traditional british folk
»
contemporary composition
»
deep contemporary country
»
swedish alternative rock
»
technical brutal death metal
»
traditional rock 'n roll
»
electroacoustic improvisation
»
vintage french electronic
»
traditional scottish folk
»
deep indie singer-songwriter
»
underground latin hip hop
»
christian alternative rock
»
british alternative rock
»
progressive post-hardcore
»
deep classic garage rock
»
classic psychedelic rock
»
italian progressive rock
»
progressive uplifting trance
»
australian alternative rock
»
vintage italian soundtrack
»
melodic progressive metal
»
progressive trance house
»
deep symphonic black metal
»
deep underground hip hop
»
progressive electro house
»
deep melodic death metal
»
This is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 1533 genres by Spotify.
The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.
Click anything to hear an example of what it sounds like.
Click the » on a genre to see a map of its artists.
Be calmly aware that this may periodically expand, contract or combust.
How We Understand Music Genres explains how this thing got started.
A Retromatic History of Music (or Love) follows these genres across years.
The Spotify New-Release Sorting Hat uses them to cluster this week's new releases.
We Built This City On follows them to their cities of origin.
Genres by Country breaks them down by strength of association with countries.
Drunkard's Rock wanders around for a really long time.
The Sounds of Places plots countries as if they were genres.
Every Place at Once is an index of the distinctive listening of individual cities.
Genres in Their Own Words maps genres to words found in their song titles.
Genre Politics compares genres to a sample of American political affiliations.
The Needle tries to find songs surging towards the edges of one obscurity or another.
The Approaching Worms of Christmas tries to wrap itself around things I usually fight.