Music · Curated list
Jazz, Opera, Rock music and 27 more, ranked by how much of the world has written about each one.
Most written-about first. Each description summarises the genre's Wikipedia article, which its name links to.
1
Music genre
A music that grew up late in the 19th century and early in the 20th among African Americans in New Orleans, Louisiana. It draws on blues and ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals and hymns, marches, vaudeville song and dance music.
Wikidata · Photo: World-Telegram staff photographer, Public domain
2
Art form combining sung text and musical score in a theatrical setting
A form of Western theatre in which music is essential and singers play the dramatic roles. Such a "work" is usually made by a composer working with a librettist, and brings in several performing arts, such as acting, costume and scenery, and sometimes dance or ballet.
Wikidata · Photo: Giovanni Paolo Panini, Public domain
3
Broad genre of popular music
A genre of popular music that began in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and from the late 50s to the mid-1960s grew into a range of styles, mostly in the United Kingdom and United States. It began as classic rock and roll, which drew on country music and on the African-American genres of rhythm and blues and blues.
Broad tradition of Western art music
A tradition of art music in the Western world, seen as separate from Western popular or folk music. It is sometimes called Western classical music, since "classical music" can also mean art music from outside the West.
5
Music genre originating in 1860s
A genre and form of music born among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. It has drawn on African-American spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and on simple narrative ballads in rhyme.
Wikidata · Photo: Eric Draper, Public domain
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6
Genre of music
Or just pop, a genre of popular music that took its modern form in the mid-1950s in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s it took in rock and roll and the youth styles rock and roll inspired.
Wikidata · Photo: Justin Higuchi from Los Angeles, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0
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7
Music genre
A genre of popular music that arose early in the 1970s, together with a subculture created by African-American and Afro-Caribbean communities in New York City. Its style blends many techniques, but rapping is so common that it has become a defining feature.
Wikidata · Photo: Sean-Jin at English Wikipedia, Public domain
8
Music genre
A music genre born in Jamaica in the late 1960s; the word also covers the modern popular music of Jamaica and of its diaspora.
Wikidata · Photo: Ville Miettinen from Helsinki, Finland, CC BY 2.0
9
Genre of Spanish music and dance
An art form built on the various folk music traditions of southern Spain, developed partly within the gitano subculture of Andalusia, with a historical presence in Murcia and Extremadura too. More widely, the word covers various musical styles typical of southern Spain, both traditional and contemporary.
Wikidata · Photo: John Singer Sargent, Public domain
%20%40%20Stearns%20Collection%20(Stearns%202035)%2C%20University%20of%20Michigan.jpg?width=800)
10
Music genre that uses electronic instruments
Broadly, a group of genres made with electronic instruments, with music technology and software based on circuits, or with general-purpose electronics. It covers music made by electromechanical as well as electronic means.
11
Genre of popular music
A genre of popular music that grew up in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It came from a blend of African-American genres, above all rhythm and blues, with stylistic influences from folk music, swing, jump blues, electric blues, boogie-woogie, jazz and gospel.
Wikidata · Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ6-2067 Location: NYWTS -- BIOG, Public domain
12
Genre of rock music
A genre of rock that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. Growing out of acid rock, psychedelic rock and blues rock, heavy metal bands created a thick, massive sound marked by loudness, heavy beats, long guitar solos and distorted guitars.
Wikidata · Photo: Anthony Catalano, CC BY 2.0
Religious song for the purpose of adoration or prayer
A kind of song, partly the same as a devotional song, written for adoration or prayer and usually addressed to one or more deities, or to a personification or prominent figure. The word comes from the Greek ὕμνος (hymnos), "a song of praise".
14
South Korean popular music genre
Popular music from South Korea. The genre the term refers to in everyday speech arose in the 1990s as a youth subculture, with Korean musicians drawing on rock, R&B, hip-hop and Western dance music.
Wikidata · Photo: A1candidate, CC BY-SA 3.0
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15
Brazilian musical genre
A broad name for many of the rhythms behind the better-known Brazilian genres born in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Bahia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It names, or begins the names of, several rhythmic variants, such as samba de roda and samba urbano carioca, among many others, most of them from the states of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro.
Wikidata · Photo: Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0
16
Music genre
Also called country and western, or just country, a genre of music from the United States. It is known for dance tunes and ballads, recognisable by traditional lyrics and harmonies played on harmonicas, fiddles, mandolins, banjos and many kinds of guitar: resonator, steel, electric or acoustic.
Wikidata · Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Rossstatham assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5
17
Music genre
A genre of rock that arose in the mid-1970s. Growing from the garage rock of the 1960s and the rock and roll of the 1950s, punk bands rejected the corporate character and overproduction of mainstream arena rock.
Wikidata · Photo: Riksarkivet (National Archives of Norway) Photograph: Billedbladet NÅ/Arne S. Nielsen, No restrictions
18
Stage work that combines songs, music, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance
A form of theatre that combines acting and dance with songs and spoken dialogue. A musical conveys its story and its feelings, from love and anger to humour and pathos, through words, music, movement and the technical side of the show working together as one.
Wikidata · Photo: Coachman76, CC BY-SA 3.0
19
Music genre originating in the 1940s in the United States
Often shortened to R&B or R'n'B, a genre of popular music born in African American communities in the 1940s. Record companies first used the term for records sold mainly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular.
20
Soothing children's song
Also called a cradle song: a calming song, or a piece of music, that is usually played for children. Lullabies serve various purposes.
Wikidata · Photo: François Nicholas Riss, Public domain
21
Genre of music
A popular music genre born in African-American communities across the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Catchy rhythms, marked by handclaps and spontaneous body movement, are one of its key features.
Wikidata · Photo: Dbking @ Flickr, CC BY 2.0
22
Music genre and subculture
A dance-music genre, with a subculture of its own, that grew out of urban nightlife in the United States in the late 1960s. Its sound is marked by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, strings, horns and brass, electric pianos, synthesizers and electric rhythm guitars.
Wikidata · Photo: John Vance, CC BY-SA 2.0
23
Music genre
Also called heavy rock, a heavier subgenre of rock marked by electric guitars and vocals more aggressive and distorted than in traditional rock. It began in the mid-1960s with the blues rock, psychedelic and garage movements.
Wikidata · Photo: Jim Summaria, http://www.jimsummariaphoto.com/, CC BY-SA 3.0
24
Music genre
A genre born in African-American communities in the mid-1960s, when musicians made a new, rhythmic, danceable music by mixing several genres popular among African-Americans in the mid-20th century. It plays down melody and chord progressions in favour of a strong rhythmic groove, set by an electric bass line and a drummer's part, and is often slower than other popular music.
Wikidata · Photo: Chris Hakkens, CC BY-SA 2.0
Poem or ode that deals with love
A form of love poem or ode, born in Arabic poetry and dominant in Persian Poetry, often about romantic and spiritual love. It can be read as expressing both the pain of losing, or being parted from, the beloved and how beautiful love remains despite that pain.
26
Music genre
A genre that covers traditional folk music and the present-day genre that grew from it in the folk revival of the 20th century. Some of its forms also go under the name of world music.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
27
Genre of rock music
A genre of alternative rock and a subculture that arose in the mid-1980s in the U.S. state of Washington, especially in Olympia, Seattle and nearby cities. It fuses heavy metal and punk rock, using the distorted electric guitar sound of both, with bass guitar, drums and vocals.
Wikidata · Photo: P.B. Rage from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
28
Music genre
A category of rock that grew out of the independent underground music of the 1970s. Its acts found mainstream success in the 1990s, with subgenres such as grunge in the United States and shoegaze and Britpop in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Wikidata · Photo: Flickr user Stark (Stefano Andreoli), CC BY-SA 2.0
Subgenre of heavy metal music
An extreme subgenre of heavy metal. Its usual traits are fast tempos, shrieked vocals, guitars heavily distorted and played with tremolo picking, rough (lo-fi) recording, unusual song structures and a stress on atmosphere.
Form of classical music composed for a small group of instruments
A form of classical music written for a small group of instruments, traditionally one small enough to play in a large room or a chamber of a palace. In the broadest sense it covers any art music played by a few performers, one to each part.
Every Wikidata item that is a genre of music, and that has its own English Wikipedia article, ranked by the number of Wikimedia sites with a page about it — Wikipedia's language editions, mostly, and sister projects such as Wikiquote. That counts how many communities independently thought it worth describing, and nobody can buy a place on it. The top 30 are shown.
Wikidata files these under this list's query, but they are not what the list is about:
Fetched from Wikidata on 2026-09-25. Each description is this site's summary of the entry's Wikipedia article, which its name links to: the wording is ours, the facts are Wikipedia's, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. To correct an entry, correct it there; the next refresh carries the change.
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