From recent decades’ digitization have emerged a myriad of techniques for mapping musical life, identifying patterns in sound or musico-cultural practices, and compiling labels, names, tags, and classes on an unprecedented scale. Proliferating genre catalogs in the context of digital platforms and the conjunction of genre with notions of, for example, mood and activity are among the consequences, which challenge prevailing scene-based and identificational understandings in musical genre studies. This book answers to this challenge. Centering on the concepts of musico-generic assemblage and abstraction, it offers new perspectives on musical genre fit for current times but with the potential for also reconsidering historical cases.

From recent decades’ digitization have emerged a myriad of techniques for mapping musical life, identifying patterns in sound or musico-cultural practices, and compiling labels, names, tags, and classes on an unprecedented scale.

Proliferating genre catalogs in the context of digital platforms and the conjunction of genre with notions of, for example, mood and activity are among the consequences, which challenge prevailing scene-based and identificational understandings in musical genre studies. This book answers to this challenge. Centering on the concepts of musico-generic assemblage and abstraction, it offers new perspectives on musical genre fit for current times but with the potential for also reconsidering historical cases.