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^ Thank you. That was my main point.
If you want to say that just because somebody sings, say, R&B, that means they do Western/American music, just because it originated there, then why do you not take into consideration that, in this example, R&B is made up of music from origins that aren't even considered Eastern OR Western?
Because all music is, at the core, made up of music from the earliest civilizations, which came from tribes in Africa and spread to places like the Indus valley, etc. THEY are the ones who created music. But since that was so freakin' long ago, and because all genres of all cultures take elements from both original music and new music created from the original, we need to distinguish in a different way.
Just because something has certain elements, or especially instruments, of another culture, that does not make it that culture's music.
For example, just because somebody does hip-hop in Japan, that does not necessarily make the music Western. In this day and age, there is American hip-hop, European hip-hop, Japanese hip-hop, Korean hip-hop, etc. And on a similar note, let's say, for example, Britney Spears comes out with a new pop song that uses a koto. Does that make that song J-Pop...? I'm willing to bet a lot of money that it will still be American pop, just with a Japanese instrument being used.
Yes, there is, obviously, still such thing as "traditional" music, but just because Ayu's new single isn't traditional Japanese music, that absolutely does not mean it's Western. That's what some people have to understand. There is traditional music, and then there is modern. Yes, pretty much all modern music takes elements from Western styles, but remember, those styles took from somebody else, too. It's another one of those cases where 'nothing is original anymore'. So, like I said, you must look at it in a different way, unless you want to group every single thing into the very original. Which would be silly, since even though there's a common origin for all music, it's evolved so much, and it will continue to evolve, so there's no point in doing that.
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