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.
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.
Afro & Latin House
- What is Afro House?Afro house fuses the four-on-the-floor pulse of house music with African percussion, tribal drum patterns, chant-style vocals, and organic instrumentation. Warmer and more rhythmic than Western house, it ranges from spiritual, melodic productions to peak-time floor tools, and has become a defining sound of festivals and beach clubs from Cape Town to Ibiza.
- What is Afro & Latin House?On Videojam, "Afro & Latin House" groups afro house, latin house, and tropical house: house music coloured by African and Latin American rhythms, percussion, and vocal traditions. Tracks here lean on live-feel drums, chant or call-and-response vocals, and a warmer harmonic palette than European house. The pillar label is Videojam's grouping; each subgenre is its own scene.
Techno & Trance
- What is Melodic Techno?Melodic techno pairs the driving, hypnotic rhythm of techno with emotive, harmonically rich melodies and long, cinematic builds. Darker and more propulsive than melodic house but more song-like than peak-time techno, it favours minor-key arpeggios, evolving pads, and sunset-to-sunrise energy: the sound associated with after-hours rooms and open-air festival main stages.
- What is Techno & Trance?On Videojam, "Techno & Trance" groups the harder, hypnotic end of electronic dance music: techno's machine-driven 4/4 minimalism, melodic techno's emotive after-hours builds, and trance's euphoric peaks. Tempos typically sit 120-145 BPM, with arrangements designed for long mixing and peak-time dancefloors. The pillar is Videojam's grouping; techno, melodic techno, and trance are distinct tags in their own right.
Deep House
House
- What is Tech House?Tech house blends the groove and warmth of house with the stripped-back, percussive precision of techno. Built around tight, rolling basslines, crisp hi-hats, and minimal arrangements, it favours hypnotic repetition and DJ-friendly functionality over big melodies. It is a club staple that bridges the soulful and mechanical ends of electronic dance music.
- What is UK Garage?UK garage emerged from London's mid-1990s club scene as a faster, bassier reworking of American garage house, blending jungle, R&B, and dancehall influences at around 130 BPM. Its 2-step variant, with a syncopated kick-on-1-and-offbeat-3 pattern, became the defining sound, championed by DJ EZ on Rinse FM. Artful Dodger and Craig David's "Re-Rewind" (1999), MJ Cole's "Sincere", and So Solid Crew's "21 Seconds" (2001) carried it to the UK charts before it splintered into grime and dubstep around 2002.
- What is Jersey Club?Jersey club emerged in Newark, NJ in the early 2000s as a leaner, faster reworking of Baltimore club, defined by triplet-kick drum patterns, chopped vocal samples, and a 130-140 BPM bounce. DJ Tameil, Tim Dolla, Mike V, and Black Mic of the Brick Bandits collective codified the sound, originally called "Brick City club" after Newark's nickname. It crossed over globally via TikTok dance trends, Cookiee Kawaii's "Vibe" (2019), and Lil Uzi Vert's "Just Wanna Rock" (2022).
- What is House?House is electronic dance music built around a four-on-the-floor kick at roughly 120-128 BPM, born in Chicago clubs in the early 1980s out of disco, funk, and emerging drum-machine production. It centres steady percussion, looped basslines, and warm pads or chords; subgenres range from soulful and deep to tech-leaning, garage, and afro variants, all sharing the same architectural pulse.
Melodic & Progressive
- What is Progressive House?Progressive house is a melodic strain of house defined by gradually evolving, layered arrangements that build and release tension over several minutes. Smoother and more song-structured than tech house, it emphasises atmosphere, sweeping pads, and emotional payoff, and has shaped both underground and festival-scale electronic music since the early 1990s.
- What is Melodic & Progressive?On Videojam, "Melodic & Progressive" groups melodic house, progressive house, and future bass: the cinematic, harmony-driven end of electronic dance music. Tracks here favour long arrangements, evolving chord progressions, and emotional payoff over peak-time intensity. The label is a Videojam curation grouping, not a recognised genre name; each member subgenre has its own established identity.
Downtempo
- What is Downtempo?Downtempo is a broad category of slower, atmospheric electronic music made for listening rather than the dancefloor. Spanning trip-hop, chillout, and organic, world-influenced productions, it pairs relaxed beats with rich textures and ambient detail. Typically below 110 BPM, it prioritises mood and immersion, soundtracking lounges, late nights, and focused listening.
- What is Trip-hop?Trip-hop is a downtempo, sample-based style that emerged from Bristol's late-1980s sound-system culture, fusing hip-hop production with cinematic strings, dub bass, and jazz samples. Massive Attack's Blue Lines (1991), Portishead's Mercury-winning Dummy (1994), and Tricky's Maxinquaye (1995) are its foundational records, though all three acts have rejected the label, coined by Mixmag, in favour of "the Bristol sound."
Disco & Funk
- What is Disco?Disco is a dance-music style that emerged in the early 1970s, built on a steady four-on-the-floor beat, lush orchestration, syncopated basslines, and soaring vocals. Born in nightclubs and rooted in soul and funk, it defined an era of dancefloor culture and remains the foundational DNA of house, nu-disco, and much of modern electronic dance music.
- What is Disco & Funk?On Videojam, "Disco & Funk" groups disco-rooted dance music (original 70s disco, nu-disco, and funk-leaning crossovers) under a single pillar. Tracks centre syncopated basslines, four-on-the-floor groove, string arrangements, and soulful vocals. The pillar is Videojam's grouping; disco and funk are distinct, well-established genres with separate histories that converge on the dancefloor.
Indie & Electronic
- What is Breakbeat?Breakbeat is a family of electronic dance music built on sampled, syncopated drum breaks lifted from funk, soul, and jazz records, with the Amen break from The Winstons' "Amen, Brother" (1969) being the canonical source. Emerging from late-1980s UK rave culture out of hip-hop sampling practice, the style spans breakbeat hardcore, big beat, and progressive breaks; The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, and Fatboy Slim brought it to mainstream attention through the 1990s.
- What is Drum and Bass?Drum and bass emerged in early-1990s UK out of jungle and breakbeat hardcore, defined by 165-180 BPM tempos, chopped breakbeats (often the Amen break), and deep sub-bass lines. Goldie's 1995 album Timeless, LTJ Bukem's atmospheric Good Looking Records output, and Roni Size & Reprazent's Mercury-winning New Forms (1997) shaped its first wave. Subgenres include liquid, jump-up, neurofunk, and techstep.
- What is Synthwave?Synthwave is an instrumental electronic style built on 1980s analog-synth textures, gated reverb, and arpeggiated basslines, a deliberate homage to the era's film scores (Vangelis, John Carpenter, Tangerine Dream) and arcade soundtracks. Emerging from mid-2000s French-house circles around Kavinsky and the Valerie Collective (College, Anoraak), it reached mainstream visibility through the 2011 film Drive, the Hotline Miami video game, and Stranger Things. Subgenres include outrun, darksynth, and dreamwave.
- What is Indie & Electronic?On Videojam, "Indie & Electronic" groups the crossover space between indie songwriting and electronic production: indie dance, indie electronic, and adjacent left-field club music. Tracks here often pair sung vocals and song structure with synths, drum machines, or sampled grooves. The label is a Videojam pillar; it is not a recognised genre name on its own.
Dance & Pop
- What is Hyperpop?Hyperpop is a maximalist pop style defined by pitched-up vocals, saturated synths, abrupt structural shifts, and a deliberate aesthetic of excess. Its lineage runs through A.G. Cook's PC Music label (founded 2013), SOPHIE's foundational tracks "BIPP" (2013) and "Immaterial" (2018), and 100 gecs' viral 2019 album 1000 gecs. Charli XCX's collaboration with the scene has carried its sound into mainstream pop.
- What is Dance & Pop?On Videojam, "Dance & Pop" groups dance-pop, EDM-pop, eurodance, electro-pop, and synthpop: the chart-pop side of dance music, where club-tempo production carries vocal-led, hook-driven songwriting. Tracks typically run 110-130 BPM with prominent leads and a four-on-the-floor pulse. The pillar is Videojam's grouping; each member subgenre has its own history.
Dance Pop
Indie Pop
RnB
Breaks & Bass
Trance
Reggaeton
Latin House
Melodic House
Comparisons
- Afro House vs Tech HouseAfro house and tech house are both four-on-the-floor club styles, but they pull in different directions: Afro house leads with organic percussion, melody, and warmth, while tech house strips back to a tight, mechanical groove.
- Melodic Techno vs Progressive HouseMelodic techno and progressive house overlap heavily and share many artists, but melodic techno is darker, more percussive, and techno-rooted, while progressive house is smoother, more melodic, and house-rooted.
- Jungle vs Drum and BassJungle and drum and bass share the same DNA (UK breakbeat hardcore, sub-bass, sampled drum patterns at 160-180 BPM), and many DJs and producers worked across both. The split was largely cultural: "jungle" (peaking 1993-95) carried heavy ragga, dancehall, and reggae influence; producers and labels distancing themselves from those influences adopted "drum and bass" from around 1993 onwards. Today the terms are often used interchangeably, especially in the US.
- Phonk vs Drift PhonkPhonk and drift phonk share the same name but diverge sharply in sound, tempo, and audience. Original phonk (often retroactively called "OG phonk" or "rare phonk") is slow, hazy hip-hop derived from 1990s Memphis rap samples and chopped-and-screwed vocals: the SoundCloud-era sound of Raider Klan, DJ Smokey, and Soudiere. Drift phonk, originating in late-2010s Russia, is faster (130+ BPM), cowbell-heavy, and optimised for car-drift and gym edits on TikTok.
- UK Garage vs 2-stepUK garage is the umbrella genre that emerged from London's mid-1990s club scene; 2-step is its defining subgenre. UK garage encompasses speed garage (faster, 4/4 with house tempos) and 2-step (syncopated, sparse kick on 1 and offbeat 3, around 130 BPM), among other offshoots. 2-step is the strain most associated with the genre's commercial peak (Craig David, Artful Dodger, Sweet Female Attitude), and is what most people today mean when they say "UK garage".
- Synthwave vs VaporwaveSynthwave and vaporwave both filter 1980s aesthetic memory through internet-era production but are musically and ideologically distinct. Synthwave is sincere homage: original instrumental composition in the style of '80s film scores and arcade soundtracks (Kavinsky, The Midnight, Carpenter Brut). Vaporwave is sample-based and ironic, slowing and pitching down corporate Muzak, smooth jazz, and elevator music into a critique of consumer capitalism (Macintosh Plus's "Floral Shoppe", Saint Pepsi). Synthwave wants to drive; vaporwave wants you to feel slightly uneasy at the mall.