TJ- in some stores it most certainly is because retailers don't know how to categorize it. As I posted earlier, I feel that anything traditional based from anywhere is "world music." If someone in Argentina was looking for Irish traditional music, wouldn't it be logical to be in the same place as the African, Middle Eastern, and Asian music? In a perfect world it would all make logical sense, but as a former retailer, some times you just do what makes the most sense, and not nitpick too much. At the Tower where I worked our World section had Latin music of all types, Brazilian and other South American musics like tango, all European music seperated by country, and sometimes sub-sorted to account for music from say Spain, which has diverse music from individual regions, Gypsy music, Middle Eastern, Asian, African....and Irish, Scots and other Celtic music, along with English folk. It all made sense to us, and we tried very hard to in fact be as thorough as possible to suggestions. Can you think of anywhere else you saw not just a bunch of middle eastern cd's not just jammed in together, but actually seperated by country, or that had not just a French section, but also a Breton section as well. That is what we strived for. It wasn't all traditional music of course....some things were split up-Astrid Gilberto, some people look for in jazz, some look for in Brazilian sections, so it went to both. So for us it made perfect sense to include English folk musics (not a typo, I said musics) because it reflected traditional, or traditional inspired music. I think it makes perfect sense.
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