Music Genre Tree

70 electronic and DJ-relevant genres organised as a hierarchy. Click any entry to read its description, BPM range, era and reference artists. Search to filter — matches keep their parents visible so the lineage is preserved.

Click any genre to expand. Click the chevron to collapse a family.

Why genre matters for DJs

Genre tags get treated as marketing categories — labels stick them on releases, Beatport sorts by them, streaming services use them for recommendations. For working DJs they have a more practical use: they tell you the production conventions a track is likely to follow. A track tagged “deep house” will probably sit 118-125 BPM, run a long groove-led intro and outro, and clip its dynamics for dancefloor playback. A track tagged “melodic techno” will probably sit 120-128, peak around a synth-led breakdown, and have at least one moment intended for a phone-camera lift.

Knowing a genre’s lineage tells you which other genres mix into it gracefully. Tech house descends from house and shares its 4/4 grid; you can blend the two without breaking groove. Tech house also has techno in its DNA, so it crosses into melodic techno or peak-time techno without sounding forced. Drum & bass descended from jungle and breakbeat — knowing that explains why DJs still pull old jungle tracks into modern DnB sets without the seams showing.

The tree also exposes the genres that exist as bridges. UK garage sits between house tempos and DnB tempos at 130-138 BPM — that’s why DJs use it to transition between the two. Trap (the EDM kind) sits between dubstep and hip-hop via the half-time bridge — the same reason. The hierarchy isn’t academic; it’s the working map most DJs build in their heads as they get better.

FAQ

How is this tree organised?

Top-level families are the broad lineages — house, techno, trance, bass / breaks, hardstyle / hardcore, hip-hop / soul, disco / funk, ambient / downtempo, Latin / Caribbean, African pop, synth pop / electro. Children sit beneath their direct ancestor genre. So drum & bass appears under bass / breaks; liquid DnB and neurofunk appear under drum & bass; jungle (DnB's ancestor) also appears under drum & bass because that's its closest active relative in 2026 even though it predates the parent name.

Why aren't every subgenre listed?

Because no taxonomy of electronic music is ever complete. We currently track 70 genres — the ones that meaningfully come up in DJ practice. Microscenes like darkpsy, autonomic, deep dubstep, twilight psytrance, jersey club and so on are real and deserve coverage; we'll add them iteratively. Submit a missing genre via the Mixgraph contact form and we'll consider it for the next update.

How is this different from the EDM Genre Chart?

The chart is flat — every genre listed once with its BPM range, sortable by tempo or popularity. Useful for quick lookup and comparison. The tree is hierarchical — it shows which genres descend from which others, the lineage of the music. Useful when you're trying to understand the relationships rather than the raw data. The two tools cover overlapping content from complementary angles.

Why are the BPM ranges sometimes different from the chart?

The tree uses the same authoritative ranges as the chart. Slight differences arise where a parent and child have overlapping but distinct ranges — house overall sits 118-132 BPM, but tech house specifically lives 122-130 within that. The parent's range is the genre's outer boundary; the child's is its working bracket.

What's the "reference" line?

Two or three artists, labels or producers whose work is closest to the genre's defining sound. Not necessarily the founders, not necessarily the most successful — just a quick "if you've heard them, you know what this genre is" cue. Useful when you're scanning the tree and want to anchor an unfamiliar name.