Omaar said:Musical form and the social context of music are too closely linked to be separated out, I think if you start defining musical genres purely formally, you risk taking them completely out of context.
I have a feeling the formal assessment of a genre is all a bit horse before cart - that to establish whether the formal attributes of a certain style lend themselves to "good" music you would have to work backwards, ie. look at music you reckon works and then break that down into certain formal attributes ... and in that sense you're starting with the answer and trying to find the questions that lead you back to what you've already concluded. Perhaps? Feedback loops...
I do agree with the distinctions being made between ways of thinking about / listening to music, though. The only thing I'm still getting my brain a bit tangled up in is regarding how you would attempt to classify genres and pick some exemplars. Specifically, how you would determine if you've got the right criteria for defining a genre (and what is valued in a genre). It's obviously possible to go "OK, these things define this genre, and this track meets all those criteria" but that just means you've found a track that fits your criteria, not that those criteria are accurate.
Establishing the validity of your little classification scheme would surely fall back to whether it feels right, either to you or to spokespeople of the scene or the majority of punters or whatever... I guess I'm skeptical of this kind of attempted objective analysis because I do believe it ultimately comes back to a series of completely subjective calls. Well, that's OK, perhaps it's just a matter of outlining clearly that calls have been made and what they are...?
Regardless, looking forward to Gabber for Dinner Parties Vol. 1 ... 'Gabber & The City'? 'Sex & The Gabber?