Electronic music has been around for a while now, but even so, it is still stereotyped as a repetitive, dull and hollow kind of music. With such reputation, more often than not people ignore the variety and versatility of all of the different electronic music genres and limit themselves to classify all of them into a single one.

Many argue against this type of music based on the fact that they lack “real instruments”, denying the genres any kind of artistic, intellectual and innovative credits. However, they ignore the vast amount of history behind it, its progression through decades of experimentation and the seemingly infinite creative and artistic potential of its variations.

It is obvious that this type of music is not for everyone; but I feel that most people are afraid to give it a chance due to the overall negative perception of the genre. In an effort to minimize its negative fame I will shed some light into the different and most general classifications of electronic music.

House

Possibly the most famous genre of them all, also considered the most warm and rhythmically aesthetical one. House has earned its popularity with its soulful grooves and party vibe, setting it apart from the colder, less “human sounding” genres. With its 4/4 beat this genre is characterized strong bass drums, heavy electronic bass lines and some pop and funk samples.

Techno

This one originated in Detroit in the late 80’s, displaying a much more cold, futuristic and industrial gritty sound than house. This term is often misused to refer to the totality of electronic or dance music. In general, Techno tried to represent the mechanization of its origins with its dark and serious tone.

Trance

Just as House has a party vibe to it and Techno shows a bleaker, more mechanical side of things, Trance is the genre with the “feelings”. Originally designed to take its listener into a spiritual and hypnotic trance like state with its deep and repetitive bass lines it soon evolved into an emotional mix of bright sounds and breaks.

Downtempo

Its main difference with the aforementioned genres it’s, well, its tempo. With that in mind, this genre main goal is not making you dance up and down, but to submerge you into a deep state of listening bliss. Combining the possibilities of all the electronic music genres without usual songs structures and parameters, this genre gives place to an unbound word of creative and innovative possibilities.

Those are sometimes considered to be the pivotal genres of all what is called electronic music. Each one of those gives place to more subtle variations of the same genres allowing for multiple classifications and the creation of a diverse number of sub-genres. But that will be for another time.

In the end, it is my intention to show you that the different genres of electronic music are as relevant as any other type of music, and try to minimize the negative impact that the overgeneralization of the genre has brought upon it.