| Summary: | The contemporary music scene, imbued with stylistic contaminations, is dominated by the idea that the differentiation between musical genres no longer makes sense: the only legitimate distinction should be between good and bad music. Yet, the so mistreated labels that separate classical music from jazz and pop are still in use, both in critical discourse and in the organization of musical life, individual and collective. In the attempt to solve this apparent paradox, which closely resembles the paradox of taste that animated the philosophical debate in Britain in the eighteenth century, the essay points out the advantages (as well as the limitations) inherent to the genre conventions, also relating them to postmodern musical culture.
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