Kind of Blue

The 4-channel version of "Bitches Brew" is astounding.  Multichannel sound is the perfect medium for a studio recording that is so dense with musical ideas. 

I'd lived with (and loved) the stereo Columbia release all my life but the surround version (avaialable only as import only at this point, I believe) gave me one of those goosebumpy, uber-thrilling musical experiences that keep us in this hobby.

@frogman -thanks very much, nice to see you.

I'd be interested in looking at how a music librarian catalogs stuff. Oh, I'm getting on the phone with one in a minute or ten. I'll ask her.

I tend to like material that bends the genre a little- whatever it is. Not for novelty's sake, but to make something new and different. 

OK, FWIW, one of the challenges in musicology librarianship is descriptions in catalogs with appropriate cross references. Not easy. But think about a large repository that is made available not only to scholars but to the average person- how do they access material that is "on file"? That's one of the challenges, according to the person I just finished speaking with. Along with making sure the artifact (recording) is shelved properly. I have that problem here and I'm not a library or archive. When I had guests over the weekend, playing the system, I was trying to find a record I knew I had- but where the hell was it? I found it moments after they left. 

One facet of how to characterize a recording and "index" it if you are compulsive or have a large collection. I trimmed my collection substantially and still have issues- the record will pop into my hand afterwards, but sometimes, trying to find something on demand is a challenge. I know this doesn't address "short hand" genre classifications, but the issue is one that is taken up in library science. 

It seems like we’re simply incapable of considering that it is not the definition of the “genre” that is the problem, but the “genre”-mongering itself that is the problem.

In lieu of talking about how to define a “genre” and then describing music in those woefully over-simplified, dismissive, unhelpful/inefficient terms, a person could simply address music by saying things like,
- “it’s not particularly aggressive, more mellow, but with similar song structures to their previous LP”
- “to me it sounds similar to Bitches Brew but more tightly structured, more conventional harmonic relationships / composition,”
- “it reminds me of Ace of Spades but with more overt melodicism,”
- “it has harmonically sophisticated melodic composition provided by rich, lush orchestral instrumentation with simple percussion arrangements and impressionistic lyrics that depict desolation, squalor with a touch of gallows humor”  
- “the harmonic composition and song structure is unremittingly formulaic, be it I-IV-V, or I-VI-IV-V, and the arrangements and lyrics are rich in vapid cliches,”. 
- “it has pedal steel guitar, brilliant James Burton-esque guitar, but employs more orchestral accompaniment and more sophisticated harmonic composition than a typical Merle Haggard record”