This is a list of the commercially relevant genres in modern popular music. Styles that are not contemporary or commercially marketed in substantial numbers have been excluded, in accordance with the following criteria:
- Art music: classical music and opera. However Art Music, with the exception of opera, is not usually classified as popular music but as Western Art Music instead.
- Music written for the score of a play, musicals, operetta, zarzuela, film or similar: Filmi, incidental music, video game music, music hall songs and showtunes.
- Ballroom music: tango, pasodoble, cha cha cha and others.
- Religious music: gospel, Gregorian chant, spirituals, hymns and the like.
- Military music, marches, national anthems and related compositions.
- Regional and national musics with no significant commercial impact abroad, except when a version of an international genre: Traditional music, folk, oral traditions, sea shanties, work songs, nursery rhymes, Arabesque, Chalga, Flamenco and indigenous music.
Applicable styles are classified in this list using Allmusic genre categorisation.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, popular and/or music:
“My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“One knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.”
—Thomas Beecham (1879–1961)