Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to refer electronic music generally.
Digital hardcore is a fusion genre that combines hardcore punk with electronic music genres such as breakbeat, techno, and drum and bass while also drawing on heavy metal and noise music. It typically features fast tempos and aggressive sound samples. The style was pioneered by Alec Empire of the German band Atari Teenage Riot during the early 1990s, and often has sociological or far-left lyrical themes.
Nu-disco is a 21st-century dance music genre associated with a renewed interest in the late 1970s US disco, synthesizer-heavy 1980s European dance music styles, and early 1990s electronic dance music. The genre was especially popular in the first half of the 2000s, and experienced another mild resurgence through the 2010s.
Alternative dance or indie dance is a musical genre that mixes alternative rock with electronic dance music. Although largely confined to the British Isles, it has gained American and worldwide exposure through acts such as New Order in the 1980s and The Prodigy in the 1990s.
Witch house is a dark, occult-themed electronic music microgenre and visual aesthetic that emerged in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The music is heavily influenced by chopped and screwed hip-hop soundscapes, industrial and noise experimentation, and features use of synthesizers, drum machines, obscure samples, droning repetition and heavily altered, ethereal, indiscernible vocals.
Seapunk is a subculture that originated on Tumblr in 2011. It is associated with an aquatic-themed style of fashion, 3D net art, iconography, and allusions to popular culture of the 1990s. The advent of seapunk also spawned its own electronic music microgenre, featuring elements of Southern hip hop and pop music and R&B music of the 1990s. Seapunk gained limited popularity as it spread through the Internet, although it was said to have developed a Chicago club scene.
Cloud rap is a subgenre of Southern rap and trap music that has several sonic characteristics of lo-fi in its hazy, dreamlike and relaxed sound. Many music experts credit rapper Lil B and producer Clams Casino as the early pioneers of this style. The term "cloud rap" is related to its internet birth and its ethereal style.
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s. The surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. Visually, it incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, anime, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos.
Home™ is the thirteenth studio album by American electronic musician Vektroid, released on April 20, 2013 by Beer on the Rug. Released simultaneously alongside ClearSkies™ under her PrismCorp alias, both albums contrast with her previous releases, which had a primary focus on samples. The two albums consist primarily of original MIDI-styled compositions, much akin to computer and video game music released during the 1990s and 2000s; Home™ additionally incorporates original MIDI covers of obscure music into its release, and it has been the first Vektroid release to use the PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises alias.
Synthwave is an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with action, science-fiction, and horror film soundtracks of the 1980s. Other influences are drawn from that decade's art and video games. Synthwave musicians often espouse nostalgia for 1980s culture and attempt to capture the era's atmosphere and celebrate it.
Hypnagogic pop is pop or psychedelic music that evokes cultural memory and nostalgia for the popular entertainment of the past. It emerged in the mid to late 2000s as American lo-fi and noise musicians began adopting retro aesthetics remembered from their childhood, such as radio rock, new wave pop, lite rock, video game music, synth-pop, and R&B. Recordings circulated on cassette or Internet blogs and were typically marked by the use of outmoded analog equipment and DIY experimentation.
Blank Banshee 0 is the debut studio album by Canadian artist and producer Blank Banshee. It was released for free via the streaming service Bandcamp on September 1, 2012.
Hardvapour is an Internet-based microgenre of music that emerged in late 2015 as a tongue-in-cheek response to vaporwave, departing from the calm, muzak-sampling capitalist utopia concept of the latter in favor of a gabber- and punk-influenced sound. Canadian music producer wosX's album End of World Rave (2015) and the Antifur record label are credited with having first defined the hardvapour sound. It is also related to vaportrap.
A microgenre is a specialized or niche genre. The term has been used since at least the 1970s to describe highly specific subgenres of music, literature, film, and art. In music, examples include the myriad sub-subgenres of heavy metal and electronic music. Some genres are sometimes retroactively created by record dealers and collectors as a way to increase the monetary value of certain records, with early examples including Northern soul, freakbeat, garage punk, and sunshine pop. By the early 2010s, most microgenres were linked and defined through various outlets on the Internet, usually as part of generating popularity and hype for a newly perceived trend. Examples of these include chillwave, witch house, seapunk, shitgaze, vaporwave, and cloud rap.
Bass music is a term used to describe several genres of electronic dance music and hip hop music arising from the 1980s on, focusing on a prominent bass drum and/or bassline sound. As one source notes, there are "many different types of bass music to fall into, each putting a different spin on one of music's loudest elements". Typically, the bass sound is created using synthesizers and drum machines like, for example, the influential Roland TR-808.
Dreampunk is a microgenre of electronic music characterized by its focus on cinematic ambience and field recordings, combined with various traits and techniques from electronic genres such as techno, jungle, electro, and dubstep.
