4 New Music Genres That Were Created in the 2010s

The 2010s were a wild time for music. Some love that decade’s musical releases, others don’t. However, you can’t deny that a lot of evolutions and reinventions occurred during the second decade of the 2000s, and quite a few brand-new genres were created as internet communications became more and more widely used. Let’s take a look at just a few fascinating new genres that were created in the 2010s!

Witch House

If you were a fan of noise or ambient house music in the 2010s, you probably had a few witch house songs in your rotation. Witch house is a microgenre of electronic music that is known for a few key elements. Songs typically feature higher-pitched electronic effects, layers of bass tracks, and almost trap music-style drum loops. The theme of this genre almost always revolved around occult aesthetics, though the genre itself wasn’t heavily associated with gothic music. 

The witch house style was a merger of sorts between ambient house music and drone, and it was all over the place on Tumblr. (Remember Tumblr? No? To the nursing home I go!)

SoundCloud Rap

SoundCloud rap is less of a genre and more of a broad categorization of rap and hip-hop music that was popularized in the 2010s via the free streaming service SoundCloud. It makes sense that a whole genre would be associated with the platform, as it offered a space for up-and-coming musicians to share their work without much in the way of connections, nepotism, or a ton of money. Mumble rap is often associated with SoundCloud rap, though some would argue they are separate genres entirely.

Phonk

Phonk definitely started out in the 2010s, but I feel like it really started to have a renaissance in the 2020s. Either way, phonk was a big deal back in the day. This subgenre blends together hip-hop and trap, and its early iterations were heavily inspired by Memphis rap in the 1990s. You can clock a phonk song easily, too. It features vintage-leaning rap vocals, chopped-up production techniques, and early 1990s hip-hop samples with funky compositions.

Egg Punk

I’ll be honest with you, this entry on our list of new genres that were created in the 2010s is still kind of hard for me to define. But I’ll do my best. My understanding of this subgenre of punk is that it has some classic punk elements, coupled with lo-fi recording techniques and themes that often revolve around satire. Egg punk is often associated with the 80s new wave band Devo, though its origins can be traced to DIY punk rock artists in the Midwest around the early 2010s.

Photo by David X Prutting/BFA/Shutterstock

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