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.
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“La la la, Oh music swims back to me
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