Nothing here came from nowhere
Every genre here grew out of another. Follow any line back far enough and it reaches one of two roots.
152 genres, 554 bands and 4025 records, across 82 years.
The shape of it
Two roots, seventy years apart
Rock in 1954 and heavy metal in 1970. Every entry in the corpus hangs off one of them.
The lines thin as the tree gets finer
Drawn at one weight the taxonomy is a grey mat. Fading by depth puts the eye on the trunks and the eleven branches carrying the most below them.
Every name is a door
The labels are links. The one you want is probably in here, and the whole taxonomy, all 152 of it, is one click further on.
Most cited records Ranked by how many genre entries name them
- Daydream Nation Sonic Youth 1988, Alternative rock
- In the Nightside Eclipse Emperor 1994, Black metal
- Vincebus Eruptum Blue Cheer 1968, Acid rock
- For Your Pleasure Roxy Music 1973, Glam rock
- Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing Discharge 1982, Hardcore punk
- Epicus Doomicus Metallicus Candlemass 1986, Doom metal
- Master of Puppets Metallica 1986, Heavy metal
- Pleasure to Kill Kreator 1986, Thrash metal
Today's entry, one of 24 in the rotation
Nu metal
Seven-string guitars tuned very low, hip-hop groove, a DJ or sampler and lyrics about personal trauma. The decade's best-selling and most disputed genre.
- Heaviness
- 8
- Speed
- 5
- Melody
- 7
Put this on first. Korn - Korn. The first track opens with bagpipes, which nobody ever remembers.
- Korn
- Slipknot
- Deftones
- Limp Bizkit
Where to go from here
-
The tree
Every genre in one taxonomy, with what each sounds like, who made it, and where it sits under everything else.
152 genres -
Timeline
1954 to 2026, by decade: genres emerging, scenes forming, and the moments dated to the day.
19 dated moments -
Map
Every origin plotted, and the places where a city and a few years produced a sound of their own.
21 scenes -
Compare
Two genres side by side: their sound, their dates, their lineage, and the ancestor they share.
2 at a time