Steve PMHEver told someone about your favorite DJ and were completely baffled when they asked, “What genre do they play?” I know I have, and I’ve been listening to all sorts of electronic music for a couple of decades.
For that reason, I’ve put together this list of 31 different types of house music with ways to tell them apart. Not only is it personally rewarding to know these types, but it’s also a good way to discover new music or figure out if you like the lineup in a concert.
What is House Music?
Before we dive in, let’s take a second to make sure the distinction between House and other Electronic music genres is clear so we can comfortably discuss the sub-genres of House music.
The most iconic and recognizable sound in House music is the 4/4 beat. If you’re not sure what that is, think about the intro drum to Adele’s Rumor Has It.
Other than that, House music is rich with synth sounds and drum machines of all sorts, which gives its beat this sharp, crunchy sound.
Types of House Music
While a great effort was made to accomplish it, it’s not really possible to make an exhaustive list of House subgenres.
The sheer number of micro-genres that weren’t popularized enough to make the list and subgenres that have fallen too far from the tree is not exactly possible to tally.
There’s also the fact that so many of these subgenres, especially the ones developed in the last decade or so, blur the lines between all EDM, whether that’s Trance, Dubstep, or drum and bass.
1. Acid House
Acid House is very similar to Chicago House in terms of structure but not the result. Acid House has a more edgy, amped vibe to it while still maintaining the easy dance tempo of 128 BPM or so.
2. Afro-House
Afro-House is African music mixed with Deep House. It’s mostly African percussion, vocals, and other sound effects that are mixed into your classic House beat.
It originated from South Africa by bringing together Kwaito, Deep House, and Tribal House. This subgenre is usually between 100 to 130 BPM.
3. Amapiano
Another subgenre coming from South Africa, Amapiano is Zulu for “the pianos” and is a more melodic, jazzy, and chill version of Afro music.
It also has elements from Deep House and Kwaito. It does stick to a lower BPM of around 115. Amapiano is relatively new to the scene, emerging in the 2010s.
4. Ambient House
The meaning of this name has changed over time. It started in the 1980s as a more mellow, dreamy spin on Acid House’s steely sounds. As it grew in popularity, it started taking from different subgenres of House.
The term now describes a general feel instead of a strict subgenre, with a spacey slow development of notes and low BPM.
5. Bass House
As DJ Valentino Khan aptly put it, Bass House is “that moment when House music and Dubstep hooked up and had a baby.”
Bass House has a lot of the gnarly, buzzing beats and vocals that are characteristic of Dubstep, but it’s often coupled with the classic House 4/4 beat and is more rhythmic than your average Dubstep jungle.
6. Balearic Beat
This subgenre follows the mantra of “anything goes” according to its pioneer, Alfredo Fiorito. This makes Balearic Beat very hard to define.
It originated in the Spanish Balearic Islands in the late 1980s and was a fusion between Deep House and practically every other non-electronic genre of music out there.
7. Baltimore Club (Bmore House)
Bmore House came to life in the 1990s with an 8/4 beat and lots of vocals and instruments from Pop, Hip-Hop, and R&B. It usually lies in the 130 BPM with edgier vocals than its predecessors.
8. Big Room House
Big Room House became one of the most recognizable subgenres of House in the 2010s. It has some of the biggest names in the industry, including Swedish House Mafia, Martin Garrix, Calvin Harris, Sander Van Doorn, and Hardwell.
It’s safe to say that this genre has gone out of style by now. In fact, there’s a lot of hate for the subgenre as it feels too repetitive or predictable.
It can be argued that part of the reason EDM ravers look down upon Big Room so much is how successful it got with mainstream media like radio.
9. Classic/Chicago House
The very first productions of House music belong to this subgenre. What most people refer to when they say Classic House is the stuff that came out of Chicago in the mid-80s.
You’ll see the classic 4/4 beat in this subgenre, along with some synth sounds that are pretty Matrix-like. Classic House merged rhythmic beats with lots of Disco samples.
10. Chicago Hard House
Take that Matrix-like rhythmic Classic House sound, crank it up to 140 BPM, add a whole lot of buzzing, distorted, and often high-pitched synth beats and melodies to violently bop your head to, and you get Chicago Hard House.
11. Deep House
This is possibly the most referenced subgenre in the whole article, as it inspired many of the later house subgenres.
Emerging in the 1980s from Chicago House, Deep House shares a lot of the Disco sounds but with a more laid back tempo of 110-125 BPM. However, it adds more diverse samples from different other genres while maintaining a melancholic, mysterious rhythm.
There are so many subgenres under Deep House, including but by no means limited to Slap House, Brazilian Bass, Outsider House, and Tropical House. We’ll only cover a few of those in this post.
12. Diva House
As you can tell from the name, Diva House is rich with strong female vocals and often sassy lyrics. The subgenre, also known as Handbag House, was popularized in gay clubs during the 1990s. The comfortably dancy 125 BPM is the average for this genre.
Hardbag House, the natural evolution of Diva House, comes with a lot more rhythmic, rich vocals and basslines.
13. Electro House
Electro House is a subgenre that’s become so massive, it can almost be considered a whole genre on its own, with huge subgenres that characterize the type of music, including Big Room, Complextro, and Dutch House.
Heavy bass drums and buzzing basslines are characteristic of the genre.
Electro House as a whole – and more specifically, Big Room – has collected some of the biggest names in the industry.
One of the earliest, biggest albums to have popularized Electro House is Discovery by Daft Punk.
14. Eurohouse
The iconic song, Rhythm is a Dancer, belongs to this equally-iconic genre, which developed alongside Eurodance in the late 1980s.
The genre contains elements of Dance, Europop, Progressive House, Synth-Pop, and Trance, while Eurodance is better known for its high BPM, which is influenced by Hi-NRG, Rap, and Techno.
Eurohouse is very melodic and often contains lots of lyrics, making it feel more like songs than just beats.
This made it more suitable for radio than most other subgenres which contributed to its huge success.
15. Funky House
Funky House is a subgenre that relies heavily on Disco and Funk samples. This genre uses the iconic bouncy beat at around 128 BPM.
16. Future House
Future house is very similar to Big Room, with more metallic, blended samples and beats. To be fair though, the lines between these two genres are extremely blurry.
Compared to Big Room, Future House has lower BPM and quieter drops with energy that’s more consistent than the ups and downs of Big Room.
17. Ghetto House (Ghetto Tech)
Ghetto House is a fun, sexually explicit subgenre that emerged in the early 1990s, earning itself the name Booty House. Within the repetitive, often sexual lyrics, you’ll hear a lot of hi-hat beats often in the 120-130 BPM.
This subgenre later developed into multiple others, including Ghetto Tech, which is considerably faster, and Juke House which also plays in the 140-160 BPM range with hitch pitch samples and basslines.
18. Hard NRG/(UK) Hard House
Some will feel like grouping these two subgenres is a crime, and for good reason. While Hard House and Hard NRG (also known as NuNRG) sound like opposites, their structure is similar.
Both lie in monstrously high BPM, with Hard House ranging in the 150s, and NuNRG closer to the 160s. They both have heavily distorted sounds like the Hoover sound and offbeat kick buzzing drums.
The main difference between the two is the energy it brings. While UK Hard House has an uplifting party mode feel to it, NuNRG (also known as Filthy Hard House) gives off a more dark and twisted, almost aggressive style.
19. Hip House
The House-Hip-Hop fusion started in the 1980s in Chicago, New York, and London. Sometimes called Rap House, the genre’s 4/4 beat is less common, switched out for Hip-Hop beats and samples.
20. Italo House
This subgenre is a mix between House and Italo Disco. It has lots of electronic piano tunes and more lyrics than its predecessor, Chicago House. Italo House came to be in the early 1990s in Italy, gaining popularity in the UK shortly thereafter.
21. Jazz House
Jazz House is a great genre all around. It fuses the classic 4/4 house beat with jazzy sax, horns, and samples.
How effortlessly enjoyable Jazz House is has made it a popular choice for ad music, which has unfortunately made it a bit of a cliche over time.
22. Jersey Club
Inspired by Bmore tunes, Jersey Club is very similar in structure to Baltimore Club but has very choppy, sharp samples (staccato) instead of sounds that blend in.
The genre originated in (You guessed it!) New Jersey in the early 2000s. Like its genre of origin, it contains lots of R&B, Rap, and Hip-Hop samples.
23. Kwaito
Kwaito is probably the most distinctive subgenre of House to come out of Johannesburg, South Africa.
It’s comparable to Hip House, but with a very different, distinctive, more African style of Rap and Hip-Hop. It’s also more on the chill side, with BPM somewhere between 100-115.
24. Latin House
The Latin House subgenre first appeared in the 1980s with Spanish samples.
It evolved from that into incorporating Latin American vocals, percussions, and powerful Flamenco riffs along with the classic house structure.
25. Microhouse
Microhouse (also known as Buftech or Minimal House) in its rawest form sounds a lot like someone switching super-quickly between TV channels, but with a bit of rhythm to it.
In this subgenre, the classic house kick drum and hi-hat are replaced by small, indistinguishable bits of music, human voice, or various other sounds.
26. Outsider (Lo-Fi) House
Lo-Fi or Outsider House is a subgenre that started in the 2010s and has since gotten a bit of popularity in the age of the Internet. It follows the lead of its subgenre of origin, Deep House, with the laid-back tempo and melancholic vibes.
The main characteristic of Outsider House is its kind of low energy, low-quality samples that add to the aesthetic, deliberately adding the reminiscent mood to its parent genre.
27. Progressive House
Yet another descendant of Deep House, Progressive House is so close to Trance, it’s quite hard to pinpoint the difference.
It usually keeps the 4/4 beat and remains pretty simple overall, with layered beats that fade in and out instead of big drops.
28. Soulful House
Put Soul, Jazz, Funk, and Disco together with House music and you get Soulful House. Compared to Jazz House, this genre is a bit more laid back with more rich, soulful vocals.
It often has heartfelt lyrics, performances, and riffs that make this subgenre what it is.
29. Tech House
Tech House is arguably similar to Progressive House with the addition of heavily mixed, metallic beats. Since it appeared in the 1990s, Tech House gained so much popularity that it has turned a little sour like Big Room.
Tech House became a huge trend in the last decade, which inevitably made it start to sound a lot more commercial over time.
30. Tribal House
Tribal House combines the two danciest sounds in the history of mankind; the 4/4 house beat and complex tribal percussions.
Tribal House is very rhythmic and energetic in nature. You won’t find a lot of synth sounds like the majority of House subgenres.
31. Tropical House
With roots in Deep House, you’ll find that most Tropical House music is hard to distinguish from its subgenre of origin.
The primary difference can be that Tropical House has a much more uplifting, light energy with noticeably less electronic feel to it than Deep House.
Types of House Music: Conclusion
House music is well known for its hypnotic, groovy, and uplifting qualities, making it a popular genre for nightclubs and festivals. The genre has evolved over the years, with various subgenres and styles emerging, such as Deep House, Tech House, Kwaito, and Progressive House.
House music has had a significant impact on the global music scene, influencing the development of other electronic genres and leaving a lasting legacy in the world of dance music.
