Last Updated on March 11, 2026 by Black Sunshine Media
The list of rock genres will throw us a curveball every now and again. That’s why we started the Rock Genres Explained program. I got tired of saying, “Huh…what the hell does ‘metalstep‘ mean?” Every rock genre in the M category is either a subgenre of a subgenre or a term of convenience for a certain “sound” coming from a certain “region,” and most of them are exquisitely removed from their core legacy genres. You’ll see what I mean shortly.
Madchester
| Origin: | Late 1980s post-punk, new wave, and dance rock from Manchester, UK |
| Peak popularity | 1988–1995 |
| Defining artists: | The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, The Charlatans |
| Exemplary album: | The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses (1989) |
There’s no such thing as “Madchester,” but since Wikipedia has an entry… They took lots of drugs that made other kids want to dance. Acid house beats met jangly indie rock, and suddenly Manchester was the epicenter of a pop music explosion, thanks in no small part to the emergence of MDMA drug culture (aka ecstasy, XTC, molly, etc).
The Stone Roses’ 1989 debut captured its euphoric guitar swirl, while Happy Mondays added funky rhythms and shameless hedonism. Clubs like the Haçienda blurred the line between rock gigs and raves, birthing the “baggy” fashion and attitude. Madchester faded by the mid-’90s, but it fed directly into Britpop and electronic rock hybrids.
Manila Sound
| Origin: | Early 1970s Philippine rock and pop |
| Peak popularity: | 1974–1980 |
| Defining artists: | Hotdog, VST & Company, Cinderella, Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society, Florante, Rico J. Puno, Sharon Cuneta, Freddie Aguilar |
| Exemplary album: | Hotdog, Hotdog (1974) |
What’s the difference between Filipino and Pilipino? Both refer to the people and culture of the Philippines, but the spelling “Filipino” is the official and widely accepted term. Likewise, “Pilipino” was used for the national language from 1959 to 1987. The shift to “Filipino” in 1987 occurred to accommodate a broader range of letters, including the “F” sound, which is absent in the native Tagalog language but present in other Philippine languages and foreign loanwords.
Original Pilipino Music (OPM) originally referred to the pop genre of music from the Philippines, predominantly ballads and novelty numbers, called the Manila Sound. The term “OPM” became a catch-all description for all popular music of any genre composed, performed, and recorded by Filipinos in the Philippines, including but not limited to Pinoy rock.
Emerging in the early 1970s with a band called Hotdog, the Manila sound blended Western pop-rock with Tagalog lyrics, Filipino humor, and local rhythms. The term “Manila Sound” was used to categorize pop music by young bands like Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society and Cinderella, and young singers who sang in Tagalog/Taglish and English, such as Rico J. Puno and Hadji Alejandro.
Hotdog’s cheeky hits like “Manila” defined the vibe: breezy, urban, and irresistibly catchy. VST & Company added disco touches, while APO Hiking Society pushed it into singer-songwriter territory. Though sometimes dismissed as light, the Manila Sound carved out a proud, local identity in an era of global dominance by Western rock. Its DNA still runs through OPM today.
Mathcore
| Origin: | Late 1990s American hardcore punk and metalcore |
| Peak popularity | 1999–present |
| Defining artists: | The Dillinger Escape Plan, Botch, Candiria, Converge, The Fall of Troy |
| Exemplary album: | The Dillinger Escape Plan, Calculating Infinity (1999) |
It’s important to remember that anything with “core” in its name refers to hardcore punk, so you know it’s coming from a place of extremes. And it’s also important to know that there’s an entire fetish community devoted to flatulence. You know how everybody likes their own brand, but can’t stand to smell another?
I’m writing this like mathcore sounds, minus the screaming. Progressive metal + hardcore punk. Challenging, erratic, angry. Double kick drum, drop C# tuning. Djent warriors. Riffs, I went to Berklee. Stop, scream over complex time signatures, guttural angst, fuck you, arrrgggggghh, elite technique. Willfully experimental (in a bad way), unpredictable. Abrasive, inaccessible. Dissonance, dissonance, abrupt tempo changes. Chaos with a calculator.
Math rock
| Origin: | Mid-80s art rock, indie rock, and progressive rock |
| Peak popularity | 1990–present |
| Defining artists: | Slint, Don Caballero, Battles, Toe |
| Exemplary album: | Slint, Spiderland (1991) |
If autism had a soundtrack.
I’m a huge Rush fan, but they’re partially responsible for normalizing odd time signatures and cerebralism in mainstream pop and rock. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin had toyed with odd meters, conceptual art, and J.R.R. Tolkien, but it wasn’t until Rush revitalized progressive rock with “The Spirit of Radio” circa 1978 that people started counting in 7/4, just for snicks. Two years later, “Tom Sawyer” brought 7/8 time and homespun North American philosophy to the heartland.
Think of music in equations. Math rock employs odd time signatures, intricate riffs, and start-stop rhythms, stripping away the machismo of hard rock (aka cock rock) while ignoring the pomposity of progressive rock and heavy metal. It builds songs that feel both cerebral and emotional, yet are incredibly challenging to play. Everybody in the band has an SAT score above 2200.
Slint’s Spiderland gave it a cult foothold: eerie spoken-word passages over angular guitar work. Don Caballero pushed it into technical mastery, while Japan’s Toe brought melodic warmth. The genre influenced post-rock, emo, and experimental indie, proving that math could, in fact, sound human-ish.
Medieval folk rock
| Origin: | 1970s British folk rock revival |
| Peak popularity | 1972–1979 |
| Defining artists: | Steeleye Span, Amazing Blondel, Gryphon |
| Exemplary album: | Steeleye Span, Below the Salt (1972) |
Imagine Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament with electric guitars. Instead of jousting, two lads in tights and chainmail square off with Gibson Les Pauls and out-pentatonic scale each other in a Jethro Tull cage match.
Medieval folk rock emerged from the British folk revival, drawing on traditional ballads and medieval instrumentation while incorporating electric instruments. Steeleye Span made history feel alive with amplified lutes and fiddles, while Gryphon leaned into prog-rock theatrics. It was niche, but charmingly ambitious. Today, echoes of medieval folk rock survive in prog, metal, and even fantasy-inspired indie music.
Medieval metal
| Origin: | 1990s German metal |
| Peak popularity | 1994–present |
| Defining artists: | In Extremo, Subway to Sally, Saltatio Mortis |
| Exemplary album: | In Extremo, Weckt die Toten! (1998) |
Medieval metal cranked the amps on medieval folk traditions. German bands like In Extremo fused bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies, and chants with crushing metal riffs.
It overlaps with folk metal but leans harder into historical thematics and instrumentation. Songs often feel like battlefield anthems crossed with tavern music.
The genre has a strong following in Europe’s festival circuit, a reminder that metal loves blending history with awkward hobbies and inexcusably bad taste in music.
Melodic death metal (aka Gothenburg Sound)
| Origin: | 1990s Swedish progressive death metal |
| Peak popularity | 1994–2010 |
| Defining artists: | At the Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Arch Enemy |
| Exemplary album: | At the Gates, Slaughter of the Soul (1995) |
The problem with subgenres of heavy metal isn’t the sheer number of sub-sub-genres that pop like mushrooms in rainy season; it’s the arbitrary and capricious means of defining these genres, most of which are virtually indistinguishable from each other. It comes down to fashion choices and cover art.
Allegedly emerging from Gothenburg, Sweden, a new wave of metal bands promised a balance between aggression and accessibility. Melodic death metal took the brutality of death metal and added twin-guitar harmonies and soaring melodies. Not exactly a reinvention of the wheel.
Melodic hardcore
| Origin: | 1980s U.S. hardcore and skate punk scene |
| Peak popularity | 1985–present |
| Defining artists: | Bad Religion, Descendents, Strike Anywhere, American Nightmare, Dead Swans |
| Exemplary album: | Bad Religion, Suffer (1988) |
In 57 years of life in music and elsewhere, I’ve never met anybody who (a) admits to liking Bad Religion or (b) owns or has ever bought a Bad Religion album. And yet, I’ve seen hundreds of hipsters wearing Bad Religion T-shirts. Maybe it’s too late for me to buy a skateboard. I knew a kid in high school who loved the Descendents, and nobody jerked off more than that kid. He had callouses on both hands. Fuckin’ freak.
Melodic hardcore differentiates itself from standard “tough guy” hardcore punk in two ways. First, they think they’ve got it all figured out, boy. These fuckers graduated from high school, and most of ‘em went to college. The lyrical intellectualism is off the Henry Rollins Scale of Narcissism. Second, the themes are darker and more nihilistic than many hardcore punk bands because they have politics and shit. They’re trying to make you think!
The sound (aka skate punk) incorporates melodic elements such as guitar harmonies and arpeggios, which could also be said about emo, post-punk, screamo, pop-punk, metalcore, and post-rock.
Metalcore
| Origin: | 1990s U.S. hardcore and metal |
| Peak popularity | 2000–present |
| Defining artists: | Killswitch Engage, Converge, As I Lay Dying, Parkway Drive |
| Exemplary album: | Killswitch Engage, Alive or Just Breathing (2002) |
Metalcore mashed hardcore breakdowns with metal riffing, creating one of the dominant heavy styles of the 2000s.
Converge brought chaotic intensity, while Killswitch Engage popularized clean/scream vocals over crushing riffs. Parkway Drive carried the torch into arena-sized choruses.
For critics, it blurred into cliché, but for fans, metalcore remains one of the most cathartic, community-driven heavy genres of the past 25 years. There was a period in the mid-2000s when you couldn’t pick up a guitar magazine without seeing some metalcore dude on the cover.
Metalstep
| Origin: | 2010s EDM and metal crossover |
| Peak popularity | 2011–2016 |
| Defining artists: | Skrillex, Korn, Celldweller, Excision |
| Exemplary album: | Korn, The Path of Totality (2011) |
When dubstep’s wobbly basslines collided with metal riffs, metalstep was born. Korn’s The Path of Totality saw them working with Skrillex and other EDM producers, creating an unholy hybrid. It’s all about breakdowns—both the hardcore punk kind and the EDM drop kind. Chugging guitars and growls merge with digital chaos. Today, it’s a novelty at best, unlistenable at worst.
Midwest emo
| Origin: | Early 1990s post-rock |
| Peak popularity | 1999–2005 |
| Defining artists: | American Football, Cap’n Jazz, The Get Up Kids, Mineral |
| Exemplary album: | American Football, American Football (1999) |
Who knew 20-something American boys of the heartland had such delicate yet ferocious hearts capable of emotional candor and finger dexterity? Dating apps make sense when you hear the kind of indie rock coming out of the early 2000s. Doesn’t everybody have somebody in their lives who doesn’t love them, or love them enough?
Midwest emo sounds like a basement recording of regular emo. Cap’n Jazz brought raw energy, but American Football’s debut refined it into a melancholy masterpiece of irony. Sooooo many guitar arpeggios. Not a power chord in the ballpark. The Get Up Kids gave it a more pop-punk edge, while Mineral leaned into fragile beauty. Most of these bands had lower testosterone levels than Joan Jett.
In the 2010s, a Midwest emo revival spread globally, showing its blend of mathy guitars and emotional sloppiness still resonates with boys who got cut from the wrestling team in high school and dumped by Chloe Jasinski when she left for U of I.
Minneapolis Sound
| Origin: | Late 1970s–1980s Minneapolis, MN, U.S. |
| Peak popularity | 1979–1990 |
| Defining artists: | Prince, The Time, Morris Day, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis |
| Exemplary album: | 1999 (1982) by Prince |
Not strictly a rock subgenre, but the Minneapolis Sound reshaped pop, funk, and rock in the ’80s. Prince was the architect of lean, funky, sometimes sexy grooves built from drum machines, synths, and guitar heroics. Bands like The Time defined the sound, while producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis turned it into a blueprint for modern R&B.
Mod revival
| Origin: | Late 1970s British hard rock, power pop, and soul music |
| Peak popularity | 1977–1982 |
| Defining artists: | The Jam, Secret Affair, The Chords |
| Exemplary album: | The Jam, All Mod Cons (1978) |
Mod stands for “modern,” which was relevant in the 1960s. The mod revival was a fashion statement and the punchline of a tacky joke about British rock. The late 1970s mod revival combined musical and cultural elements of 1970s pub rock, punk rock, and new wave with influences from 1960s power pop bands such as the Who, Small Faces, and the Kinks.
When punk exploded, some bands looked backward to the sharp suits, scooters, and soul-influenced rock of the original 1960s mod scene. The Jam, led by Paul Weller, became the mod revival’s biggest act, delivering fiery political rock with clear mod aesthetics. Though it faded by the mid-’80s, the revival kept mod culture alive, feeding into Britpop and indie style decades later.
Modern rock
| Origin: | Mid-1980s post-punk, alternative, and hard rock |
| Peak popularity | 1988–2009 |
| Defining artists: | U2, R.E.M., The Cure, Jane’s Addiction, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Coldplay |
| Exemplary album: | Nirvana, Nevermind (1991) |
Synonymous with “corporate rock”, which is a marketing funnel and not a genre, modern rock marks the spot where a dozen subgenres of guitar-based alternative rock reached critical mass. U2 is the inarguably first modern rock artist who forced commercial radio to create a shorthand for post-’80s mainstream rock. Classic rock radio couldn’t play the Psychedelic Furs.
Eventually, Billboard created the Modern Rock Chart in 1988, specifically to track the airplay of what we called alternative rock. Anything that wasn’t classic rock and got played on the radio was modern rock.
By the 2000s, modern rock radio was the dominant force in shaping guitar music for the masses. Today, the format may be fading, but the term still lingers as shorthand for “post-classic” rock that defines its own era.
