How to know what genre a song is?

Often at Crossfader we get asked questions like:

• ‘How do I know what constitutes peak time, driving, mainstream, deep or minimal?’
• ‘What’s the difference between a future house and a bass house song?’
• ‘Should I sort my music by sub-genres such as these?’

We all deal with the headache of music and library management. We may spend 15 minutes debating whether a song should go in one playlist or the other…

Genres help group and characterise music so humans can talk about it, share it and form communities around it. Because of its fluidity, sub-genres are formed monthly to categorise these music changes further. I’m not here to argue what elements define a hard techno track- there is enough of that on Reddit! I want to help you create a simple system.

So, what’s the best way to navigate all this? Well, I can only give my personal experience and thoughts, so please don’t take this as gospel, but I hope these thoughts may help you out as you build up your music library!

Organising your music by genre

Tap into your emotions!

The best thing you can go off of is the feeling music gives you. When listening to music, don’t try to label it, but understand how it makes you feel. As an extreme example, you feel very different listening to the latest pop song on the radio to when you hear 140bpm hardstyle.

Tune into those feelings and start to organise your music in this way.

Personal Playlists!

So many times, I have created my own sub-genre names in my DJ software. I’ve been known to make playlists such as Classic Bliss! Simply put, to me, this is house music that made me feel incredible and somewhat euphoric.

Another playlist was sunset vibes, featuring those epic songs you would love to hear whilst watching the sun go down. That will be different for everyone, but a big part of being a DJ is for you to share your story through mixing and the music selection, so choose the songs that fit this description for you.

One that often came out, was a playlist named ‘Commersh’. Spelling it this way meant that these were commercial songs or remixes of those songs, but not cheesy. Remember to keep it simple! Titles like ‘Cheesy Wedding Music’ even though I didn’t play many weddings, gave that sub genre of music a label I understood. The next time I played a local bar at 2 am with an eclectic mix of drunk 40-year-olds, I knew to jump into that playlist! Likewise, I have also found myself playing boat parties, which called upon the ‘Classic Bliss’ and ‘Sunset Vibes’ playlists.

By all means, have playlists titled Tech House, Deep House, Minimal House, Hip Hop, D&B etc., but I highly recommend creating your unique labelling to go alongside it!

How to organise your music

Having a well-organised library of tunes is essential for any DJ, but staying on top of all the management isn’t always easy. Between understanding the nuances between genres and organising different folders and playlists, it can feel like a massive task. But it doesn’t have to be. We’ve created a course specifically designed to take the stress out of music management for DJs, where we share a learning journey that suits your DJ type. We’ll share how to source, structure, organise, automate and backup your music library, so you’re always ready to focus on mixing rather than frantically searching for the next track.

Music Management For DJs

4.63

(453)

4 hours

42 lessons

Beginner

USD $115

How do you identify a music genre?

Ask the internet

If you’ve got a collection of tracks in your DJ library that, for whatever reason, don’t have any genre tags on them, this is probably the easiest way to find the right genres. 

Just Google the track you want to find out its genre for and look for it on a DJ download site. Beatport is usually the best bet for this as it’s got a massive collection of tunes, all clearly marked with their genre tag. This is great as the info comes directly from the label, so there’s no ambiguity as to whether it’s right. If you were to download the track from a site like Beatport, this is the info that would be stored on the file as metadata and shown when you open it in something like rekordbox. 

The genre of any track on Beatport will be listed alongside other key information.

This may not be as successful for less ‘legitimate’ releases. Things like bootlegs, mashups and edits generally won’t be found on Beatport. You may have better luck on Soundcloud, where there’s a thriving community of producers putting their own spin on records. Try and find the track on there – producers generally add several hashtags for genres to help people find their music. 

Genre characteristics

Perhaps you’ve had no luck with finding your track online, or maybe you’re trying to categorise your own music. Either way, it’s worth understanding some of the key elements that define what makes a track on a specific genre. 

The first thing you should consider is BPM. Most genres have a pretty clear range of BPMs you can expect to hear, although there are, of course, plenty of exceptions to this. Then, you’ll start to recognise a few characteristic traits of each genre. For example, house and techno wouldn’t be the same without the instantly recognisable and repetitive ‘four on the floor’ kick pattern. 

Again, while there are some hard and fast rules, a lot of this is pretty subjective. The main thing is to listen to these different genres with a critical ear, and you’ll soon start to pick out the unique elements. 

We’ve put together a handy guide to help break down some of the key differences to compare between the most common genres for DJs. There are few things on the internet as guaranteed to start an argument as music genres, so this is by no means comprehensive and doesn’t get too into the weeds with super specific sub-genres or anything like that.

House and Techno Genres

Bass and Breakbeat Genres

Electronic Genres

Other Genres