Top 20 Music Genres That Died

Emo was actually born in the mid-80s to hardcore punks interested in expanding the emotional range of their music. But… the music of these early pioneers bears little resemblance to the music, fashion and culture that took over mainstream America in the early 2000s. Emo arrived like some sort of immaculately coiffed pied-piper, leading a generation of alienated kids off to the newly re-invented emo-centric Vans Warped tour. Parents were confused and concerned. But hey, Jimmy Eat World’s “Bleed American” and Taking Back Sunday’s “Tell All Your Friends” were damn catchy and relatable. By 2010, however, the scene was pretty much comatose, as the bands who made the genre popular had, for the most part, moved on to different sounds.

Hip-hop has undergone major transformations throughout the years, with gangsta rap dominating the scene in the ‘80s and ‘90s. When you think of the West Coast sound, this is undoubtedly what springs to mind. We’re talking that signature orange glow, lyrics about urban life, and iconic artists like N.W.A, Tupac, and Snoop Dogg. The “Golden Age” of gangsta rap ended in the mid ‘90s, coinciding with the tragic murders of Tupac and Biggie. Some argue that Kanye’s “Graduation” marked the final nail in the genre’s coffin, ushering in a major shift towards more experimental rap. Despite this, elements of gangsta rap persist, both sonically and lyrically. Drill music, for instance, owes much of its existence to the genre.

Not a music genre per se, yacht rock is often (and somewhat mockingly) used to describe soft rock from the ‘70s and ‘80s. We’re talking Kenny Loggins, Toto, Steely Dan - you know, old music you listen to while chillin’ on a yacht with some good wine and a sunset. The term didn’t enter common parlance until 2005, when the online mockumentary of the same name became popular. Yacht rock has been endlessly criticized in recent years, whether it’s the banal music, inoffensive lyrics, or even the sense of privilege that it arguably exudes. That said, its soothing tones often act as a needed balm in times of stress, so we can’t argue if you throw on “Africa” every now and then.

Is classical music truly dead? Well, one could argue that it isn’t. Showpieces are still played around the world, symphonies continue to thrive, and scores are basically just classical music put to film and video games. But let’s be honest, when was the last time you heard about a hot new classical composer that’s taking the world by storm? Can you even name a traditional composer of the 21st century? Look, we love rocking out to Tchaikovsky as much as the next person, but there’s no denying that the most prominent figures in classical music all hail from centuries past.

Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, country music was clean and exceptionally produced, dominated by the poppy Nashville sound that was made to sell records. Enter artists like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson, who sought a grittier and more mature sound but faced constraints imposed by mainstream norms. This led to the emergence of outlaw country, named for both the artists’ outlaw status and their lyrics centered around morally ambiguous characters. This fad lasted until the late ‘70s, when country once again veered back into pop. Songs like Hank Williams Jr.’s “All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)” also signified that most of the “outlaws” were getting older and leaving the movement behind.

Like the name implies, this is music that makes for easy listening. It typically included instrumental covers of popular songs and soothing vocals that made for pleasant background noise. We’re talking lounge singers like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Tony Bennett. As those big names suggest, the heyday of the easy listening genre lasted between the ‘40s and ‘60s, and is typically associated with the post-war era. Many historians and academics have argued that both rock and roll and the ‘60s counterculture killed easy listening for good, as the genre typically represented the highbrow “establishment” of the time. It has since been superseded by adult contemporary and is now regarded as a relic of a bygone age.

‘90s nostalgia was already in full swing by the early 2010s. Enter “seapunk,” a Tumblr subculture that had a small presence in the Chicago nightclub scene. Seapunk blended various elements from popular ‘90s music, including pop, R&B, house, and Southern hip hop. While the genre was incredibly niche, its general style was still represented by a few big names. For example, Rihanna personified seapunk while performing “Diamonds” on “Saturday Night Live,” and Azealia Banks fittingly utilized the style in her music video for “Atlantis.” But the movement did not last long. Just as easy listening represents the bygone ‘50s, so too does seapunk represent the early 2010s.

Trance music was all the rage in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, originating in Frankfurt, Germany and quickly spreading throughout Western Europe. The high tempo music is typically associated with nightclubs and raves and is often accompanied with a glow stick or two. Trance’s popularity spawned a plethora of subgenres, including Eurotrance, which went on to dominate the late ‘90s. This was a combination of hard trance - a more aggressive and hardcore form of the music - and Eurodance. Unfortunately, the subgenre disappeared as quickly as it originated. Eurotrance reached its peak in popularity around 1998 and 1999, before disappearing from the mainstream consciousness by the new millennium.

Nothing screams the 1930s quite like swing. It emerged in the early ‘30s and became a cultural phenomenon by the end of the decade. Led by artists like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman, the swing style of big bands was instrumental (no pun intended) in boosting morale during World War II and is closely linked to the tumultuous period. Unfortunately, the war also spelled doom for the genre. Brutal wartime conditions, financial disagreements, limited travel, military drafts, and ballooning budgets all contributed to the death of swing, and it fell out of favor by the late ‘40s. Unlike many genres, swing had a major cultural resurgence in the 1990s, but that too gradually waned, effectively rendering the genre dead.

Like outlaw country, pub rock was created as a reaction to mainstream sensibilities. By the mid ‘70s, rock had been taken over by lavish and often expensive productions like operas and progressive epics. Similarly, there was a major shift in style, with bands adopting increasingly elaborate and outlandish outfits. Enter pub rock, which aimed to bring the genre back to its grittier and dirtier origins, rooted in R&B. Bands modeled their music after The Rolling Stones and other similar acts, and were styled in torn jeans and messy hair. Their productions were also low-key, playing in small English pubs and recording inexpensively on independent record labels. As such, pub rock is often seen as a precursor to punk.

Another European club genre, acid jazz combined a little bit of everything - disco, hip hop, jazz, and funk. Basically, DJs and groups took old music and put a modern spin on it, blending jazz with the acid house that was popular at the time. In fact, Q magazine called acid jazz “the most significant jazz form to emerge out of the British music scene.” The genre originated in London in the 1980s and flourished throughout the decade, giving rise to bands like The Brand New Heavies and Jamiroquai. But, like most popular club music, it was quickly overtaken by a new fad. EDM achieved mainstream popularity in the early ‘90s, introducing rave culture and throwing acid jazz from the public consciousness.

You might not remember this genre by name, but unless you’ve been living in a bunker like Brendan Fraser’s character in “Blast From The Past”, or you’re some sort of recently discovered caveman like… well, Brendan Fraser in “Encino Man”, you’ve definitely heard it. Ska music has had three distinct phases of popularity. The first wave originated in Jamaica in the ‘50s, before giving way to a UK-based second wave in the 1970s with groups like Madness and the Specials. The third wave was really an American phenomenon. Groups like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and No Doubt made the third wave a mainstream success, but by the late ‘90s, the nation’s youth had moved on, and ska retreated back to the underground.

This distinct subgenre of hip-hop was pioneered in the ‘90s by genre heavyweights Three 6 Mafia. But it really broke into the mainstream in the mid-2000s, thanks in no small part to the main man with the chalice, grills, and seemingly permanent sunglasses, Lil Jon. With such memorable hits as “Get Low” and “Get Crunk”, he took the essential characteristics of the genre - high energy, bass heavy instrumentation and shouted, repetitive lyrics, polished them with some pop sensibilities and successfully changed the club scene across the nation. Any music with that distinct of a sound can only hold out so long, and by 2009, the genre that began as “crazy drunk”, had entered its hangover phase.

So... where did all the emo kids go? Some likely outgrew it… but others made a distinct genre transition alongside Sonny Moore, the one time frontman of influential screamo group From First To Last. He retreated from the emo scene in 2007 and re-emerged alongside the American wave of newly formed dubstep artists being labeled as brostep. Second perhaps only to emo, brostep is one of the most polarizing genres in recent music history. It won over hordes of diehard fans seemingly overnight, yet simultaneously faced judgment, hatred and criticism amongst longtime fans of the genre from overseas. Google Trends shows that dubstep peaked in public interest in 2011, and has since fallen to just a fraction of the attention it once commanded.

With its distinct fashion sense, stadium ready music and (most importantly) copious amounts of hairspray, hair metal ruled the rock airwaves of the ‘80s. Bands like Motley Crue, Poison, Guns N’ Roses took their spectacle-centric brand of metal, also known as “glam metal,” to arenas around the world. Big, catchy guitar riffs, pop sensibilities, raw energy and huge personalities captured the attention of the nation. Few albums have had such a significant impact on pop culture like G'n'R's “Appetite For Destruction”- the best selling debut album in U.S. history. By the mid-‘90s, however, the shiny studs of glam metal had dulled, and a new generation grew disenchanted with its excesses, with some calling “grunge” a direct reaction to hair metal.

Grunge was a response to hair metal, but as the new IT genre, it inevitably sparked a counter-movement of its own - Britpop. If there’s one thing that defined Britpop, it was a focus on British culture - a return to explicitly British subject matter and a reverence for the British music that came before it. Nonetheless, bands like Blur, Oasis and The Verve gained traction in America, without toning down their accents. But sometimes a genre hits so hard, and so fast, it can’t help but implode shortly after impact. Britpop’s heyday was in 1995, when Blur and Oasis went head-to-head in a chart battle, but it apparently died just two years later when Oasis’ third album failed to meet expectations.

What is the exact definition of this genre? Well, there really isn’t a good one. The term “new wave” was first applied to groups in the 1970s such as the New York Dolls and The Velvet Underground. These acts defied classification, blending elements of rock and punk music, with a spirit of experimentation exceeding the boundaries of either genre. It later evolved into a classification of any energetic alt rock or punk-inspired music with modern pop tendencies, and a willingness to experiment with synth and electronic sounds. New Wave music didn't die exactly… it’s more that the term went out of vogue, as bands developed their own, more specific genres like post-punk, power pop, synthpop and many more.

Even more so than emo music, nu metal had parents terrified… and music critics ready to retire. What happens when new age metalheads appropriate rap culture and blend it with elements of electronica, hints of funk, and grunge, all packaged in pop music song structure? Well, you get extremely questionable fashion choices and a youth movement founded on nihilism, culminating in the disaster that was Woodstock ’99. Even amongst bands classified under the genre, like Korn, the label is an unpopular one that they would rather distance themselves from. Although there was a mild, nostalgia-fueled revival in the 2010s, the music under the nu metal banner had already fallen out of fashion by the early 2000s.

It’s been name-dropped a fair amount on this list already - a testament to just how much cultural impact grunge had, despite its short lifespan. Grunge rejected the excess and glamor of the various incarnations of rock music that came before it. The only similarities it shared with its predecessors, apart from musical influences, were the self-destructive tendencies. By the late ‘80s, bands like Mudhoney had brought some attention to the Seattle-born music scene. However, it was groups like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and most notably, Nirvana, that made grunge HUGE. By the turn of the century, the genre felt the weight of its own success, seeing a rise of radio-friendly post-grunge acts like Creed and Staind, while pioneering grunge groups disbanded.

While the other genres on this list had periods of peak popularity followed by steep or steady declines, disco is the only one to have had a literal “death date”. On July 12th 1979, Disco Demolition Night was held at Comiskey Park in Chicago. A crowd of 50,000 showed up to express their deep hatred for the genre. The event culminated in a riot as fans rushed the field after ceremonially detonating a box of disco vinyl. It’s been called “the night that disco died”, and sure enough, it triggered a rapid decline in the genre’s popularity. That is until Daft Punk made it cool again with the release of their 2013 album “Random Access Memories.”