List of music genres and styles

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List of popular music genres
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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.

• Andalusian classical music
• Indian classical music
• Korean court music
• Persian classical music
• Ottoman music (Turkish classical music)
• Western classical music
  • Early music
    • Medieval music (500–1400)
      • Ars antiqua (1170–1310)
      • Ars nova (1310–1377)
      • Ars subtilior (1360–1420)
    • Renaissance music (1400–1600)
    • Baroque music (1600–1750)
    • Galant music (1720–1770)
    • Classical period (1750–1820)
    • Romantic music (1780–1910)
  • 20th and 21st-centuries classical music (1900–present):
    • Modernism (1890–1930)
    • Impressionism (1875 or 1890–1925)
    • Neoclassicism (1920–1950)
    • High modernism (1930–present)
    • Postmodern music (1930–present)
    • Experimental music (1950–present)
    • Contemporary classical music (1945 or 1975–present)
    • Minimal music

• Crossover music
• Danger music
• Drone music
• Electroacoustic
• Industrial music
• Instrumental
• Lo-fi
• Musical improvisation
• Musique concrète
• Noise
• Outsider music
• Progressive music
• Psychedelic music
• Underground music

• Nunatak (band)

Middle Eastern

• Arabic music
  • Arabic pop music
• Fann at-Tanbura
• Fijiri
• Khaliji
• Liwa
• Music of Israel
• Persian traditional music
• Sawt
• Music of Turkey
  • Turkish folk music
    • Gypsy music

• Australian folk music
• Australian hip hop
• Indigenous music of Australia
• Music of Hawaii
• Music of New Zealand
  • Māori music
    • Kapa haka
• Music of Polynesia
• Music of Samoa

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2021)

• Sikh music
• Buddhist music
• Christian music
  • Contemporary Christian music
  • Contemporary worship music
  • Christian Rock
    • Christian alternative rock
  • Easy Listening
  • Country Gospel
  • Church music
    • Gospel
    • Worship
    • Hymns
    • Jesus Music
  • Liturgical music
  • Spirituals
  • Gregorian chant
• Islamic music
• Modern pagan music
• Music of ancient Greece
• New-age music
• Shamanic music

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2021)

• • American patriotic music
  • Christmas music
  • Fado
  • Huayno
  • Mele
  • Pastorale
  • Polka
  • Ragtime
  • Son mexicano
  • Música criolla

• Ballroom dance music: pasodoble, cha cha cha and others
  • Vogue (dance)
• Bedroom production
• Children's music
• Computer music
  • Hyperpop
  • Internet meme
• Dance music
  • Slow dance
• 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
  • Multi-instrumentalist
    • A cappella
    • Bassist
    • Drummer
      • Percussion
        • Found object (music)
    • Guitarist
    • Pianist
      • Keyboardist
  • One-man band
• LGBT music
• Patriotic music: military music, marches, national anthems, War songs and related compositions
  • Martial industrial
  • List of war metal bands
• 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.

• Genealogy of musical genres

This list is split into four separate pages:

• List of styles of music: A–F
• List of styles of music: G–M
• List of styles of music: N–R
• List of styles of music: S–Z
• List of country genres
• List of electronic music genres
• Styles of house music
• List of industrial music genres
• List of trance genres
• List of hip hop genres
• List of jazz genres
• Reggae genres
• List of rock genres
• Heavy metal genres
• Punk rock subgenres
• List of hardcore punk subgenres
• List of microgenres
• List of music styles that incorporate the accordion
• Styles of pop music

• 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.

• Genres of popular music - Interactive relationships diagram