What don&#x27;t you buy?<p>&gt;Music follows rules, rules that we all grew up internalizing. There&#x27;s no &quot;universal music&quot;, just music who&#x27;s rules you are familiar with. Tweak those rules just enough and in the right way and you are innovative (see: The Beatles). Tweak them too much and you are simply avant garde (see: Captain Beefheart).<p>I can enjoy music who&#x27;s rules I am not familiar with. I don&#x27;t need to know the rules to enjoy tonal and rythmic arrangements.<p>&gt; That means that music is without question a social construction<p>That means it&#x27;s culturally specific, NOT a social construction.<p>&gt; It&#x27;s very possible Bowie could have been too avant garde or too much of an outsider, but what he excelled at was tweaking the establishment just enough (both musically and performance-wise) to find a huge audience whilst still being &quot;outside&quot; the mainstream.<p>Which is perhaps the point I am trying to make. Within a specific culture, his work (not just his music) had a broad appeal that helped people deal with the human condition. However it was achieved, the world is a better place for it.