Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

@audio-b-dog 

The way I think of V. Morrison is a unique blend of American Blues, R&B, Jazz and Folk influences with traditional UK musical genres. And then, there's Morrison's deep spirituality. 

Richard Thompson is another equally unique and equally brilliant synthesizer of American and UK influences. Of course, his perspective on life is very different from Morrison's. He can be quite acerbic and bleak but there's no denying his talent. He's not afraid to tackle the painful aspects of human experience. 

@audio-b-dog 

We are in danger of abandoning the perspective of the individual for the collective perspective. I think I am fighting for the individual perspective which would not favor the collective’s definition of genres we can all relate to. 

Where is communication in all of this? 

Personally, I look at it not in terms of one or the other (masculine vs feminine or individual vs collective) but of striving for balance. Too much of the collective and we have repression. Too much individuality and we have chaos. 

The older I get, the more aware I become of the ubiquitous nature of paradox. 

Sometimes I feel as if I am a bit unique on various music forums I post on, because I have almost zero nostalgic feelings  connected to music. 

Once I reached about the age of 20, music stopped being the "soundtrack to my life", and became something to appreciate on a purely artistic level. Once that happened, the idea of listening to a song because it reminded me of a great time I had during my youth, became trivial to me.

Not that I don't listen to some music from before that time, but it still has to meet the criteria* I love in music. I do not listen to it because it came from a certain time in my life. 

*Those criteria being: very high levels of musicianship, deep and broad range of emotional and/or intellectual content conveyed, moderate to high levels of complexity. 

@stuartk,

I will definitely listen to Richard Thompson. I've never heard of him.

I agree with you on balance. What I think my research has taught me is how incredibly imbalanced we are. Almost all, if not all, of our thinking is from males. If you studied philosophy, you studied males for the most part.

The Greeks and Jews, upon whom our thinking is based, were both misogynistic societies. And that misogyny is built into our culture, our language, and our male think. 

To take it a step further, I believe that females were more inherintly powerful before the patriarchal takeover around 7 or 8 thousand years ago. Why? Well, we can see the results, that's for sure. In my writing, I want to make this plain to the reader without writing philosophy. 

In music, I think it will take a while for women to bring a strong influence unless they are slapped back as they have always been. If we cannot incorporate a feminine view as voiced by females not male interpreters, I thinked were screwed. 

What a bunch of nonsense! Sorry but I dont see too many impediments for women who would like to let their thoughts be known. As if there existed some form of gender based, universal trend in thought. The supposition that masculine and feminine perspectives are very different is essentially a misogynistic one.