It was a term invented by the music marketing industry in order to try and label new styles that were coming forth spontaneously in the mid-sixties, primarily due to Bob Dylan's unprecedented achievement in marrying meaninful song lyrics about serious subjects to amplified music...and other people's attempts to match what he was doing or at least jump on the bandwagon.

The industry created the term "folk-rock", a term which Dylan himself always denied. As soon as the term existed, lots of people tried to write and play "folk-rock", and so it went.

The same sort of silly thing has happened repeatedly, due to the marketing process, as in the case of "alternative" music, for instance...or "new country". These are artificial, spurious labels which are aimed at increasing sales by identifying a product as a popular brand name, and the moment you have such a label you have a limitation upon imagination...and a great deal of bland imitation...which eventually becomes self-defeating as it destroys the orginality and freshness of the whole thing.

The main problem with music is this: the marketing system that sells it to make money.

And that is the main problem with most things in this society. The dollar rules, rather than sanity, rather than reason, rather than compassion, rather than Love, rather than Truth, rather than Wisdom, rather than the Soul.

The above message was NOT brought to you by the System or any of its commercial sponsors.

- LH