Talk:New-age music

Possible move
Would it be better to move this article to lower cased "New age music" and use "new age music" throughout articles? All is One (talk) 22:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * No. Softlavender (talk) 04:21, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not? Neither "new" nor "age" are proper nouns, and per Wikipedia, "Names of musical or literary genres do not require capitalization at all, unless the genre name contains a proper noun such as the name of a place. For example:   Incorrect: They are a Psychedelic Rock band.    Correct: They are a psychedelic rock band."

What is the difference between "a Psychedelic Rock band" and "a New Age band"? The capitalization (as with New Wave/new wave) looks outdated and inconsistent.Greg Fasolino (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

What makes new age so absolutely unique that it requires an exception like this to the accepted capitalization style? Softlavender, you have not responded to my logical argument, but I should also note that the burden of proof falls upon you, as this capitalization goes against Wikipedia rules. I respectfully ask for a debate before I make changes in accordance with those rules. Greg Fasolino (talk) 13:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)


 * – Ian, DjScrawl (talk) 21:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)$– Ian, DjScrawl (talk) 04:23, 10 December 2013 (UTC)$


 * It should be hyphenated: new-age music. It would be ambiguous to have new age music. Bhny (talk) 22:12, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Do I like it, or think it overbold? Either-way, de facto, new-age (by 405 people, 4,357 times) seems to be a distinct new age (by 33,429 people, 203,466 times) sub-genre. – Ian, DjScrawl (talk) 01:39, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh, great! This should put the cat amongst the pigeons! A sub-genre that depends upon what appears in some contexts to be a conventional use of the hyphen for a unit modifier, but must not be understood in that way! What next, eCCENTRIC cAPITALIZATION?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I had another look and the tag-clouds do suggest distinction, but the tag-cloud for 'new-age' is not cohesive. Generally there, it seems to be some folks' shorthand for a handful of sub-genre. – Ian, DjScrawl (talk) 02:47, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should look to Last FM's broken tag system for anything. They should merge the alternate spellings- newage, new-age, new+age etc. New-age with a hyphen is pretty standard. NYTimes uses it. Bhny (talk) 03:12, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, if the New York Times uses it, then it must be correct ;-) Just as a matter of interest, is this usage as a free-standing noun (as in, "new-age is the genre with which Elmer Fudd is most noted") or as a unit (compound) modifier (as in "Elmer Fudd is best known for his performance of new-age music")?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:54, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * New-age is a general term, not specifically music. Bhny (talk) 04:04, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * But of course. Please feel free to substitute other nouns and adjust the terminology ("Elmer Fudd is best known for his preparation of new-age banquets", "… writing new-age poetry", etc.). But what is the answer to the question?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:53, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * the answer is compound modifier Bhny (talk) 06:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I would have thought so. Even the New York Times would not be so illiterate as to write a sentence like, "The Age of Aquarius is a name sometimes given to the New-Age." Obviously, in the phrase "New-Age music" (or "new-age music") there must be a hyphen. This is beyond being a matter of opinion, subject to debate and a vote.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:00, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

To summarize- the page should be moved to New-age music and "new-age music" should be used in the article. Bhny (talk) 11:24, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅ Bhny (talk) 20:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The overwhelming majority of dictionaries and other books use the spelling "New Age music". See OneLook and Google Book Search. 50.137.5.120 (talk) 22:36, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree and strongly suggest that this be phrased "New Age music" rather than "New-age music." Ceiap (talk) 15:32, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Music of the movement
I think this looks a whole lot more WP:SNOWBALLish when one considers such a move/name-change bridging the New_Age interface, i.e. the place to discuss a move seems to be Talk:New Age (a page that looks featured-article calibre). – Ian, DjScrawl (talk) 04:18, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested re-move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved due to no consensus. Ixfd64 (talk) 19:07, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

New-age music → new age music – We do not hyphenate any other genre like this (new wave music, nu metal, no wave, new school hip hop etc.); the grammatical and disambiguation arguments made for it in the original discussion (which was not done via WP:RM, and so did not represent anyone but a handful of then-present editors of the article) were not very defensible. The hyphenation is actually ; new age is a genre/musical movement, not a description. That is, Kitaro is a "new age composer", a composer within the new age movement in music, not a composer of a new age, which is what "new-age composer" means). If one seriously believes a reader might somehow misinterpret new age music as "age music that is new" (?!?), 1) think again, and 2) just link it to this article. As in cases like industrial music and folk music, the word music is present simply as a disambiguator, like dog in German shepherd dog, which we do not write German-shepherd dog.    — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Clarification Some genres are hyphenated, e.g. avant-garde music and post-punk music, because the underlying terms are hyphenated (e.g. "the avant-garde", "a post-punk drummer"). I.e., they're not "genres like this", as phrased in the nomination.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:29, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. Agree with grammatical argument.  ♫ Cricket02  (talk) 03:08, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Agree with grammatical argument. (How is it that we are coming to opposite positions based on the same reasoning?) The situation here is described with the term "unit modifier", and is not at all complicated. Contrary to what SMcCandlish says above, we do in fact hyphenate German-shepherd dog when we wish to refer to a dog of that breed, as opposed to a dog of any breed who works in Germany herding sheep. When standing alone, "new age" is not hyphenated, of course (e.g., "his music belongs in the category 'new age'"); when standing as a unit modifier, the hyphen is added. This is, BTW, not really a matter of grammar, but a matter of style. Most English-language publications (as opposed to English language publications) adhere to this style, but not all. Furthermore, there is a division of opinion about whether unit modifiers should always be hyphenated, or only in cases where there is ambiguity ("fast sailing ship" and "fast-sailing ship" are two different things, just like the German poodle who works as a shepherd). A small minority of English-language writers prefer to resolve these ambiguities in the opposite fashion: "fast sailing-ship", for example, to denote a ship with sails that can achieve a high speed. In other languages, too, there may be differences, which is the reason "avant-garde" is hyphenated: it is a French term, and in French it is a hyphenated compound, so the hyphen is retained when it is borrowed into English.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:59, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This is compelling but ultimately "New Age" music has be come a standalone genre rather than a descriptive term. See how the database Discogs (a world-leading archive of musical releases and platform for musicians and music collectors/sellers) uses this phrase: https://www.discogs.com/style/new+age Ceiap (talk) 15:35, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose – per Jerome Kohl, the hyphen is perfectly normal here. It is common this way in sources, too.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. It's new age and hence "new age music"; cf. heavy metal music. The opposition is surprising since the hyphenated form is not common at all.—Neodop (talk) 18:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Agree with grammatical argument of Jerome Kohl. Bhny (talk) 21:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I agree with Jerome Kohl that this is not, strictly speaking, a question of grammar, since the grammarians are divided about this and rational arguments can be for either reading.  As a question of style, such a matter would normally be resolved by reference to WP:MOS; but, I don't believe this particular issue is therein addressed.  Thus, I must resort to my understanding of how the phrase is more often written; in my personal experience, the hyphen is more often included than not.  If a contrary citation is made to a section of WP:MOS that I've overlooked, I will gladly withdrawn opposition. Xoloz (talk) 17:35, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment – The relevant Wikipedia style guide is found at WP:HYPHEN.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Where is the new consensus?
I notice that, despite the apparent consensus (or lack thereof) documented in the two discussions above at and, that this article title has just been changed (back) to the unhyphenated form with the second word capitalised. Where is the discussion that established a new consensus for this move? I would like to read it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:44, 9 March 2017 (UTC)


 * It was done with this edit-, and no mention in talk. I just reverted it. Volunteer1234 (talk) 02:22, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree that the page shouldn't have been moved without discussion and consensus, especially given the existing discussions above. However, the usual formation does seem to be with capitals and no hyphen. Presumably the term "New Age" is modelled on terms such as "Bronze Age" and "Iron Age", so just as we would refer to a Bronze Age sword or Iron Age tribes in Britain, never a "bronze-age sword" or "iron-age tribes", we similarly refer to "New Age music" and not "new-age music". Placing this article at "New-age music" seems to me like an attempt to force it into a WP:MOS guideline where it doesn't fit, rather than following WP:COMMONNAME and using the form that most writers in the real world use. --Deskford (talk) 10:38, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with . Using the style "New-age music" is a Wikipedia-ism that bears no relation to the way in which the term is usually written in the real world - that is, without a hyphen.  We should not be using WP style guidelines in a way that distorts common usage.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:50, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Vmavanti (talk) 22:42, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm repeatedly having to check the usage. I'm OK with New age or New-age but new age is wrong. Someone posted above that Wikipedia's rule is to lowercase genres, but that's not that the rule. Most genres are lowercased but not all. Christian rock, for example, and Latin jazz use caps. In all my reading I doubt I've ever seen "New" lowercased. Maybe we can agree on that at least. I would change that usage in this article, but I have a hunch someone would change it back.

QUIET NEW AGE MUSIC FINDS RESPECTABILITY
Possible good source for early new age history. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/1985/06/01/quiet-new-age-music-finds-respectability/ Anonymous-232 (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

New age and occultism
Noting that there isn't much (or anything?) here about the connection bw new age and occultism. By this I mean Wicca, spiritual channeling, etc., of which there are many examples in the genre. Also, I refer to the anti-new age Christian movement. There are dozens of books, records, etc. that warn of the "dangers" of the new age movement. I think it's an important cultural/historical context for this page that's missing. Thoughts? Ceiap (talk) 15:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)