RESEARCH: Genre (Anderson)

How Many Different Genres of Popular Music Are There?

In the beginning, there was rock, pop, country and R&B. Okay, so there was also jazz, folk and spiritual–and if you want to throw your net a little wider, you could include big band, Dixieland, ska and hillbilly. But those are just wide umbrella terms. A guy named Glenn McDonald created something called Every Noise at Once, which identifies 1,264 micro-genres of popular music.

Here are some of the most known genres of popular music

Hip Hop

Hip Hop is a social-political movement created in the late 70's. Hip Hop is a culture to give people who grew up in the ghetto a voice, songs in hip hop are spoken from personal experience. Songs are usually mixed with other genres of music like rock and classical (piano), or with record players and scratchers. Break Dancing and Graffiti is also apart of hip hop as a way to express the people apart of the cultures selves, Freestyling is also a major part of hip hop along with rap battles.

R&B

Also known as Rhythm and blues, it became popular in the late 1940s. This upbeat popular music was a combination of jazz and blues. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, saxophone, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often portrayed the experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy. The lyrics in this genre of music focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics, aspirations, and sex.

EDM

EDM is the abbreviation for "Electronic Dance Music". These includes many other genres such as trance, house, techno, breakbeat, gabber, hardcore, and much, much more. Now, EDM refers to the 128 BPM "big room" rage stuff from the likes of Tiesto, Hardwell, Nicky Romero, Gareth Emery, etc.

Rock

Also called rock 'n' roll, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), a strong back beat, electric guitars, and a catchy melody backed by three or four chords.

Reggae

An interesting urban mix of ragtime, popularised in the early 20th century by Scott Joplin. Reggae is an African-Caribbean style of music developed on the island of Jamaica and closely linked to the religion of Rastafarianism

Classical

Classical music is generally a classification covering music composed and performed by professionally trained artists. Classical music is a written tradition. It is composed and written using music notation, and as a rule is performed faithfully to the score. In common usage, "classical music" often refers to orchestral music in general, regardless of when it was composed or for what purpose (film scores and orchestral arrangements on pop music recordings, for example).

Country

Once known as Country & Western music, this music form is developed mostly in the southern United States of America, with roots in traditional folk music, spirituals and blues.