Talk:List of popular music genres

Managing the list of genres/styles

The page says that "Applicable styles are classified in this list using AllMusic genre categorisation," yet there are many discrepancies between AllMusic genres (1199 unduplicated genres/styles) and this page (706 unduplicated genres/styles).

The reference to allMusic (owned by ROVI) has been added by Dennywuh back in December 2007. It has withstood the injuries of time. It is not my intention to source genres elsewhere, at least not at this time. BUT is would seem that if we were to adhere to Wikipedia's guideline (no research, no soapbox, etc.) we should be careful as to how we diverge from the actual source material.

ROVI's AllMusic is but one source of popular genres. I am aware of the following:

1. AllMusic (ROVI) (1200 genres, with a three-level hierarchy. Privately managed. Has to be scraped)
2. Discogs (170 genres. Community managed (apparently), two-level hierarchy. Publicly available here: http://wiki.discogs.com/index.php/Style_Guide)
3. Gracenote (170 genres. Privately managed and "secret" (one thread somewhere by an employee says he can't make the list public). Available through what appears to be one of their customers http://www.mediagen.com.au/full-list-of-gracenote-itunes-music-genres)
4. Soundclick (255 genres. Privately managed. Two-level hierarchy. Available here: http://wiki.discogs.com/index.php/Style_Guide)

Therefore it appears to make sense to use AllMusic as the main source for this page, as AllMusic has the most extensive list and provides a more comprehensive hierarchy.

My plan would look like

1. within a month: remove duplicate entries
2. before the end of March: keep the deeper/richer structure that past wikipedia editors have contributed over the years, subject to sticking to the list of basic generic genres that AllMusic is using (i.e. level 1 in the hierarchy cannot be modified to promote a sub-genre or a style)
3. Eventually (experimenting during the Summer: add genres that are being used by wikipedia's editors and have their page. Some of these will be consensual, others controversial. Should be possible to include both and flag them accordingly.

Waiting for feedback (both on the substance and on how to engage/manage a discussion) (older material below)

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[newbie]

I've noticed several duplicate entries. Some are egregious errors (hip hop is listed as a sub-genre of the genre hip hop), others are more debatable (C-pop is listed under the style Asian and under the genre Pop).

A quick look at the sub-genres description has convinced me that in most cases the sub-genre is unequivocally related to a parent genre.

I would like to prune the list of popular music genres such that sub-genres appear only once on the page.

Waiting for feedback

Gauvins (talk) 19:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Go for it. Cannot have them appearing multiple times, that way madness lies.--SabreBD (talk) 23:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be helpful to start off with a definition of 'genre' at the beginning of the article. At the moment it says "a list of the commercially relevant genres in modern popular music" — much narrower than the title "List of popular music genres" implies. When I have worked on other genre articles before criteria were, (1) contemporary use of the genre term by musicians and their publishers (2) distinctive musical style, and (3) use of original language terms rather than English translation (no invented terms). Ordering the genres may also be difficult, so it's probably easier to use alphabetical order. Hope this helps. Kleinzach 10:00, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Klein for your input. I agree on both counts. WRT what is a genre, I would be careful not to ignite a storm by raising the issue of what is/isn't a genre (a subgenre, a style, an umbrella term). These issues are probably better dealt with at the genre-specific page, if at all, since Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a soapbox. WRT to classification... there are other pages where one can find an alphabetical list. I personally found the current page extremely useful because I am not an expert and a hierarchical structure taught me that Zydeco is closer to Cowpunk than is is to Zouk.

I suspect that the answer lies in utilizing the best of publicly available and carefully designed lists of genres to provide a comprehensive and defensible list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gauvins (talk • contribs) 23:09, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Your last point is important because the page would need to be referenced. Sources will inevitably vary, so I think you need to base your article on one particular one. Re "raising the issue of what is/isn't a genre (a subgenre, a style, an umbrella term" — I think it's inevitable that you go down that path because you will have to distinguish between genres, subgenres and non-genres. If you don't do that you will just have a mishmash of everybody's opinions. The WP way is to make a decision and then back it up with the best possible references. Kleinzach 02:15, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

French chanson

Can't find this genre in the list. It's not that it hasn't had a significant commercial impact out of France (I believe some songs from e.g. Edith Piaf or Jacques Brel are well known abroad), and it is neither a national version of an international genre. Savig (talk) 20:58, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Reggae isn't a subgenre of Rasin music]]

I must edit one mistake of list in Caribbean pop music section, because after Rasin, there was a list under main list countains Reggae, as a subgenre of Rasin mizik genre and Dancehall too. Dancehall, Dub or Reggaetón are subgenres, or derivative forms of Reggae. Due to this, I've edited this article to looks correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cassa342 (talk • contribs) 18:42, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Classical

I do not understand why Classical music is absent. Classical music is very popular. But even if we think Classical music is not popular, then why do we not change the title of this article to "List of music genres" and include Classical music that way? What other music genres are absent from this list because they are not considered popular? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.208.111.211 (talk) 17:33, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

And the beginning of the article says "Indian classical music" is not included, but it IS included. This article is just dumb in the way it arbitrarily includes and excludes genres. GaryGo (talk) 01:07, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

An American Vision of Music Based on Market Sales

Sorry, but I cannot take this list seriously. A list of musical genres without TANGO is unacceptable. Maybe tango is not marketed in the USA, but it continues to sell in countless countries around the world, and has been used in several American movies. The article should be called "List of Commercial Music in the USA". That's just what it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.47.58.46 (talk) 16:52, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Missing Americas

• There is a list for African pop, and a list for Asian pop. Why is there no list for North American pop, and South American pop?

• "Ragtime", BTW, is not a "jazz" genre; it preceded jazz, and it lacks the improvisatory element of jazz.

• Including "avant garde" stylings as "popular" is a considerable stretch. These experimental genres have cult followings, to be sure, but have never been widely popular, in any era.

Genres featured in multiple sections

I ran a simple check with JavaScript to see what links were used more than once and found 111 used twice and 10 used thrice. A quick look reveals that e.g. Acid Jazz is featured appropriately in both the Jazz and Electronic sections. With the exception of any errors a more careful check might reveal, does anyone object to something like a parenthesized note being added to each repeated case explaining that it can also be found in another section, with a link e.g. In the Jazz section, the entry for Acid Jazz would read "Acid Jazz (also in Electronic)"?

All the repeated links I found with a rough check

Featured twice Acid jazz, Afro-Cuban jazz, Afropop, Ambient dub, Ambient music, Apala, Arabic pop music, Bhangra (music), Bluegrass music, Bongo Flava, Boogie (genre), Britpop, Cantopop, Chalga, Complextro, Contemporary R&B, Country blues, Country music, Country pop, Cowpunk, Crossover thrash, Crunk, Dance-pop, Dark ambient, Digital hardcore, Disco, Disco polo, Drill (music genre), Drone metal, Drumstep, Dub music, Dub techno, Dubstep, Dubtronica, Electro (music), Electro music, Electro-industrial, Electroacoustic music, Electronic rock, Electronicore, Electropop, Emo pop, Eurobeat, Fado, Filmi, Folk rock, Folktronica, Freestyle music, Fuji music, Ghetto house, Ghettotech, Goa trance, Grindcore, Hard dance, Hardstyle, Highlife, Hip hop music, Hip hop soul, Hiplife, Hokum, House music, Industrial metal, Industrial music, Industrial rock, Italo dance, Italo disco, Jazz rap, Jazz rock, Jersey club, Kansas City blues, Korean hip hop, Krautrock, Latin ballad, Latin jazz, Latin pop, Livetronica, Música sertaneja, Mambo (music), Mandopop, Merengue music, Musique concrète, Neon pop, Neue Deutsche Härte, New beat, New jack swing, New-age music, Nu jazz, Nu-disco, Pop punk, Pop rock, Post-disco, Post-metal, Psychobilly, Raga rock, Ragga, Ragga jungle, Salsa music, Shibuya-kei, Ska punk, Soft rock, Soul music, Space music, Space rock, Sufi rock, Synthpop, Techno, Timba, Trance music, Trot (music), UK drill, Video game music Featured thrice Breakbeat, C-pop, Hip house, J-pop, K-pop, Kwaito, Nintendocore, Reggaeton, Rhythm and blues, Worldbeat

Discussion welcomed. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 01:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Should Anison be listed?

According to an article published on japantimes.co.jp, Anison is regarded as a genre; "Anime songs, or anison, used to exist mainly to serve an obsessed otaku fanbase, but the genre has gained in popularity over the past few years". It was recently removed from the list, with no edit summary or apparent discussion, but I see that AllMusic don't seem to recognise it as a genre (yet). Is it the will of the community that we should base this list entirely on that of AllMusic, following the statement "Applicable styles are classified in this list using AllMusic genre categorization" in the lede? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 01:30, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Template in development - request for feedback

I have done most of the work needed to realise a formatting and standardisation template for short genre descriptions and would like other interested editor's feedback regarding its possible use before creating a proper template (it's currently in my sandbox).

• {{sgd}} invokes Module:User:Fred Gandt/sgd which in-turn seeks available descriptions from User:Fred Gandt/sandbox/Sgd/list – an easily editable description list
• Some examples of it's use and output can be seen at User:Fred Gandt/sandbox#Short genre description

Questions I'd like to hear other's answers to are:

• In this article/list, would a template like this be considered a useful?
• Should the description be in a small font?
• Should the description have a length limit?
• Should the description be parenthesised?

Feel free to provide any other feedback that comes to mind. I am cross-posting this request for feedback at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Music genres task force. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 14:58, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Page organisation for reader benefit

With this edit, I removed the redundant <h2>...</h2> "Genres" section, moved its child <h3>...</h3> sections up to <h2>...</h2>, and created a few <h3>...</h3> children for longer sub-lists of sub-genres and their children.

The result of this is, in my opinion, a cleaner page organisation for reader comfort and ease of navigation.

My edit was undone, with the edit summary (thank you for leaving one) Genre sections should be generic genres only. ("Heavy Metal" is a subgenre of generic genre "Rock")...

Why should the list's sections be restricted to "genres" and not, where it aids presentation, be sub-sectioned? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 14:24, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Potential merge with list of music styles

This list has in fact become just a duplicate of the list of music styles\genres. Determining popularity is difficult and in many aspects is subjective, since many regional microgenres are in fact not popular globally, but can be relatively popular within their region. The best solution would be to merge this article into the list of music styles. I'd like to hear any opinions on this matter, tho. Solidest (talk) 09:05, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

@Solidest: Is there a principal difference between genres and styles? I agree that this "List of popular music genres" should be merged into the List of music styles and moved to a List of music genres and styles. --Perohanych (talk) 21:19, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Perohanych, At the moment genre and style are used interchangeably on wikipedia. And this is roughly consistent with most external sources - you can probably find sources for every genre where they will be referred to as both genre and style. It also happens that some sources refer to styles as just any sub-genre, and genres as the largest categories. This is the approach used on Discogs, for example. But in this case, it is impossible to unambiguously decide where the line between genres and styles lies. For example, in the chain "Popular - Electronic - Electronic Dance Music - House - Future House" it is impossible to unambiguously establish what is a style. Is it Electronic, or EDM, or House? On different sources and for different genres, this line will be in different places.On rare cases, some sources gave to a style its own unique meaning, but there is no general consensus on this.

After researching many sources and definitions (I've rewritten genre definitions in English Wiki and extensively reworked the genre model and individually about 5000 music genres on Wikidata), I found one approach that really fits Wikidata model and makes a sense to use it separately with music genre. So, every specific genre/style should be referred to as a musical genre. While a style should be referred to the general sound within any popular genre. For example, music styles are funky (overlap with Funk genre), jazzy (overlap with Jazz genre), also probably such things as Christmas music (as it's not really a genre, but both theme and sound=style), and a variety of other adjectives, like soulful (not related to Soul music).

This approach seems to me to be the best for the structure on Wikidata and could also be used on Wikipedia. This can be partly supported by some decent RAs, but also partly fitting everything to this model might look like the original research. Therefore the question is still debatable. And also, the position that also feels right to me is just not use the term 'musical style' to describe anything at all, as the term is too arbitrary. Solidest (talk) 21:54, 19 October 2021 (UTC)