Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is a genre of popular music which originated in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll. The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, even though the former is a description of any form of music which is popular (and can include any genre), whilst the latter is a specific genre of music which has qualities which would make it appealing to a large audience. Pop music, as a genre, is very eclectic, often borrowing elements from other styles throughout its course such as urban, dance, rock, Latin and country, yet there are core elements which define it. Such include generally short-to-medium length songs, written in a basic format which is often the verse-chorus structure, which generally make usage of repeated choruses, have a melodic sound, and have catchy hooks.So-called "pure pop" music, such as power pop, features all these elements, and for instrumentation uses electric guitars, drums and a bass; in the case of such music, the main goal is usually that of being pleasurable to listen to, rather than having much artistic depth. Pop music is generally thought of as a genre which is commercially recorded and desires to appeal to a mass audience.

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Musically, rock has centred around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music. By the late 1960s a number of distinct rock music sub-genres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, and jazz-rock fusion, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock influenced by the counter-cultural psychedelic scene. New genres that emerged from this scene included progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements; glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style, and the diverse and enduring major sub-genre of heavy metal, which emphasized volume, power and speed.

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th century American popular music. Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note. As the music has developed and spread around the world it has drawn on many different national, regional and local musical cultures giving rise, since its early 20th century American beginnings, to many distinctive styles: New Orleans jazz dating from the early 1910s, big band swing, Kansas City jazz and Gypsy jazz from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s and on down through West Coast jazz, cool jazz, avant-garde jazz, modal jazz, free jazz, Latin jazz in various forms, soul jazz, jazz fusion and jazz rock, smooth jazz, jazz-funk, punk jazz, acid jazz, ethno jazz, jazz rap, cyber jazz, Indo jazz, M-Base, nu jazz, urban jazz and other ways of playing the music.

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period. It is not to be confused with the Classical Era. European music is largely distinguished from many other non-European and popular musical forms by its system of staff notation, in use since about the 16th century. Western staff notation is used by composers to prescribe to the performer the pitch, speed, meter, individual rhythms and exact execution of a piece of music. This leaves less room for practices such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation, that are frequently heard in non-European art music and popular music. The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to "canonize" the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age. The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836.

House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to African-Americans and Latino Americans in Chicago circa 1984, then in other locations such as New York City, Toronto, London etc. It then reached and began to influence popular music in Europe, with chart hits such as House Nation by House Master Boyz and the Rude Boy Of House (1987) and Doctorin' The House by Coldcut (1988). Since the early to mid-1990s, house music has been infused in mainstream pop and dance music worldwide. Early house music was generally dance-based music characterised by repetitive 4/4 beats and rhythms centered around drum machines, off-beat hi-hat cymbals and synthesized basslines. While house displayed several characteristics similar to disco music, it was more electronic and minimalistic, and the structured music's focus around a repetitive rhythm was more important than the song itself. House music today, while keeping several of these core elements, notably the prominent kick drum on every beat, varies a lot in style and influence, ranging from the soulful and atmospheric deep house, to the more minimalistic microhouse. House music became a global phenomenon from the mid 90s onwards. It proved to be a commercially successful genre and a more mainstream pop-based variation grew increasingly popular.

Trying to define Latin music is like trying to catch a prism of light in a basket. You can look in the basket and see the colors there, but the moment you move, they're gone. We could try to define Latin music in terms of language, by saying it's music sung in Spanish. Oh wait, there's Brazil and Portugal, so let's amend that to Spanish and Portuguese. But it's not that simple. Because, for starters, that approach would exclude all the great salsa and regional music coming out of English speaking urban centers. Latin music is a catch-all term for a number of diverse styles from different regions and countries in Latin America. Often, the term refers to Latin pop -- either dance-based or pop oriented-music sung in Spanish or Tejano. Tejano has a number of different styles, from romantic ballads to the narrative nortenos, and they're usually performed by large groups with acoustic instruments and horns. In the '80s and '90s, Tejano has also adopted smooth production techniques from American pop-rock and soft rock. Latin America is also known for such dance music as salsas and sambas, which have layers of percussion, blaring horns and an infectious sense of style. A related style to salsa is the bossa nova, a cool, laid-back style that crossed dance music with jazz. With the exception of tejano and mariachi, which is folk and pop based, most Latin music is defined by its strong rhythms.

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality. The roots of ambient music go back to the early 20th century. In particular, the period just before and after the first world war gave rise to two significant art movements that encouraged experimentation with various musical (and non musical) forms, while rejecting more conventional, tradition-bound styles of expression. These art movements were called Futurism and Dadaism. Aside from being known for their painters and writers, these movements also attracted experimental and 'anti-music' musicians such as Francesco Balilla Pratella of the pre-war Futurism movement and Kurt Schwitters and Erwin Schulhoff of the post-war Dadaist movement. The latter movement played an influential role in the musical development of Erik Satie. As an early 20th century French composer, Erik Satie used such Dadaist-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient / background music that he labeled "furniture music" (Musique d'ameublement). This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during

World music in its classic definition is a general categorical term for global music, such as the traditional music or folk music of a culture that is created and played by indigenous musicians and is closely related to the music of the regions of their origin. As a pure genre, world music's original intention is to distinguish a complete array of ethnic specificity, though a more globalized 21st century is fast expanding its categorical scope; evidenced by the necessity for less ethnically sterile, hybrid world music artists to be classified under less standardized sub-genres, such as World fusion, Global fusion, Ethnic fusion and Worldbeat (discussed in section 1.1 of this article). Though these terms may also be considered sub-genres of pop music, they lend to the perception of what defines the scope of world music today, which arguably extends beyond a sphere of discrete and pure ethnic music traditions, defined in the term roots music. World music is inherently one of the broadest music genres, steadily evolving new branch categories, via the discoverable application in its depth and diversity. The term in today's ethnomusicology vernacular now includes the aforementioned

New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation,[1] and reading as a method of stress management[2] or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often associated with environmentalism and New Age spirituality.[1] The harmonies in New Age music are generally modal, consonant, or include a drone bass. The melodies are often repetitive, to create a hypnotic feeling, and sometimes recordings of nature sounds are used as an introduction to a track or throughout the piece. Pieces of up to thirty minutes are common. New Age music includes both electronic forms, frequently relying on sustained synth pads or long sequencer-based runs, and acoustic forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar and a wide variety of non-western acoustic instruments. Vocal arrangements were initially rare in New Age music but as it has evolved vocals have become more common, especially vocals featuring Native American, Sanskrit, or Tibetan influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends or the realm of Faerie. The idea that society is about to enter a New Age is a provocative vision that has energized the hearts and minds of progressive people for many generations.

Chill out music (can also be spelled "chill-out" or "chillout") is a style of music that normally can be defined as relaxing, chilling, calm or with a dreamy atmosphere, inviting you into a journey of positive feelings. The genres associated to chill-out music include, among others: Ambient, Nu-Jazz, Trip-Hop, Ambient House, New Age, Lounge. All these can be classified as sub-genres of the so called downtempo style (for it's beats-per-minute being between slow and moderate). It comprises electronic music aswell as acoustic or combinations and often includes loops and dubs, being frequently fully instrumental but may also feature smooth vocals. Chill-out music was invented in the dance clubs in mid-1990s, where relaxing music was played in a separate section of the club to allow people to sit down, have a drink and "chill-out" while recovering from the action and emotion of the faster and energetic music played on the dance floor. Later on it started to become popular and so called "chill out bars" were opened, they would exclusively play this kind of music and basically invited people to relax from a hard day of work or just "chill out" with their friends.The genres associated with chill-out are mostly ambient, trip-hop, nu jazz, ambient house, New Age. Sometimes the easy listening sub-genre lounge is considered to belong to the chill-out collection as well.

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound. The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience.

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjoes, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles such as violins, and harmonicas. The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. Harlan Howard stated "Country music is three chords and the truth." Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years. They brought some of their most important valuables with them, and to most of them this was an instrument: Early Scottish settlers enjoyed the fiddle because it could be played to sound sad and mournful or bright and bouncy. The Irish fiddle, the German derived dulcimer, the Italian mandolin, the Spanish guitar, and the West African banjo were the most common musical

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based on a rhythmic style characterized by accents on the off-beat, known as the skank. Reggae is normally slower than both ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually accents the second and fourth beat in each bar, with the rhythm guitar also either emphasizing the third beat or holding the chord on the second beat until the fourth is played. It is mainly this "third beat", its speed and the use of complex bass lines that differentiated reggae from rocksteady, although later styles incorporated these innovations separately. The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as "a recently estab. sp. for rege", as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either "rags, ragged clothing" or "a quarrel, a row". Reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by The Maytals.

Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae. Music in this genre consists predominantly of instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually by removing the vocals from an existing music piece, emphasizing the drum and bass parts (this stripped down track is sometimes referred to as a 'riddim'). Other techniques include dynamically adding extensive echo, reverb, panoramic delay, and occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works. Dub also sometimes features electronically generated sound effects, or the use of distinctive instruments such as the melodica by artists such as Augustus Pablo. Dub was pioneered by Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Errol Thompson and others in the late 1960s. Similar experiments with recordings at the mixing desk outside of the dancehall environment were also done by producers Clive Chin and Herman Chin Loy.

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching, breaking/dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling (or synthesis), and beatboxing. While often used to refer to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip-hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip-hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip-hop culture, including DJing and scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks. Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap. It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop"

Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season, which tends to begin in the months leading up the actual holiday and end in the weeks shortly thereafter. Music was an early feature of the Christmas season and its celebrations. The earliest chants, litanies, and hymns were Latin works intended for use during the church liturgy, rather than popular songs. The 13th century saw the rise of the carol written in the vernacular under the influence of Francis of Assisi. In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing and called them carols. Later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of John Audelay, a Shropshire priest and poet, who lists twenty five "caroles of Cristemas", probably sung by groups of wassailers, who went from house to house. Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians.