List of music genres and styles explained
This is a list of music genres and styles. Music can be described in terms of many genres and styles. Classifications are often arbitrary, and may be disputed and closely related forms often overlap. Larger genres and styles comprise more specific sub-categories.
Classical
See also: List of classical and art music traditions and List of classical music genres.
Popular
See main article: Popular music.
Avant-garde & experimental
See main article: Avant-garde music and experimental music.
Blues
See main article: Blues.
Country
See also: List of country genres.
Easy listening
See main article: Easy listening.
Electronic
See main article: Electronic music.
See also: List of electronic music genres, Styles of house music and List of trance genres.
Folk
See main article: Folk music and Contemporary folk.
Hip hop
See main article: Hip hop music.
See also: List of hip hop genres.
Jazz
See main article: Jazz.
See also: List of jazz genres.
Pop
See main article: Pop music.
See also: Styles of pop music.
Rock
See also: List of rock genres.
Punk
See main article: Punk rock.
See also: Punk rock subgenres.
Regional
See also: List of cultural and regional genres of music.
Antarctica
Asian
See main article: Music of Asia and Music of Southeast Asia.
- Middle Eastern
See main article: Middle Eastern music.
Australasia & Oceania
Latin & South American
See also: List of Latin music subgenres and Reggae genres.
North American
Religious
See main article: Religious music.
Traditional folk
See main article: Folk music.
See also: List of folk music traditions.
Other
- Ballroom dance music: pasodoble, cha cha cha and others
- Children's music
- Dance music
- Drug use in music
- Incidental music or music for stage and screen: music written for the score of a film, play, musicals, or other spheres, such as filmi, video game music, music hall songs and showtunes and others
- Independent music
- Bedroom production
- Patriotic music: military music, marches, national anthems, War songs and related compositions
- PC Music
- Regional and national music with no significant commercial impact abroad, except when it is a version of an international genre, such as: traditional music, oral traditions, sea shanties, work songs, nursery rhymes, Arabesque and indigenous music. In North America and Western Europe, regional and national genres that are not from the Western world are sometimes classified as world music.
- Theatre music
- Virtuoso
- Yodeling
These categories are not exhaustive. A music platform, Gracenote, listed more than 2000 music genres (included by those created by ordinary music lovers, who are not involved within the music industry, these being said to be part of a 'folksonomy', i.e. a taxonomy created by non-experts). Most of these genres were created by music labels to target new audiences, however classification is useful to find music and distribute it.
See also
This list is split into four separate pages:
Bibliography
- Borthwick, Stuart, & Moy, Ron (2004) Popular Music Genres: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Fabbri, Franco (1982) A Theory of Popular Music Genres: Two Applications. In Popular Music Perspectives, edited by David Horn and Philip Tagg, 52–81. Göteborg and Exeter: A. Wheaton & Co., Ltd.
- Frith, Simon (1996) Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
- Holt, Fabian (2007) Genre in Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Negus, Keith (1999) Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. London and New York: Routledge.
External links
