[joethelion]

I've always sort of grouped Various Production into the whole 'dubstep' category / scene... but sort of in the way that Massive Attack & Tricky were 'trip hop' - yet at the same time very much not

I think as time has progressed, there was this really emphatic sense that you had to category each style of music within a box... not only to 'make it easy' to find specific sounds you'd want (as someone purchasing music) but also to give a sense of unique identity within each genre. Like, the producer now has a name/craft to identify with. (like, "I work with wooden furniture so I must be a carpenter")

but the only problem is - the categories got way way way way too specific, while musicians simultaneously started crossing genres (there's a clever quote that David Byrne said about this on "Sessions @ West 54th" a while back, but I forget it - I think I have that show recorded somewhere...)

and genre's - in general - have become pretty pointless. Like, how would you classify someone like Sebastian, Justice, or Digitalism? I've heard each of them described as "electro"... but they sound remarkedly different than to say - Tiefschwarz, Mylo, Two Lone Swordsmen, or even The Egyptian Lover & Afrika Bambaataa - who have also been classified as "electro"