The Electronic Music Web
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The Electronic Music Web

An interactive map of electronic music genres published by Learning to DJ. Each genre links to its history, key figures, labels, sources and defining tracks. Use the map above, or browse the full list below.

Roots

The styles that came before house, techno and drum & bass and shaped their sound.

  • Early Electronic — The first musicians to make popular music with synthesizers and drum machines.
  • Krautrock — Experimental German rock from the 1970s that mixed electronic sounds with repetitive rhythms.
  • Hip Hop Breaks — The short drum sections of old funk and soul records that became the building blocks of dance music.
  • Dub — A Jamaican remix style that removes vocals and adds deep bass, echo and reverb.
  • Disco — A joyful 1970s dance music built on a steady beat, lush strings and soulful singing.
  • Ambient — Calm, quiet electronic music made to change the mood of a room rather than to be the focus.
  • Industrial — An experimental, harsh style that uses noise, machines and dark themes.
  • Euro-Disco — A European form of disco with catchy melodies, clean production and electronic instruments.
  • Hi-NRG — A fast, electronic disco style with a strong beat and powerful singing, popular in gay clubs.
  • Synth-Pop — A pop style built mainly on synthesizers, drum machines and catchy electronic melodies.
  • Funk and Boogie — A smooth, electronic 1980s dance style that grew from funk and disco after disco's peak.
  • Italo Disco — A melodic, electronic Italian disco style with drum machines and dreamy synthesizers.
  • EBM — A hard electronic dance style with shouted vocals, heavy beats and a cold, serious mood.
  • Electro — A 1980s style that mixed funk with drum machines and futuristic electronic sounds.
  • New Beat — A slow, hard Belgian dance style from the late 1980s that mixed EBM, acid and samples.

House

A family of four-to-the-floor dance music that began in Chicago in the early 1980s and spread worldwide.

  • Chicago House — The first house music style, made in Chicago from disco, drum machines and soulful vocals.
  • Garage House — A soulful, vocal-heavy house style from New York and New Jersey club culture.
  • Acid House — A raw house style built on the squelchy sound of the Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer.
  • Deep House — A warm, smooth house style with soft chords and a relaxed, soulful mood.
  • Balearic — A free, open-minded DJ style from Ibiza that mixes many kinds of relaxed dance music.
  • Italo House — A bright, piano-led house style made in Italy in the late 1980s.
  • Hip House — A late-1980s mix of house music beats and rapped vocals.
  • Tribal House — Percussion-heavy house music built on layered drums from Africa and Latin America.
  • Afro House — A South African house style with deep, spiritual chords and African percussion.
  • Kwaito — Slow South African house music with local languages, deep bass and township pride.
  • Progressive House — A long, building British house style with layered melodies and a trance-like feel.
  • Soulful House — House music built around soul and gospel vocals, live instruments and warm keyboards.
  • Ghetto House — Raw Chicago house with simple drum machines and often explicit vocals.
  • French House — A French house style built on filtered disco samples and heavy electronic effects.
  • Tech House — A club style that mixes the groove of house with the sounds and structure of techno.
  • UK Garage — A fast, chopped British style that mixes house, soul and jungle rhythms.
  • Jackin House — Sample-heavy Chicago house built for dancing, with chopped vocals and funky loops.
  • Minimal House — A stripped-back house style that uses only a few sounds and lots of space.
  • Microhouse — A quiet, detailed house style that uses tiny clicks, cuts and strange samples.
  • Electro House — A loud house style with distorted electronic bass and heavy, robotic sounds.
  • Nu-Disco — A modern dance style that rebuilds the sound and feeling of 1970s and 1980s disco.
  • Dutch House — A loud Dutch club style with hard electronic drums and simple, catchy riffs.
  • Rominimal — A Romanian take on minimal house, with long, rolling grooves and small, strange sounds.
  • Balkan Pop House — A Romanian and Balkan pop-dance style from about 2008 to 2013 with house beats and accordion hooks.
  • EDM — A mainstream 2010s umbrella term for festival dance music with big drops and pop hooks.
  • Big Room House — A very simple, loud festival style built around one big drop.
  • Deep Tech — A 2010s club style that mixes deep house warmth with tech house drums.
  • Amapiano — Slow South African house with piano melodies, deep bass and a log drum rhythm.
  • Pop Deep House — A British chart sound from the mid-2010s that put deep house beats under pop songs.
  • Afro Tech — South African house with African percussion and a strong techno influence.
  • Future House — A 2010s style that mixes deep house warmth with a metallic, bending bass sound.
  • Organic House — A slow, soft house style with natural sounds, live instruments and a warm, dreamy mood.
  • Bass House — A heavy 2010s club style that mixes house drums with loud, low bass and garage sounds.
  • Lo-Fi House — A rough, emotional house style with hissy drums, soft chords and a homemade feel.

Techno

A family of machine-made dance music that began in Detroit in the 1980s and grew worldwide.

  • Detroit Techno — The first techno style, made in Detroit with drum machines and futuristic synthesizer sounds.
  • Bleep Techno — A short-lived British style from the north of England built on deep bass and simple electronic beeps.
  • Ambient Techno — Techno that is made for listening at home as much as dancing, with soft textures and slow beats.
  • UK Techno — A hard, dark British techno sound with rough drums and industrial textures.
  • Acid Techno — Techno built around the squelchy sound of the Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer.
  • Berlin Techno — The deep, serious techno sound of Berlin clubs, built for long nights and big rooms.
  • Free Tekno — Fast, raw European party techno played at free parties and teknivals.
  • Lo-Fi Techno — Rough, hardware-made techno with a muffled, low-fidelity mix.
  • Minimal Techno — A stripped-back techno style that uses only a few sounds and repeats them in small changes.
  • Dub Techno — Techno mixed with the echo and delay effects of Jamaican dub music.
  • Hard Techno — A fast, loud and forceful form of techno made for energetic club crowds.
  • Japanese Techno — Japanese techno, known for a precise, stripped and often melodic sound.
  • Schranz — A very fast, hard German techno style built on heavy drums and short, sharp loops.
  • Ghettotech — Fast Detroit techno, electro and ghetto house with crude vocals.
  • Hardgroove — Fast, loop-based techno with a strong, funky drum groove.
  • Nortec — Mexican fusion of techno and electro with norteno and tambora brass.
  • Hypnotic Techno — Slow-changing, deeply atmospheric techno that repeats small details to create a trance-like state.
  • Industrial Techno — A very heavy techno style with distorted drums, noise and industrial textures.
  • Raw / Deep Techno — Stripped, groovy techno with a raw, low-mixed sound, revived in the 2010s.
  • Electro Techno — Techno built on electro beats and machine funk, revived in the 2010s.
  • Gqom — Dark, broken Durban house and techno with heavy bass and no four-to-the-floor kick.
  • Warehouse Techno — A 2010s British style that mixes hard techno with the energy and breaks of early rave music.
  • Melodic House and Techno — A slow, emotional mix of house and techno built on strong melodies and deep bass.
  • Peak-Time Techno — A loud, direct techno style made for the busiest part of a big club night.

Drum & Bass

A fast British dance music family built on heavy bass and broken, syncopated drum breaks.

  • Breakbeat Hardcore — A fast, colourful British rave style that mixed breakbeats, piano riffs and sampled vocals.
  • Darkcore — A dark, serious form of hardcore that led towards jungle and drum and bass.
  • Jungle — A fast British style with chopped breakbeats, deep bass and a strong ragga or soul influence.
  • Ragga Jungle — Jungle mixed with Jamaican dancehall and ragga vocals, fast and full of energy.
  • Atmospheric Drum and Bass — A calm, melodic form of drum and bass with soft chords and long, floating pads.
  • Drum and Bass — A fast British style with heavy bass and broken beats, the wider name for jungle's later sound.
  • Jump-Up — A loud, simple and fun drum and bass style made to get crowds moving.
  • Techstep — A dark, mechanical drum and bass style with harsh bass and science-fiction sounds.
  • Neurofunk — A technical, aggressive drum and bass style with complex, twisted bass sounds.
  • Liquid Drum and Bass — A smooth, musical drum and bass style with soulful singing and warm chords.
  • Minimal Drum and Bass — A quiet, detailed drum and bass style that uses very few sounds and lots of space.
  • Halftime — Drum and bass played at half the speed of the drums, leaving a slow, heavy groove.

Trance

A family of melodic electronic dance music built on long, euphoric builds and breakdowns.

  • Trance — Melodic electronic dance music with long builds and breakdowns, developed in Europe in the early 1990s.
  • Acid Trance — Early trance built around the squelchy sound of the Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer.
  • Goa Trance — Early 1990s psychedelic trance from Goa, India, with melodic, hypnotic tracks.
  • Progressive Trance — Slower, smoothly building trance with long breakdowns and changing basslines.
  • Dream Trance — Soft Italian trance led by piano melodies, popular in the mid-1990s.
  • Psytrance — Fast, layered psychedelic trance that grew out of Goa trance.
  • Suomisaundi — Free-form Finnish psychedelic trance, known for humour and unusual sounds.
  • Tech Trance — Trance with techno-style drums, a dark drive and few vocals.
  • Ibiza Trance — Warm, melodic trance with guitars and sea sounds, linked to Ibiza.
  • Uplifting Trance — Fast, emotional trance with long breakdowns and big melodic returns.
  • Vocal Trance — Trance tracks with a full lead vocal, usually a pop-style female singer.
  • Dark Psytrance — The fast, dark and distorted end of the psychedelic trance spectrum.
  • Full-On — High-energy Israeli psytrance with rolling basslines and big melodies.
  • Progressive Psytrance — Rolling, hypnotic psytrance that builds slowly with few big melodies.

Hardcore

A family of fast, hard electronic dance music built on distorted kicks, high tempos and rave energy.

  • Hardcore Techno — Fast, distorted rave music that began in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in the early 1990s.
  • Gabber — The Dutch fast hardcore style with distorted kick drums, dark themes and a large youth scene.
  • Makina — Fast Spanish dance music mixing hardcore, bouncy techno and hard trance.
  • Happy Hardcore — Fast, happy breakbeat rave music with pianos and pitched-up vocals, popular in Britain in the mid-1990s.
  • Speedcore — Extreme-tempo hardcore, usually above 300 beats per minute.
  • Terrorcore — Harsh, dark hardcore with very fast tempos and horror-themed samples.
  • Breakcore — Chopped and distorted breakbeats played at hardcore speed with a wide range of samples.
  • Frenchcore — Fast French hardcore with a loud, distorted offbeat bassline, popular at freetekno parties.
  • J-Core — Japanese hardcore that mixes European hardcore with anime, game and pop samples.
  • UK Hardcore — The British hardcore style that mixed happy hardcore with trance sounds after 1999.
  • Freeform — Complex, trance-influenced UK hardcore with fast rhythms and big melodies.
  • Mainstream Hardcore — The polished, slower Dutch hardcore sound that grew from gabber in the early 2000s.
  • Crossbreed — Drum and bass tempo and breakbeats mixed with hardcore kicks and heavy distortion.
  • Uptempo Hardcore — Very fast Dutch hardcore with hard, distorted kicks, popular at festivals from the 2010s.

Hard Dance

A family of fast, hard club styles such as hard house, hard trance, hardstyle and eurodance.

  • Eurodance — 1990s European dance-pop with rap verses and big sung choruses.
  • Hard House — Fast, punchy British house music with hard kicks and offbeat bass, popular in the late 1990s.
  • Bouncy Techno — A fast, happy rave style from Scotland and northern England with a bouncy beat.
  • Hard Trance — Hard, distorted trance with strong kicks and heavy reverb, popular at European raves.
  • Hard Dance — An umbrella name for fast, hard club styles such as hard house, hard trance and hardstyle.
  • Hard NRG — A darker, harder form of UK hard house with aggressive, gritty sounds.
  • Jumpstyle — A Belgian and Dutch hard dance style with a fast beat and its own jumping dance.
  • Hardbass — Fast Russian pumping house with a metallic 'donk' bass, heavy kicks and chants.
  • Hardstyle — Dutch mid-tempo hard dance with a distorted kick, reverse bass and big melodies.
  • Bounce — A bouncy UK and Irish hard house style built on a sharp offbeat 'donk' bass.
  • Hands Up — Fast, melodic German club music with hard kicks, supersaw leads and pop vocals.
  • Euphoric Hardstyle — Melodic, uplifting hardstyle with big supersaw leads and emotional breakdowns.
  • Rawstyle — Harder, stripped-back hardstyle with aggressive kicks, screeches and few melodies.

Breakbeat

A family of dance music built on syncopated, sampled drum loops rather than a straight four-to-the-floor beat.

  • Breakbeat — Club music built on a sampled, syncopated funk drum loop.
  • Florida Breaks — A fast, bass-heavy American breaks sound from central Florida.
  • Big Beat — Sample-heavy, rock-tempo breaks made for big rooms and charts.
  • Broken Beat — Jazz- and soul-inflected broken rhythms from West London.
  • Nu-Skool Breaks — A British breaks revival with technical, modern sounds and a strong bassline.
  • Breakstep — A short-lived London mix of breaks and early dubstep bass.
  • Chemical Breaks — The Australian breaks scene and its progressive, big-room sound.

UK Bass

A family of British club music that grew from UK garage into garage, bassline, dubstep, grime and bass music.

  • Speed Garage — UK garage with a house four-to-the-floor and a heavy, warped jungle bass.
  • 2-Step Garage — UK garage with a shuffled beat that leaves out the usual four-to-the-floor kick.
  • Bassline — Fast, bass-heavy garage from northern England with chopped R&B vocals.
  • Dubstep — South London bass style with heavy sub-bass and sparse half-step drums.
  • Grime — London MC-led style over sparse, hard beats at about 140 BPM.
  • UK Funky — A London house and garage mix with African and Caribbean rhythms and vocals.
  • Future Garage — Melancholy, atmospheric garage revival with pitched vocal chops and swing.
  • UK Bass — An umbrella name for UK club styles that mix house, garage, grime and dubstep.
  • Riddim — Repetitive, aggressive dubstep built on minimal sub-bass patterns.