Curated playlist
21st-century music genres
- Jerk (music genre)Jerk is a hip-hop microgenre that grew up on the internet and took shape in New York City in the early 2020s. Writing for the British magazine The Face, music journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds described its sound as "fidgety rhythms,…
- HexDHexD is a style of electronic music built on one blunt idea: take a song and damage it on purpose until it sounds like a corrupted file. The name comes from a collective called Hexcastcrew, whose members described their work as casting…
- Punk rapPunk rap fuses punk rock with hip-hop, plus trap, heavy metal and lo-fi. Its songs are short and distorted.
- Rage (music genre)The song "Miss the Rage" turned a word for moshing into a genre name. Trippie Redd longed for mosh pits in lockdown.
- DigicoreDigicore is music that teenagers built in bedrooms and traded through Discord and SoundCloud.
- Nu metalThree nu metal albums came out on August 18, 1998. Billboard later called it the "Biggest Day in Nu-Metal History".
- Cloud rapCloud rap got its name from a castle in the clouds. Lil B described the image in a 2009 interview.
- CrunkcoreCrunkcore mixed screaming, Southern hip-hop beats and dance music. Critics scorned it, yet it fed hyperpop.
- Jerkin'Jerkin' dance, by one founder's account, began as the anti-dance.
- Punk rockDetroit band Death couldn't get a record deal because of its name. They issued one single in 1976, then disbanded.
- Rap metalIn 1987, Anthrax became one of the earliest bands to deliberately mix hip hop and heavy metal.
- Rock musicThe Beatles' first Ed Sullivan Show appearance in 1964 drew an estimated 73 million viewers.
- EmoAt Rites of Spring shows in the mid-1980s, audience members sometimes wept.
- VaporwaveVaporwave took its name from software that was announced and never shipped.
- HyperpopHyperpop began as a metadata tag added by a Spotify data analyst in 2018. Glenn McDonald's label later named a playlist.
- Trap musicTrap music is named after a building where drug deals happen. The Atlanta sound later reached pop charts worldwide.
- Electronic musicThe earliest known tape music was made in Cairo in 1944. Student Halim El-Dabh reworked a zaar ceremony recording.
- A cappellaA 1943 musicians' strike helped a cappella singers land a best-seller.