I really hate genres and labels. Not for pretentious reasons like "It's an oppressive, capitalistic method of packaging art into easy to digest morsels for McDonalds-guzzling, Nike-wearing drones." In fact, if I thought like that, I would take advantage of America's lax gun laws and end my own life right now.

No, I hate genres because I haven't found a sure-fire way to label the music on my computer so that I can choose a smart playlist, set it on random and rest assured that I won't have to skip songs. Sometimes I'm just not ready for Destiny's Child or Jonathan Richman or some live Radiohead song with the hollering frat boys obscuring Thom Yorke's pithy comments, but flicking between my web browser and iTunes is a pain, and I hate cutting off songs midway - even songs I don't really want to listen to.

Maybe instead of categories like Girl Pop; Country, Alt.Country and Acoustic; Electronica and Synthpop and Alt.CA (the Alt is short for Alternative, the CA is short for Canada), I need mood-based labels. A smart playlist of songs labelled Oh God, Why Am I Awake; I Thought Only Teenage Boys Felt Like This, and Sappy, Happy and Bouncing Off Walls would be easier to navigate. Maybe.

PS: I'm not embarassed that I like Counting Crows anymore. Even as Adam Duritz's hair gets stupider and their waistlines get bigger. This shit is grood. I mean, good. And great.