I agree with all of that Geek.

And yes GUEST, it may well be anal gazing, but the reasons I like/ enjoy/ relate to/ feel educated by/ get turned on by stuff interests me. If nothing else, it makes it easier to sift through the dross to find stuff new to me that I can like/ enjoy/ relate to ... etc.

And whether something could be regarded as a tradition or a fashion clique is directly relevant to the above. And I would say it should have relevance to anyone who likes any of the traditional musics of the world.

And there is a sound reason to refer to the baroque, classical, romantic and modern periods of "western art music" by a generic term. It's because they were all strong, deep and brilliant traditions that morphed into one another.

For example, the quality of Mozart's "classical" music can be defined by the combination of the depth of the classical and baroque traditions , the level of the his respect for those traditions and the level of his ability to communicate his experiences and reactions to the human condition.

And this is why, for example, a modern singer/songwriter can never be as good an artist. The very best of them may well have extraordinary abilities in communicating their experiences and reactions to the human condition, but their art will alway be let down by the shallowness of their chosen traditional medium. I traditional medium that could easily be described as a mere fashion clique