英文说明这些音乐的特性

1、Death music
Deathrock is a term used to identify a subgenre of punk rock and Goth which incorporates elements of horror and spooky atmospheres within a Goth-Punk style and first emerged most prominently in the West Coast of the United States and London during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
2、Heavy music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[2] With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion and fast guitar solos. The All Music Guide states that "of all rock & roll's myriad forms, heavy metal is the most extreme in terms of volume, machismo, and theatricality.
3、Rock/Alternative
Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, synthesizers. Other instruments sometimes utilized in rock include harmonica, violin, flute,and banjo. Also, less common stringed instruments such as mandolin and sitar are used. Rock music usually has a strong back beat, and often revolves around guitar, either electric or acoustic.
Rock music has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll and rockabilly, which evolved from blues, country music and other influences. According to the All Music Guide, "In its purest form, Rock & Roll has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody.
Alternative of Rock goes mainstream in early-mid 1990s. These include Grunge music, Britpop, Indie rock etc.
4、New Age
New Age music is a style of music originally associated with some New Age beliefs. It has its basis in the work of various 1960s European and American electronic and acoustic musicians, and is generally characterized as being primarily instrumental and repetitively melodic in nature. Recordings of nature sounds are sometimes used as an introduction to a track or throughout the piece. New Age music is typically relaxing and inspiring, and is often used by listeners for such activities as yoga, massage, meditation, reading, as a method of stress management[1] or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments.
New Age music is largely typified by modal and consonant harmonies, often in conjunction with sound effects or nature samples. New Age music includes both electronic and instrumental forms, frequently relying on sustained pads or long sequencer-based runs; and acoustic forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar and a wide variety of non-western acoustic instruments. In many cases, high-quality samples are used instead of natural acoustic instruments. Vocal arrangements were initially rare in New Age music but as it has evolved vocals have become more common, especially vocals featuring Sanskrit, Tibetan or Native American-influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends or the realm of Faerie. Songs of up to 20 minutes duration are not uncommon.
5、Hip Hop
Pop rap (or hip pop) is a pop music influenced style of hip hop that replaces the jazz, funk, and electronic music-influenced elements of hip hop with pop-influenced melodic hooks. The style became popular in the early 1990s, as hip hop music found commercial success. Pop rappers such as Vanilla Ice were more radio-friendly than the explicit lyrics of gangsta rap such as Ice-T.
Famous pop rappers incliding 2 In A Room, 50 Cent, Salt-N-Pepa, Diddy etc.
6、Country
Country music is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in traditional folk music, Celtic music, blues, gospel music, hokum, and old-time music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s. The term country music began to be used in the 1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music was deemed to be degrading, and the term was widely embraced in the 1970s, while country and western has declined in use since that time.
In the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term Country Western.
Country music has produced two of the top selling solo artists of all time. Elvis Presley, “The Hillbilly Cat”, appeared on the Louisiana Hayride for three years, went on to help define rock ‘n’ roll, and became known as “The King.” Garth Brooks, except for a short foray into non-country near the end of his recording career, recorded and performed country music and is one top selling solo artist.
7、Punk
Punk rock is an anti-establishment rock music genre and movement that emerged in the mid-1970s. Preceded by a variety of protopunk music of the 1960s and early 1970s, punk rock developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, where groups such as the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. By 1977, punk was spreading around the world.
Punk rock bands, eschewing the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock, created fast, hard music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation and often political or nihilistic lyrics. The associated punk subculture expresses youthful rebellion and is characterized by distinctive clothing styles, a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies, and a DIY (do it yourself) attitude.
Punk rock quickly, though briefly, became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. By the beginning of the 1980s, even faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and Oi! had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, engendering the alternative rock movement. By the turn of the century, new pop punk bands such as Green Day were bringing the genre widespread popularity decades after its inception.
8、Blues/Jazz
Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes. It emerged in African-American communities of the United States from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed English and Scots-Irish narrative ballads. The use of blue notes and the prominence of call-and-response patterns in the music and lyrics are indicative of African influence. The blues influenced later American and Western popular music, as it became the roots of jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, heavy metal, hip-hop, and other popular music forms.
9、Classical
The Classical period in Western music occurred from about 1750 to 1820, despite considerable overlap at both ends with preceding and following periods, as is true for all musical eras. Although the term classical music is used as a blanket term meaning all kinds of music in this era, it can also occasionally mean this particular era within that tradition.
The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. The best known composers from this period are Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven; other notable names include Luigi Boccherini, Muzio Clementi, Johann Ladislaus Dussek, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Christoph Willibald Gluck. Beethoven is also sometimes regarded either as a Romantic composer or a composer who was part of the transition to the Romantic; Franz Schubert is also something of a transitional figure, as are Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Luigi Cherubini and Carl Maria von Weber. The period is sometimes referred to as the era of Viennese Classic or Classicism (German: Wiener Klassik), since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert all worked at some time in Vienna, comprising the First Viennese School.
10、Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s.
While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based on a rhythm style characterized by regular chops on the off-beat, known as the skank. The tempo is generally slower than that found in ska. Reggae usually has accents on the 3rd beat in each bar, there being four beats in a bar; most people think it's accentuated on the 2nd and 4th because of the rhythm guitar.
Reggae is often associated with the Rastafari movement, an influence on many prominent reggae musicians from its inception. Reggae song lyrics deal with many subjects, including faith, love, relationships, poverty, injustice and other broad social issues.
11、Folk music
Folk music can have a number of different meanings, including:
* Traditional music: The original meaning of the term "folk music" was synonymous with the term "Traditional music", also often including World Music and Roots music; the term "Traditional music" was given its more specific meaning to distinguish it from the other definitions that "Folk music" is now considered to encompass.
* Folk music can also describe a particular kind of popular music which is based on traditional music. In contemporary times, this kind of folk music is often performed by professional musicians. Related genres include Folk rock and Progressive folk music.
* In American culture, folk music refers to the American folk music revival, music exemplified by such musicians as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, who popularized and encouraged the lyrical style in the 1950s and 1960s.
12、Big Band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. A big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra, and dance band are also used to refer to this type of ensemble.
In contrast to smaller jazz combos, in which most of the music is improvised, or created spontaneously, music played by big bands is highly "arranged", or prepared in advance and notated on sheet music. The music is traditionally called 'charts'. Improvised solos may be played only when called for by the arranger.
13、Pop
Pop music is an ample and imprecise category of modern music not defined by artistic considerations but by its potential audience or prospective market. Pop is music composed with deliberate intent to appeal to the majority of its contemporaries.
In opposition to music that requires education or formation to appreciate, a defining characteristic of pop music is that anyone is able to enjoy it. Artistic concepts such as complex musical form and aesthetics are not a concern in the writing of pop songs, the primary objectives being audience enjoyment and commercial success.
Although pop music is produced with a view to sell records and do well in the charts, it does not necessitate wide acclaim or commercial success: there are bad or failed pop songs.
Initially the term was an abbreviation of, and synonymous to, popular music, but evolved circa 1954 to describe a specific musical category.
14、Goth
Gothic metal is a genre of heavy metal music that originated during the mid 1990s in Europe as an outgrowth of doom-death, a fusion genre of doom metal and death metal.
The definition of Gothic metal is commonly debated amongst fans and the media; older fans and musicians have a specific concept of the Gothic genre, based on the Gothic novel and aesthetic similarities to Gothic rock. Some less knowledgeable fans reject these criteria and refer to any female fronted metal band as Gothic.
Gothic metal is commonly characterized lyrically by either one of two distinct characteristics: dual vocalists (growls and female vocals) or a single vocalist with an operatic tone. Instrumentation is heavily based on the use of modern keyboards and distorted guitars with varying tempos and rather complex compositions. Classical instruments such as violins are often used.
Gothic metal tends to take influence from the doom metal, black metal, and death metal subgenres of heavy metal for its composition. The heavily synthesized styles of their melody and rhythm ideas in its guitar riffs often cause the music to be aggressive and fast paced like death metal, while sometimes the sound is slow and heavy like doom metal.
(Wikipedia)