1. Jazz rap or jazz hip-hop.
2. Pirate metal.
Out of all the genres, it’s hard to imagine metal being one that would go unnoticed. But then comes pirate metal. As well as heavy distortion, double bass drumming, and powerful guitar riffs, pirate metal also incorporates elements of pirate mythology, and the lyrics may include some pirate jargon with the singing often sounding rushed and loud. To take things further, music fans and band members alike usually turn up in period costumes at pirate metal concerts and this creates the illusion of another world and another life.
The most popular band in the pirate metal genre is the Scottish band Alestorm, whose fourth album, « Sunset on the Golden Age », even reached number one on the UK Rock Chart.
3. Math rock.
It can be hard to see the link between rock’n’roll, most teenagers’ favorite musical genre, and maths, their most hated subject at school. And yet, as always, music has a way of bringing things together. That’s just what it does.
You had classic rock and progressive rock which marked a new chapter of rock’n’roll music. It was the beginning of intricate music compositions and complex instrumentation.
Now onto Math Rock, which is another subgenre of rock music. Mathematics is the study of numbers and formulas. It’s not surprising then that math rock is governed by atypical and generally difficult time signatures like 5/4 or 7/8, 11/8 or 13/8. For this reason, the drums are obviously a key instrument in this genre, but the guitarist also plays a very important role, building on the rhythm using techniques such as loop pedals and tapping. What’s more, the song structures are generally very different from the usual ones, with lots of stops and starts, distortions, and dissonant chords, making it a subgenre of progressive rock. The result is that when you listen to math rock, you get the impression that the music is both messy and organized.
As for vocals, they are seen as an element of the band that blends in with the other instruments rather than as a dominant element, and many songs have no vocals at all.
The genre emerged in the late 1980s in the United States but reached its peak in the 1990s with bands such as Don Caballero, with their album “What Burns Never Returns“, Tera Melos, Piglet, and Battles.
Listen to the song ‘Melody 2′ by Tera Melos below.
4. Instrumental ensemble music (ex: traditional Gamelan music as a music genre).
It’s an indissociable collective instrumental ensemble made up of more than twenty instruments, such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs. It can be likened to a large percussion orchestra. The percussion instruments are mainly made of metal, sometimes bronze, and, in the case of the oldest instruments, iron. But there are also some made of bamboo and other materials. There are also instruments that are not percussive, such as rebabs (spiked fiddles), kendangs (skin-headed drums) and sulings (bamboo flutes). Javanese and Balinese gamelans are similar and in terms of melodic development, they both have a basic melody on which the other instruments build.
Musicians don’t necessarily specialize in one instrument, they specialize in several, because they need to understand how to play in different positions in order to fit in better with the group. This way of playing really teaches the importance of group cohesion, because everyone has to coordinate and play together. So the important thing is to develop strong listening skills, and that’s what traditional Gamelan music, and any instrumental ensemble, teaches its players, more than individual musical skills.
5. Vaporwave electronic music.
Like house, techno, future bass, and trance, vaporwave is a sub-genre of electronic music.
Like all forms of electronic music, it uses synthesizers, drum machines, and digital audio workstations, but it is also defined by its slowed-down samples, which are often altered in pitch and manipulated with compression or reverb.
See below for a clip showing the use of the famous TV show The Simpsons to introduce a song.
6. Folktronica.
With electronic music being around since the late 1960s and folk music much longer, it was inevitable that one day someone would try to merge them. And the result was folktronica, a hybrid music genre that merges the drum machines and synthesizers of electronic music with the acoustic instruments and writing styles of folk – and that is sometimes called « folk on acid ». It has the same vibe as indie music with a hint of disco sound.
The English group Ultramarine is a good example of folktronica and their album « Every Man and Woman Is a Star » in 1991 is one of the most famous examples of the genre.
7. Kawaiicore.
Also known as “cute metal” or “kawaii metal“, kawaiicore is a sub-genre of metal. When you think of metal, you may immediately think of Metallica and Iron Maiden, not a softer Japanese aesthetic. But true to its original genre, Kawaii Core is also known for its powerful, amplified guitar sounds and complex compositions. It has nothing to envy from other sub-genres such as heavy metal, death metal and black metal and it also incorporates elements of Japanese pop or J-pop. As for the message conveyed by the songs, it is generally softer and sometimes even closer to cute, childlike themes. This subgenre goes to show that you can blend two elements, one audio and the other visual, to create a new musical genre. And one of the takeaways from all of these more obscure, less well-known music subgenres is that each one can teach you something valuable that you can then apply to your own playing.
The success of this musical genre is often attributed to the Japanese group Babymetal so have a listen below to hear what kawaiicore sounds like.
8. Lowercase.
The artist most associated with this musical genre is Steven Roden, who created a minimalist genre of ambient music that he called lowercase. And why? Because, in his words, “it’s the opposite of capital letters – loud things which draw attention to themselves”.
The principle is as follows: usually quiet sounds are amplified to extreme levels and the result is that what you hear is quite unusual. On his « Forms of Paper » album, Roden manipulated different types of paper, recording the sounds before amplifying them, stretching them, looping them and affecting them in some way. He proceeded in this way until he generated a type of ambient electronic music. In his work “Bell Is The Truth (Berlin)”, Roden tapped on light bulbs in total darkness. He used their fragile glass surfaces to create bell-like sounds.
9. Glitch hop.
Glitch hop originated in New York in the 1970s and involves rapping to beats and tracks while highlighting social and political issues.
As you’ve probably guessed, glitch hop is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of hip hop such as rhythm and glitch music, with techniques such as jumping, stuttering, and fragmentation. The result is something that sounds quite futuristic, and to see for yourself, listen to the track below from The Glitch Mob.
10. Black MIDI.
Similarly to Gamelan music, this subgenre is instrumental. When musicians play music with electronic instruments or record it using computers or other devices, they use MIDI files. The idea behind black MIDI is simple: these are essentially piano compositions that are so dense with notes that the sheet of music transcribing them would appear completely black, and therefore almost impossible for humans to play. This image should give you an idea of what this musical genre looks like but have a listen to the track below, which is a good example of how technology can be used to do things and play music that humans cannot, and therefore, you can fully understand black MIDI.
To conclude, if all of these obscure and relatively unknown subgenres are slowly becoming increasingly popular music genres in their own right, it may still be a while before they cross the line into pop music. That being said, artists have long been experimenting with different sounds and techniques for blending different genres, with musicians such as Frank Zappa and Daniel Johnston coming to mind, so we can expect more of these subgenres to appear and thrive in the future. And the takeaway from these examples above is that most subgenres emerged from the fusion of two or more genres together.
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