Music Genre Glossary

A glossary of music genres and scenes: clear definitions and side-by-side comparisons, each linked to curated music videos on Videojam.

For catalog numbers that sit alongside these definitions, see music video statistics.

Genres

What is Amapiano?Amapiano is a South African dance style that emerged in the mid-2010s, built on deep, jazzy chords, airy synth pads, and the signature log-drum bassline that drives its bouncing, mid-tempo groove. Less frantic than house and more spacious than gqom, it foregrounds rhythm and atmosphere over melody, soundtracking township parties before going global.
What is Phonk?Phonk is an electronic style derived from 1990s Memphis underground rap (Three 6 Mafia, Tommy Wright III, DJ Spanish Fly) and the Houston chopped-and-screwed technique pioneered by DJ Screw. Revived in the early 2010s by SpaceGhostPurrp's Raider Klan, it spread through SoundCloud as "OG phonk" before the late-2010s Russian-led drift phonk wave (cowbell-heavy, 130+ BPM, optimised for TikTok car edits) overtook its public meaning.
What is Dungeon Synth?Dungeon synth is a lo-fi instrumental electronic style built on cheap synth timbres, modal melodies, and medieval or fantasy themes. It emerged as solo synth side-projects within the early-1990s Norwegian black metal scene. Mortiis's Født til å herske (1993) is canonical. The style was given its name retrospectively by Bandcamp and Reddit communities in the early 2010s, who built a modern scene around artists like Erang, Old Tower, Fief, and Thangorodrim.
What is Lo-fi Hip Hop?Lo-fi hip hop is a downtempo, sample-based instrumental style that pairs jazz, soul, and bossa-nova chops with deliberately imperfect production: vinyl crackle, tape hiss, off-grid drums. Detroit producer J Dilla (Donuts, 2006) and Japanese producer Nujabes (Samurai Champloo soundtrack, 2004) are its acknowledged forefathers. The YouTube livestream era, led by ChilledCow's "lofi hip hop radio" stream from 2017 and later rebranded Lofi Girl, turned it into background music for a generation.
What is Shoegaze?Shoegaze is a subgenre of alternative rock defined by walls of distorted, effects-laden guitars, indistinct vocals, and dreamlike textures. The term began as a UK music-press insult: bands like Slowdive, Ride, and Lush were said to stare at their guitar pedals onstage. My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (1991) is its canonical statement. After being eclipsed by grunge and Britpop, the genre returned via TikTok-driven Gen Z fandom in the 2020s, with Wisp, Julie, and Parannoul leading a new wave.
What is City Pop?City pop is a Japanese pop style associated with the country's 1970s and 1980s bubble-era prosperity, blending Western funk, disco, soft rock, and jazz with Japanese lyrics evoking urban nightlife. Haruomi Hosono's Happy End is often cited as its progenitor; Tatsuro Yamashita ("the king of city pop") and Mariya Takeuchi defined its mainstream arc. Takeuchi's "Plastic Love" (1984) became its global ambassador after going viral via YouTube's recommendation algorithm in 2017.
What is Techno?Techno is electronic dance music built on a relentless, machine-driven 4/4 pulse, typically 120-140 BPM, where repetition and gradual evolution do the work that melody does elsewhere. Born in mid-1980s Detroit from the fusion of funk, electro, and European synth music, it became the backbone of global club culture, from Berlin's warehouses to festival main stages. Expect hypnotic loops, industrial textures, and DJ sets that build tension across hours rather than minutes. Techno is experienced in the long form, which is why full sets are its native format.
What is Dembow?Dembow is Dominican street music built on a raw, looped version of the dembow riddim: faster, harder, and more insistent than reggaeton, usually topped with chanted, high-energy vocals. Born in Santo Domingo's barrios in the 2000s and named for the Shabba Ranks track that supplied its rhythmic DNA, it is the Dominican Republic's defining urban sound: relentless percussion loops made for dancing, not background listening. Expect raw energy, hypnotic repetition, and a tempo that never lets up.
What is Latin & Urbano?Latin & Urbano is Videojam's family for Latin dance and urban music in DJ-set form, spanning reggaeton's dembow backbone, Dominican dembow itself, and Latin house's club crossover. The grouping covers the rhythms moving dancefloors across the Spanish-speaking world and far beyond it: Caribbean drum traditions fused with hip-hop, house, and global pop. If it makes a Latin party move, it lives here.
What is Downtempo & Organic?Downtempo & Organic is the slower, warmer end of electronic music on Videojam: downtempo's unhurried grooves, organic house's earthy percussion and acoustic textures, and the sunset-tempo sounds built for listening as much as dancing. This is the family for music that breathes: live instrumentation woven into electronic production, tempos that invite rather than push. The warm-up, the comedown, and the soundtrack to golden hour.
What is Minimal?Minimal (minimal techno) strips dance music to its essential parts: a hypnotic four-on-the-floor pulse near 125-130 BPM, sparse drum-machine hits, and small looping motifs that evolve by degrees instead of big drops. It emerged from Detroit's early-1990s "second wave," led by Robert Hood and Daniel Bell, as a reaction against the maximalist rave sound, then spread internationally through German labels like Kompakt and Perlon. Repetition here is the point, not the absence of one.

Afro & Latin House

Afrobeats

What is Afrobeats?Afrobeats is the modern West African pop movement built on highlife, hip-hop, dancehall, and amapiano influences into chart-crossing, dance-led songs, distinct from Fela Kuti's 1970s Afrobeat. It rose out of Lagos and Accra in the 2000s and 2010s, carried global by artists like Wizkid, Burna Boy, and Davido, and now sits alongside Amapiano as one of the two defining sounds of contemporary African pop.

Techno & Trance

Deep House

What is Deep House?Deep house is a subdued, soulful strain of house music defined by lush chords, warm basslines, muted percussion, and an unhurried, late-night feel. Rooted in the genre's Chicago origins and its jazz and soul influences, it trades peak-time intensity for atmosphere and groove, equally suited to home listening and to the early hours of a DJ set.

House

Melodic & Progressive

Downtempo

Disco & Funk

Indie & Electronic

Dance & Pop

Dance Pop

What is Dance Pop?Dance-pop is mainstream pop built on uptempo dance-music structure: four-on-the-floor kicks, club-ready hooks, polished synth production, and lead vocals up front. It crystallised in the mid-1980s as the meeting point of disco, electronic dance, and chart pop, and remains the dominant pop-radio formula whenever the dancefloor cycles back into the mainstream.

Indie Pop

What is Indie Pop?Indie pop is melody-led pop made on the independent side of the music industry: hooky songwriting, a guitar-or-keys-forward palette, and a hand-made aesthetic that values warmth and craft over arena polish. Born from the 1980s indie scene around labels like Sarah Records and Postcard, it now spans bedroom-pop breakouts and festival mainstays alike.

RnB

What is RnB?R&B (rhythm and blues) here means the contemporary form: smooth, vocal-led songwriting that descended from soul and gospel, layered over modern hip-hop, electronic, and pop production. It centres voice, intimacy, and groove: the slow-jam and late-night-radio lineage stretching from Mary J. Blige and D'Angelo through SZA, Frank Ocean, and Daniel Caesar.

Breaks & Bass

What is Breaks & Bass?On Videojam, "Breaks & Bass" groups breakbeat-driven electronic music (big beat, breakbeat, breakbeat hardcore, and electro-punk), the syncopated, sample-led counterpoint to four-on-the-floor house and techno. Tracks centre chopped funk and soul breaks, heavy bass, and a swung, off-grid pulse. The pillar is Videojam's grouping; each member has its own scene and history.

Trance

What is Trance?Trance is melodic electronic dance music, usually 130-140 BPM, defined by long builds, euphoric breakdowns, and arpeggiated synth lines written to lift a whole room at once. It emerged from early-1990s Germany and peaked through the late-'90s superclub era, carried by figures like Armin van Buuren and Above & Beyond into a global festival tradition that never really left. A trance DJ set is a structured emotional arc of tension, release, repeat: the genre most associated with hands-in-the-air catharsis, and one built for full-length listening rather than single tracks.

Reggaeton

What is Reggaeton?Reggaeton is the dominant sound of Latin urban music: a genre built on the dembow riddim, the boom-ch-boom-chick drum pattern inherited from Jamaican dancehall, fused with hip-hop attitude and Spanish-language melody. Forged in Puerto Rico in the 1990s, with roots in Panama's reggae en español, it traveled from underground marquesina parties to the absolute center of global pop. Expect hard rhythm, melodic hooks, and star power. Reggaeton is as much a video culture as a sound, which is exactly why it lives so well in full sets and visuals.

Latin House

What is Latin House?Latin house is house music's four-on-the-floor pulse infused with Latin percussion and vocals: congas, timbales, salsa and Afro-Cuban patterns riding a club beat. It grew out of New York and Chicago's Latino club communities in the late 1980s, and it resurges every time house music rediscovers groove over minimalism, most recently through the tribal and Afro-Latin crossovers filling festival stages. Expect warmth and syncopation: sets that swing rather than march.

Melodic House

What is Melodic House?Melodic house is the emotive end of house music: mid-tempo grooves carrying rich chord progressions, atmospheric pads, and slow-burn builds aimed at feeling rather than peak-time impact. Popularized through the 2010s by labels like Anjunadeep and artists like Lane 8 and Ben Böhmer, it owns the sunset slot: open-air stages and long-form DJ sets where a mood unfolds over an hour. Expect deep basslines, cinematic melodies, and genuine catharsis without the hard edges.

Eurodance

What is Eurodance?Eurodance is fast, hook-driven electronic dance-pop that emerged in Western Europe in the late 1980s and dominated European charts through the 1990s: four-on-the-floor beats at 120-150 BPM, syncopated basslines, and a signature call-and-response structure pairing a rapped verse with a sung female chorus. Acts like Snap!, 2 Unlimited, and Haddaway carried it to global hits, and its instant-hook DNA still echoes through festival-pop today.

Electro-pop

What is Electro-pop?Electro-pop fuses synthesizer-driven electronic production with pop songwriting, favoring drum machines and processed hooks over live instrumentation. It grew out of early-1980s UK and Japanese synth-pop (Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, The Human League), then resurged in the late 2000s through Britney Spears and Lady Gaga before becoming a mainstream pop default, with Billie Eilish and Zedd carrying it into the 2020s. The synthesizer isn't texture here: it's the lead instrument.

Comparisons