JPF Home Page Forums Lyric and MP3 Feedback MP3 Feedback Forum Do you all want GENRE boards?

Colin's point about young writers is a good one. I believe it extends to other cases as well. When you have, for example, country writers criticizing rap writers and vice versa, personal feelings about the genre itself emerge, which are of no help at all to the writer. This extends beyond song criticisms, there are many cases where someone from, let's say, the modern pop field wants to have a discussion about some element of their field and the discussion turns into a criticism about their genre itself.

In the real world, music is split into genres. I'll bet there is a only a fairly small segment here who have rap, country, reggae, electronica, old school r&b and bluegrass in their music collections or among their listening habits. Of those folks who do, I doubt if they discovered those genres here, so they must have actively sought out diversity among the real world segregation. That could continue here. Additionally, it would give home to those who have no interest at all in other genres.

Then, finally, there is the educational value. Universities have departments for a reason. The pedagogy of medicine is quite different than that of literature, and for good reason. Being able to focus on the idiosyncrasies of one's field makes progress easier and faster.

Now of course, there can be great value in having an open mind and in exploring things our of your norm or even your comfort zone. But that does not have to be abandoned. There could still be forums that mix it up, perhaps that focus on recording technique, or my preference, that focus simply on diversity. But, there are also those "specialists" who would actually lose something by adding too much of another genre to their style. Imagine John Prine doing a Kanye West style song.

Overall, I believe that writers having a sort of "free zone" where they won't find their genres being disparaged and can focus on improving and sharing among like minded artists would improve our our group, make it more welcoming and, ironically, increase our diversity.