Not sure that it was a cabal more like a coterie truth be told.

As it was about 5 days ago and a few pints in to a typically rambling discussion at the Rex late on a Sunday evening the details are now rather blurred. Brian has more or less outlined the proposed change in the setup.

Given that the original format of genre competition encompassed huge swaths of music under the terms rock, jazz, classical etc Stuart and I felt that it would make more sense and be a fairer contest if we made the categories much more refined.

First off we lop off the whole idea of classical and opera from this particular go around.

Let's keep the idea of rock, jazz, country, folk and electronic on the table. However rather than making it that simple and quite likely hearing many of the same tracks that were played 2 years ago I (we) propose that each of us has to select a "micro-genre" that perhaps spans a period of around 3-5 years so that one has to dig a bit deeper than the obvious candidates for this type of playdown.

So we could choose from the likes of post-punk, early 70's glam, bebop, the Manchester scene, acid house, alt-country, new wave, IDM, chill-wave, fusion, prog etc. I'm not really up on my categorization of the country and folk scenes per se but you get the gist.

I think it would be up to each individual to select their own sub-genre (perhaps one that they are less familiar with) and then let the group as a whole give it the stamp of approval over the next week or so.. We wouldn't for example want someone to pick 60's pop. Far too broad.

Anyway that's a rough sketch and I think it would be quite fun to hear some nuggets from genres that I am quite unfamiliar with.

What say the rest of you?