On the other hand, a scholarly analysis of the last thousand years of...

Yup: A tomato is a fruit or a veggie depending on the speaker & subject. If it's an instructor saying [X] is or ain't [Y]… it is, or it ain't. End of discussion for the them chasing a sheepskin.

Regency dance tunes that doubled as capstan songs were both “work” and “pop” before either genre label or school of academics was in existence. Any speaker/scholar is/was free to:
a) Retroactively assign the entire millennium to a late 19th century (sub)genre.
b) Process instrumentals as stone silence.
c) Create an entirely new 20th century (sub)genre for the thousand year gaps of their own creation.

Any listener will have no idea what the labels actually mean until they've heard the speaker out. There are no assurances all or none of it will apply to the next speaker.