Microgenre

{{short description|Specialized or niche genre}} <span lang="en" dir="ltr">A</span> '''microgenre''' is a specialized or niche genre,{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|pp=1–6}} often used to describe narrowly defined subcategories within music, literature, film, or art.{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|p=6}} The term has been in use since at least the 1970s, particularly in the context of music, where it refers to specific stylistic offshoots of prominent genres, such as the many sub-subgenres of heavy metal and electronic music.{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|pp=1, 6}}

Originally, microgenres were labels retroactively applied by record collectors and dealers, often to increase the perceived value of rare or obscure recordings. Early examples include Northern soul, freakbeat, garage punk, and sunshine pop.

By the late 2000s and early 2010s, the creation and dissemination of microgenres had become increasingly associated with internet culture, where online platforms facilitated their rapid emergence, which was often tied to internet aesthetics and online trends.<ref name="Marcus2017" /> Notable Internet music-based microgenres include chillwave, witch house, seapunk, shitgaze, dreampunk, and vaporwave.

==Etymology and definition== The term "microgenre" was originally coined in a 1975 French article about historical fiction, alongside "macrogenre".The author defined microgenres as "a narrowly defined group of texts connected in time and space", whereas macrogenres are "more diffuse and harder to generalize about."{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|p=1}} Further discussion of the microgenre concept appeared in various critical works of 1980s and 1990s.{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|pp=1, 6}}

==History in music==

=== 1960s–1990s: Origins === Historically, musical microgenres were usually labelled by writers seeking to define a new style by linking together a group of seemingly disparate artists.<ref name="AQNB"/> The process of recognition for "garage rock" and "power pop" was similarly formulated by a circle of rock writers who advocated their own annotated history of the genre.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cateforis |first=Theo |date=2011 |title=Are We Not New Wave: Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s |publisher=University of Michigan Press |pages=130, 132 |isbn=978-0-472-03470-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-MVrM3zKrHQC}}</ref> Music journalist Simon Reynolds has suggested that early examples of "genre-as-retroactive-fiction" include "Northern soul" and "garage punk", both of which were coined in the early 1970s, but did not become widespread until years after the fact. These genres were later followed by "freakbeat" coined by Phil Smee in the 1980s, as well as "sunshine pop" which was coined in the 1990s.{{sfn|Reynolds|2011|p=152}}

According to Reynolds, such "semi-invented" genres were sometimes pushed by record dealers and collectors to increase the monetary value of the original records.<ref name="Reynolds2011">{{cite book|last=Reynolds|first=Simon|author-link=Simon Reynolds|title=Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8FI3dVT9t34C&pg=PA152|year=2011|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=978-1-4299-6858-4|page=152}}</ref> In the early 1980s, Robert Christgau coined the term "pigfuck" to describe the music of Sonic Youth, the term later took a life of its own to denote a specific style of noise rock music.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2018-02-12 |title=Noise rock: A how-to guide for the perplexed |url=https://toiletovhell.com/noise-rock-a-how-to-guide-for-the-perplexed/ |access-date=2025-07-20 |website=The Toilet Ov Hell |language=en-US |archive-date=2025-05-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250520034417/https://toiletovhell.com/noise-rock-a-how-to-guide-for-the-perplexed/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=25 Years of Goo |url=https://crackmagazine.net/article/lists/25-years-of-goo/ |access-date=2025-07-20 |website=Crack Magazine |archive-date=2025-04-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250423091331/https://crackmagazine.net/article/lists/25-years-of-goo/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Successful attempts that resulted in widespread usage include "post-rock" (Reynolds) and "hauntology" (Mark Fisher).<ref name="AQNB" /> In the mid 1990s, ''Melody Maker'' journalists went so far as to make up fictional bands to justify the existence of an updated New Romantic scene they dubbed "Romantic Modernism". That same decade, there was a trend of electronic and dance music producers who created specialized descriptions of their music as a way to assert their individuality. In the instance of trance music, this desire led to progressive trance, Goa trance, deep psytrance, and hard trance.<ref name="AQNB">{{cite web|author1=Halciion|title=(micro)genres of music explored|url=http://www.aqnb.com/2014/04/09/microgenres-of-music-explored/|website=AQNB|date=April 9, 2014|access-date=June 28, 2017|archive-date=February 5, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205000759/http://www.aqnb.com/2014/04/09/microgenres-of-music-explored/|url-status=live}}</ref> House, drum-n-bass, dubstep and techno also contain a large number of microgenres.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Ramanthan|first1=Lavanya|title=Factory Floor album review|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/music/factory-floor-album-review/2014/04/17/49ff6fc6-c0f3-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=April 17, 2014|archive-date=February 4, 2018|access-date=June 28, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180204182516/https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/music/factory-floor-album-review/2014/04/17/49ff6fc6-c0f3-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== 21st century ===

In the early 2000s, the concept of microgenres gained prominence during the digital age, proliferating through the early blogosphere,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gorham |first=Luke |date=2023-04-14 |title=The Blog Era: Haunted Halls of the Internet Archive |url=https://inreviewonline.com/2023/04/14/the-blog-era/ |access-date=2025-07-20 |website=In Review Online |language=en-US |archive-date=2025-08-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250809115100/https://inreviewonline.com/2023/04/14/the-blog-era/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and despite its earlier history, is more often associated with these later trends.{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|pp=2, 6}} The speed at which microgenres achieve recognition and familiarity also accelerated substantially.{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|p=3}} This 21st-century "microgenre explosion" was partly a consequence of "software advances, faster internet connections, and the globalized proliferation of music."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kneschke|first1=Tristan|title=On Wandering the Paths of a Spotify Analyst's Mad Music Map|url=http://www.popmatters.com/feature/on-wandering-the-paths-of-a-spotify-analysts-mad-music-map/|website=PopMatters|date=February 10, 2017}}</ref>

In 2009, a writer for the ''New York Times'' observed that indie rock was then evolving into "an ever-expanding, incomprehensibly cluttered taxonomy of subgenres."<ref name="fried19">{{cite news |last1=Friedlander |first1=Emilie |title=Chillwave: a momentary microgenre that ushered in the age of nostalgia |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/21/chillwave-microgenre-nostalgia-pop |work=The Guardian |date=August 19, 2019}}</ref> By the early 2010s, most microgenres were linked and defined through various outlets on the internet. Each of them, according to ''Vice'' writer Ezra Marcus, were "music scenes [created] out of thin air".<ref name="Marcus2017">{{cite web|last1=Marcus|first1=Ezra|date=May 12, 2017|title=Wave Music Is a Marketing Tactic, Not a Microgenre|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/wave-music-marketing-tactic-microgenre/|website=Vice|access-date=May 11, 2025|archive-date=August 4, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170804175107/https://thump.vice.com/en_ca/article/ae5nkp/wave-music-marketing-tactic-microgenre|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Pitchfork''{{'}}s Jonny Coleman commented: "The line between a real genre that sounds fake and a fake genre that could be real is as thin as ever, if existent at all. This is the uncanny genre valley that publicists-cum-neologicians live in and for."<ref name="realgenre">{{cite web|last1=Coleman|first1=Jonny|date=May 1, 2015|title=Quiz: Is This A Real Genre|url=http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/756-quiz-is-this-a-real-genre/|website=Pitchfork|access-date=June 28, 2017|archive-date=July 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170730144948/http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/756-quiz-is-this-a-real-genre/|url-status=live}}</ref> [[File:Wikiwave 00000.png|thumb|Vaporwave is one of the most prominent Internet-centric microgenres and subcultures that emerged in the 2010s.]]

Although, shitgaze,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sherburne |first=Philip |date=2021-10-07 |title=25 Microgenres That (Briefly) Defined the Last 25 Years |url=https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/microgenres-25th-anniversary/ |access-date=2025-07-06 |website=Pitchfork |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220111224410/https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/microgenres-25th-anniversary/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=I Miss Shitgaze, Man |url=https://floodmagazine.com/141620/i-miss-shitgaze-man/ |access-date=2025-07-06 |website=FLOOD |language=en |archive-date=2025-07-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250702205145/https://floodmagazine.com/141620/i-miss-shitgaze-man/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and blog era music genres like bloghouse,<ref>{{Cite web |title=What Is Bloghouse? - PAPER Magazine |url=https://www.papermag.com/bloghouse |access-date=2025-07-06 |website=www.papermag.com |language=en |archive-date=2025-08-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250812181137/https://www.papermag.com/bloghouse |url-status=live }}</ref> blog rap and blog rock<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cohen |first=Ian |date=2015-06-23 |title=Blog Rock Revisited: Musing the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah 10th Anniversary Tour |url=https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/811-blog-rock-revisited-musing-the-clap-your-hands-say-yeah-10th-anniversary-tour/ |access-date=2025-07-06 |website=Pitchfork |language=en-US |archive-date=2025-07-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250706043740/https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/811-blog-rock-revisited-musing-the-clap-your-hands-say-yeah-10th-anniversary-tour/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Jonze |first=Tim |date=2011-06-13 |title=Blog rock is born |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/14/blog-rock-is-born |access-date=2025-07-06 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> predated it, "chillwave", coined by the ironic music blog Hipster Runoff around 2009 as an internet meme<ref>{{cite web|last1=Cheshire|first1=Tom|title=Invent a new genre: Hipster Runoff's Carles explains 'chillwave'|url=https://www.wired.co.uk/article/invent-a-new-genre|website=The Wired|date=March 30, 2011|access-date=September 5, 2017|archive-date=August 5, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170805015516/http://www.wired.co.uk/article/invent-a-new-genre|url-status=live}}</ref> was one of the first music genres to develop primarily online.<ref name="Scherer">{{cite web|last1=Scherer|first1=James|title=Great artists steal: An interview with Neon Indian's Alan Palomo|url=http://smilepolitely.com/music/great_artists_steal_an_interview_with_neon_indians_alan_palomo/|website=Smile Politely|date=October 26, 2016|access-date=June 28, 2017|archive-date=April 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420191302/http://www.smilepolitely.com/music/great_artists_steal_an_interview_with_neon_indians_alan_palomo/|url-status=live}}</ref> The term did not gain mainstream currency until early 2010, when it was the subject of articles by the ''Wall Street Journal'' and the ''New York Times''.<ref name="HoodVulture">{{cite web|last1=Hood|first1=Bryan|title=Vulture's Brief History of Chillwave|url=http://www.vulture.com/2011/07/vultures_a_brief_history_of_ch/|website=Vulture|date=July 14, 2011}}{{dead link|date=January 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Writing in 2019, journalist Emilie Friedlander, called chillwave "the internet electronic micro-genre that launched a hundred internet electronic micro-genres (think: vaporwave, witch house, seapunk, shitgaze, distroid, hard vapor), not to mention its corollaries in this decade's internet rap, which largely shared its collagist, hyper-referential approach to sound."<ref name="fried19"/>

In 2013, Glenn McDonald, who originally worked at the music intelligence firm the Echo Nest, which was later bought by music streaming company Spotify, developed genre mapping data that later became built into various Spotify features, including its "Daily Mix" and "Fans also like" recommendation functions. Additionally, he created the Every Noise at Once website which focused on documenting and categorizing internet-based music microgenres.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Weatherbed |first=Jess |date=2024-02-13 |title=Spotify's layoffs doomed its best (unofficial) music discovery resource |url=https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/13/24071916/every-noise-at-once-spotify-layoffs-music-discovery-resource |access-date=2024-07-30 |website=The Verge |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rodgers |first=Katherine |date=2020-12-03 |title=Why There Are So Many Weird Spotify Wrapped Genres - PAPER Magazine |url=https://www.papermag.com/spotify-wrapped-music-genres-escape-room#rebelltitem18 |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=Paper |language=en |archive-date=2024-11-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241123180624/https://www.papermag.com/spotify-wrapped-music-genres-escape-room#rebelltitem18 |url-status=live }}</ref> In August 2019, the use of his metadata in the Spotify algorithm contributed to the curation of the "Hyperpop" Spotify playlist, led by Lizzie Szabo, which helped popularize the movement,<ref name="nytimes" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Madden |first=Emma |date=2021-07-01 |title=How Hyperpop Became a Force Capable of Reaching and Rearranging the Mainstream |url=https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/hyperpop-history-mainstream-crossover-9595799/ |access-date=2026-05-08 |website=Billboard |language=en-US}}</ref> as McDonald had previously added the term "hyperpop" to the platform's algorithm which drew from ''Every Noise at Once'', in 2018.<ref name="nytimes">{{cite news |last=Dandridge-Lemco |first=Ben |date=10 November 2020 |title=How Hyperpop, a Small Spotify Playlist, Grew Into a Big Deal |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/arts/music/hyperpop-spotify.html |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414144546/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/arts/music/hyperpop-spotify.html |archive-date=14 April 2021 |access-date=16 November 2020 |work=The New York Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sung |first=Morgan |last2=Cueva |first2=Maya |last3=Egusa |first3=Chris |date=2025-06-18 |title=The Spotify Effect, Pt 2: Micro-Genre Madness {{!}} KQED |url=https://www.kqed.org/news/12044862/the-spotify-effect-pt-2-micro-genre-madness |access-date=2025-07-29 |website=www.kqed.org |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Press-Reynolds |first=Kieran |date=2022-01-25 |title=Deep-internet bubbles: How microgenres are taking over SoundCloud |url=https://nobells.blog/soundcloud-microgenres/ |access-date=2025-07-29 |website=No Bells |language=en-US |archive-date=2025-08-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250807212850/https://nobells.blog/soundcloud-microgenres/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Criticism == In 2010, ''The Atlantic''{{'}}s Llewellyn Hinkes Johns referenced the succession of chillwave, glo-fi, and hypnagogic pop as a "prime example" of a cycle involving the invention of a new category that is quickly and "brazenly denounced, sometimes in the same article".<ref name="atlantic">{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/07/downtempo-pop-when-good-music-gets-a-bad-name/59803/|work=The Atlantic|date=15 July 2010|title=Downtempo Pop: When Good Music Gets a Bad Name|last=Hinkes-Jones|first=Llewellyn|access-date=28 June 2017|archive-date=9 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109003544/https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/07/downtempo-pop-when-good-music-gets-a-bad-name/59803/|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Grantland''{{'}}s Dave Schilling describes the "chillwave" designation as a pivotal moment that "revealed how arbitrary and meaningless labels like that really are. It wasn't a scene. It was a parody of a scene, both a defining moment for the music blogosphere and the last gasp."<ref name="Schilling2015">{{cite web|last1=Schilling|first1=Dave|title=That Was a Thing: The Brief History of the Totally Made-Up Chillwave Music Genre|url=http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/that-was-a-thing-the-brief-history-of-the-totally-made-up-chillwave-music-genre/|date=April 8, 2015|access-date=June 28, 2017|archive-date=July 29, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230729200132/https://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/that-was-a-thing-the-brief-history-of-the-totally-made-up-chillwave-music-genre/|url-status=live}}</ref> ''PopMatters''{{'}} Thomas Britt argued that the "staggering number of niches created by writers and commenters to 'distinguish' musical acts is ultimately binding. If a band plays along and tailors itself to a category, then its fortunes are likely tied to the shelf life of that category."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Britt|first1=Thomas|title=Pattern Is Movement - Pattern Is Movement|url=http://www.popmatters.com/review/180413-pattern-is-movement-pattern-is-movement/|website=PopMatters|date=April 2, 2014}}</ref>

==Other fields== The spread of digital publishing in the 21st century led to the rise of ever-more niche microgenres in literature – from Amish romance to NASCAR passion.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Melbourne|first=Dr Beth Driscoll, University of|date=2019-05-13|title=The rise of the microgenre|url=https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-rise-of-the-microgenre|access-date=2021-03-08|website=Pursuit|language=en}}</ref>

In 2020, Netflix identified 76,897 different film microgenres in its algorithms, which it had used to develop successful series like ''House of Cards'' and ''Orange Is the New Black''.{{sfn|Stevens|O'Donnell|2020|p=6}}{{Clarify|reason=How was this identification used to develop those series?|date=November 2025}}

==References== {{reflist}} '''Bibliography''' * {{cite book|editor-last1=Stevens|editor-first1=Anne H.|editor-last2=O'Donnell|editor-first2=Molly C.|title=The Microgenre: A Quick Look at Small Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RkzODwAAQBAJ&pg=PA6|year=2020|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-5013-4583-8}}

==Further reading== * {{cite web|ref=none|last1=Britton|first1=Luke Morgan|title=Music Genres Are A Joke That You're Not In On|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-definitive-guide-to-trolling-music-genres/|website=Vice|date=September 26, 2016}} * {{cite book|ref=none|last1=Slobin|first1=Mark|title=''Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West'' (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1992)|date=April 1993|publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=9780819562616|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5kXRPVdUxysC}}

Category:Microgenres Category:Musical subcultures Category:Music journalism Category:1970s neologisms