An Alternative To Categories?

I really do believe in the power of categories, of separating things into different drawers. The power of categories is to be able to filter, to chunk, to address many by one name.

But categories can be stifling too. A classic type of overdone category is “musical genre”. Classifying songs into particular genres is great when you’re selling the music and need an efficient way of reaching markets.

But those categories don’t allow the ability to choose music based on how passionate the musician is, regardless of “genre”. This is something not as easily put into a category, yet in my opinion, it’s precisely what I search for in music.