Quick: How Many Different Genres of Popular Music Are There? No. You’re Wrong.

September 21, 2014 Alan Cross 7 Comments 0 min read

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.

Writing in The Guardian, Rob Fitzpatrick explores some of the genres that frankly I’ve never, ever heard of. Blackgaze? Deep filthstep? Skweee [sic]? Charred death? Laboratorio?

(Via Boing Boing)

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

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