>Again, the word "sophistication" does no work on its own.

I mean, in a perfect world, it shouldn't do it but I kind of think the word carries certain implications; lonesome_d's somewhat depressive definition above I kind of think mirrors most peoples-including mine-first thoughts when we hear the word (essentially about tasteful balance and BTW, "balance" is another overrated aspect of music to me-I can handle the balance myself by simply choosing to listen to different types of music that delivers different things, things that are often mutually exclusive. I'm more about a horizontal balance than a vertical one).

In addition to this, I think the idea of a sophisticated person as a distinguished gentleman, presumably with a nice british accent with a taste for the finer things in life plays a part as well.

For example, music that is more forceful, physical, sweaty etc. is rarely thought of as "sophisticated". Chic is often viewed as an act that brought an increased emphasis on sophistication to disco and how did they do that? By means of tasteful string-arrangements, "mannered" singing and wearing clothes in the style of the more sophisticated past.

James Brown's music was sophisticated in many ways, yet, I'm pretty sure the adjective in the context of soul is more likely to be used in reference to Stevie or Smokey Robinson.

Dave Brubeck was viewed as a guy who brought a sense of sophistication to small-band jazz; do I even need to explain that one?

And what about Sade and the whole movement dubbed "sophisto-pop" in the 80's? I mean, come on!

And of course, there's no way in hell most people outdside of genre-fans would view the music of brutal death metal bands like Suffocation or Necrophagist as sophisticated in spite of their by most objective "pop" standards high-brow take on riff-development and songstructures...


Basically, I understand what you are going for in saying that sophistication does no work on its own but I kind of think it actually does; there's a more-or-less lexical meaning which might not be fair but still very real...