On this page, you'll find examples of different genres of music. The word genre means 'type'. There are genres of music, films and books. A genre is not an exact category. Rather, the concepts of genres is based on certain combinations of characteristics such as tempo, vocal style, instrumentation, composition, etc. There are definitely certain songs that are hard to categorize into just one genre. Certain songs can mix the attributes of more than one genre together, such as rap and hip-hop, pop and rock, electronic and pop, etc. Sometimes artists sample songs from a different genre in their own work. Most artists eventually compose songs from several different genres, especially if they have a long career in the music industry. In some ways, it might seem like genres are arbitrary. However, once you get a feel for the stylistic differences, you can usually tell which genre a piece of music belongs to within the first few seconds. Check out the video below