'In one post you want to talk about how some musicians are artists' by my personal definition of what is a an artist, yes. Not saying that one is less or more valid than the other. More on this below.
'and say that journalists are to blame for marketing terms and genre categories.' No, I said (in post #38) journalists,etc. meaning in general anyone that wants or needs to put someone into categories for whatever reason. And no I wasn't blaming. I was saying I see how it's easier to lump a variety of artists,etc under the same label which is understandable, but I like to make a distinction between the artists that are being thrown under the same label that's all.
'All the musicians we're discussing are artists.' sure, for sake of argument yes. But personally for me not you or anyone else, I like to make a distinction. Meaning for me there are musicians of different levels of skill and vision(they are all still musicians,yes) and there are artists of different levels of skill and vision(they are all still artists ,yes). So yes I was generalizing when I said/say that there is a difference between musicians and artists or that some are musicians and that some are artists. It's my way of making the distinction 'good or bad' to me, or who is dear to me, the records that I own and the ones that I always go back to.
'Journalists in the 60's and 70's helped define these movements for the audience and some of them were very good writers whose work was valid on it's own and not just as companion to the vinyl and personalities it described.' sure, cool, I agree.
'but even some of them were instrumental in movements like glam rock. They do have the task of marketing art and transforming music into a product that can be traded for cash. You can say it's vulgar or you can look at it as a sort of alchemy. In the end the music survives. The musician is inspired, all of the processes occur which create a means for that inspiration to be communicated to a mass audience, and in the end, after all of the capitalism has occurred, the listener is able to hear that inspired piece of music, as if all of the vulgar mechanisms that made it possible were some sort of a disguise to allow the real message to get through. Our capitalistic greedy world requires all of the commercialism, but it's not the point. The music comes from a higher, more pure place, and it just has to wear this disguise to be allowed to exist.' yes, nicely put,very good.
'And now you're saying that someone that is gay and American can understand or feel a certain type of music better than someone who is not?' Nah, just saying that it's closer to home, meaning that I don't think that Jobriath needed to look to what Bowie was doing to know what was hip or interesting. Just saying that Jobriath is just as original and authentic an artist in his own right as Bowie is to himself. It was a reply to your comment that Bowie did it first with your mention of Diamond Dogs. That's how I read it.
