Musical genres are useful. They help people from different backgrounds identify and discuss music using common terms. Genres not only group like sounds and styles into an over-arching label, but they also allow people to differentiate within that similar using sub-genres.

As our digital reality makes it possible for more and more music to spread and proliferate it is safe to say that more music exists now than ever before. Perhaps for this reason a number of music writers and fans have taken it upon themselves to constantly create and fabricate new sub-genres for music’s growing family tree. I often find these sub-subs to be over specific, excluding more than they include, relying on assumption, and all together misleading.

As previously stated, words can only go so far in describing music. Like the Tao adage that says the tighter you grasp something the more you squeeze through your fingers, the more specifically you try to label something the less comprehensive your description.

For this reason, I have chosen to use the most basic genre names. Hopefully, by tagging with broad strokes I will be able to provide enough background to reasonably set expectations while not driving people away with pretention. I expect the names that I am currently using to change with time and user feed back. I have yet to come across the perfect system for organizing music in a record store (or online), but I hope that my offering here will by clearer than not.

This is my list to start:

• Rock
• Jazz
• World
• American Acoustic
• Classical
• Rhythm & Blues