanket terms.  Not only this but when a sound becomes part of a genre, what happened is elements gets eroded away, starting at its influences. An example of this is RnB, at the moment it fucked up and corrupted by record companies (the industries) who wanted to make a quick bit of cash from it. However, if you look back to its true form, Rhythm and blues not RnB/ R&B, it contains influences from jazz, gospel, and blues. This showed real ranging influences, all of which has now been lost. The reason development of true sound has been stumped and crippled is not only the fault of the money minded industries as they are simply the donkey following the carrot.  Why do you think 98% marketed of music these days is unoriginal, genre abiding, ‘trend’ shit? Really? We are the person on the donkey. We are the person. We are the tools which are buying into this by continuing to buy these shit records. We are the people destructing this art form. The problem lies with this simple fact; music SHOULD be too free to stack into genres, but with people doing so at the moment it is not. Music is not free, we lost its freedom though being ignorant about it.
 You now may be asking yourself, “Why the fuck should you care? Austin, stop wasting my time this rant the size of a small essay. Just don’t listen to the shit if you don’t like it”, but there is a problem with this; I cannot stop because what happens is that the popular music of today (the ‘mainstream’) doesn’t just effect itself, it effects the future of music too. Potential gets lost because a cycle is being made, a cycle of crap. What we need if more writers and musicians to create something original, but this is starting to not happen as many of the upcoming set their influences around genres, dead influence- genres, which results in them making dead influence-less music -  and war-la, this is the current state of general music today. We need to start to appreciate what makes good music. Understand how a good sound (those which remain with influences) can be broken down into different levels. Start appreciating the both complexity and simplicity of such layers.  A good place to start is bass. Start to feel the depth it gives to the song, realize what it opens up. When I started to gain a true feeling for music I realized that in the song, lyrics are the least important thing, they are shadowed by other details. The day when lyrics became seen as the most important factor was the day when music first got infected and diagnosed to death.

    In conclusion, ask yourself, Why do you think music is dead? It’s not helped by the record companies/industries, but we are the ones who pay for the music, we are the ones who fucked it up. Few remain, and they could well follow. The control over music held by industries has meant that the most important factor in music has been lost, this is influence. Influence THE powerful thing, it what makes the transformation from past to present, it is what music evolves around. This loss of influence is why music today is so behind the past. It evolves from different origins and cultures around the world. This is being lost to genres that narrow down such influence. Genres are meaning that music is becoming all the same, with originality now affected by the destruction of influences. In order for us to get back on track we must pick carefully, realize music is about what we hear not see, support influence, don’t be closed minded, and only buy structured music. It’s not helped by the record companies/industries, but we are the ones who pay for the music, we are the ones who fucked it up. Few remain, and they may soon follow. We the tools fucked up music. Now do you understand why the first thing I avoid on someones facebook is their music section?

    A.  Goodchild.