Music around the world: a timeline of styles

How to read this page

Each row is one decade. Each column is a part of the world. In every box you will see the names of styles of music, and under each one a few artists who are often named as examples. Tap a region name to show just that part of the world.

We only list names, not their life stories. The artists are examples, not a ranking of the best, and many other great musicians are missing. Artist names are written in English letters.

Styles and artists, decade by decade

Scroll across and down to compare. Notice how a style can appear in several decades, and how the same decade can sound very different in different places.

A family tree of styles

Styles are like families: new ones grow out of older ones. This tree is simplified, because real music mixes in many directions at once. Each name shows roughly when and where the style began or became known, and tapping a name jumps to it in the table above.

How we chose the names

We picked artists who are well documented in encyclopedias and music museums and who are widely recognised as important examples of their style. Dates are for when a style first became known or when an artist became famous. Music history is full of arguments, so a few of these dates and labels could be drawn differently by other experts.