The Genre Starter Guides series explores musical styles through a handful of essential albums. Each guide introduces listeners to a genre’s core sound and history while suggesting albums that make the best entry points.
If you’re curious about exploring new sounds, these music genre guides introduce the essential albums that define each style.
And if you’d rather explore other genres through a favorite artist, check out our If You Like This Artist series.
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Where to Start With Jazz Fusion: 6 Essential Albums for Curious Listeners
From a distance, jazz fusion can look like one giant, slightly stressful pile of 1970s virtuosity: long solos, very serious facial expressions, five-minute stretches where everyone seems to… Continue Reading
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Where to Start With Neo-Soul: 5 Essential Albums for New Listeners
Neo-soul is one of those genre labels people use while also looking slightly suspicious of it. That suspicion is fair. “Neo-soul” can sound like a record-store tag that… Continue Reading
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A Beginner’s Guide to Alt-Country: 5 Essential Alt-Country Albums for New Listeners
Alt-country is one of those genre names that sounds useful right up until you try to pin it down too neatly. Then it starts slipping out of your… Continue Reading
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Five Boundary-Pushing Experimental Rock Albums (A Deeper Dive)
Experimental rock is one of those genres everyone recognizes but no one can quite define. Most listeners first encounter it through albums that stretch rock music without completely… Continue Reading
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A Beginner’s Guide to Synth-Pop: 5 Albums That Define the Sound
Picture this. You step into a small club sometime around 1981. The lights are low. Everything has that metallic glow you only get from old chrome fixtures and… Continue Reading
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Beginner’s Guide to Post-Rock (It’s Not Just Crescendos)
Post-rock is one of the most misunderstood genres in modern music. Ask someone what it sounds like and you’ll likely hear a version of the same description: instrumental… Continue Reading