Bright & sweet

1980s Japanese city pop, chopped and sped up over French house kicks and filters: vaporwave in the sun.

1920s–'40s swing horns and vocals plugged into modern house beats.

A steady four-on-the-floor keeps different people in the same room.

Disco samples, filter sweeps and robotic vocals: the French turned the '70s dance floor into glittering house.

Italian-made, Japan-loved high-speed dance music, the soundtrack of drifting and para para.

The standard '90s European dance-floor formula: a female singer belting the chorus, a male rapper's verse, wall-to-wall synths, everyone's hands up.

A bouncing triplet kick and chopped-up vocals: club music that jumped from Newark block parties to short-video feeds.

Bright synth chords swell in the drop like a colourful emotional firework.

Every pop element turned up to max: candy tones, pitched voices and glitch noise screaming together.

Internet rap made by teenagers who met on Discord, with Auto-Tune, high-pitched vocals and sharp 808s.

In a very short time, it makes viewers remember the characters, the world and the next encounter.

Group unison, sparkling arrangements and gaps left for the crowd's chants, songs written for cheering.

Showa-style hero themes: brass fanfares, male voices shouting attack names, robots and heroes charging out.

With no real singer present, a voice can still become a character people create together.

Turns excessive cuteness, repetition and strange logic into a channel of its own.

Touhou Project themes rearranged into rock, metal, electronic and jazz; one game raised an entire doujin music scene.

Ultra-fast hardcore kicks, moe vocal samples and goofy effects, the frantic electronic music of Japan's doujin scene.

Chinese pop songs remixed into pounding slow-rock and car-stereo DJ edits, cheesy yet addictive.

Future bass's soft chords plus bells, toy sounds and cute vocals, like a trampoline in candy clouds.

Speed a song up, raise its pitch, add an anime picture: an online remix culture that grew out of a Norwegian school project.

Swinging rhythm and blues plus country guitar, the first time teens screamed for music of their own.

Wet guitars drenched in spring reverb and fast tremolo picking, like riding into a wave.

When everyday identity is too narrow, create a bolder self in the spotlight.

The sound of a guitar band with the melody of a pop song: singable choruses and moderate energy, the most common kind of band pop.

Fast, sweet and loud: three-chord punk with instantly singable pop choruses.

Offbeat guitar "chk-chk" plus horns, bouncy joy you dance with bent knees.

Punk energy with synth gloss: short, sharp and stylish; much of the 1980s sound starts here.

Britain sung out loud: anthem choruses, guitar pop and working-class swagger.

No need to please everyone, just tell the truth to the people who care.

Clean tapped guitars, odd meters and precise stops, like solving a bright geometry problem.

Big hair, spandex and shout-along choruses, the shiniest party metal of the '80s.

Fast double kick, soaring vocals and heroic sagas make metal bright and uplifting.

Fiddles, bagpipes and folk melodies plus distorted guitars, an epic feast that turns into a tavern brawl.

Heavy metal guitars and drums with sweet J-pop idol melodies and choreography: cute and violent, both turned up to the max.

Sparse drums, thick 808s and melodies like a Nintendo game: soft, floaty SoundCloud trap.

Everything on the one, every instrument turned into a drum.

Four-on-the-floor and shimmering strings, inviting everyone to be the star of the same night.

Choir, organ and handclaps singing faith into joy that shakes the whole church.

Hip-hop swing beats plus R&B harmonies, the coolest street dance music of the late '80s.

Synthesizers singing pop melodies, where futurism and heartbreak happen at once.

Pop built for both the dance floor and the charts: big hooks, four-on-the-floor and shiny production.

Modern pop led by synths: clean, cool-bright and a little futuristic.

Gentle, slightly bookish pop, like a spring afternoon in a small-town record shop.

Rich chords, frequent key changes and fast, dense lyrics: modern Japanese pop built on piano and band, with choruses that soar.

Packs night views, sea breeze and city life into a refined, light groove.

French pop, bossa nova and '60s soft rock cut and pasted into a stylish Tokyo sound.

Pop from Showa-era TV music shows: orchestral arrangements, idol smiles and a touch of sentiment.

Precise electronic production turns pop melody into a recognisable character and stage.

Weaves melody, dance and vocal roles into a stage language the world can remember.

An oom-pah two-beat and vibrato-laden singing, Korea's most nostalgic yet festive popular song.

Bright, round, crisply enunciated high notes between folk song and bel canto: the most familiar Chinese sound of gala stages.

Long-song melodies of the grasslands over a four-on-the-floor beat: high, wide open, all blue sky and galloping horses.

A hopping left hand and a playfully syncopated right: saloon piano from the early 1900s, jazz's grandparent.

A whole horn section swinging together, so nobody on the dance floor can stay still.

Acoustic guitar "la pompe" strumming and violin, a lively Paris café night.

Jazz improvisation plus the electric force of rock and funk, complex yet grooving hard.

Fiddle, tin whistle and bodhrán, dancing jigs in a stone pub on a misty coast.

Pickup trucks, highways and small-town heartbreak, sung in the plainest melodies.

Country storytelling and acoustic guitar wrapped in pop hooks and shiny production.

Three-finger banjo rolls, mandolin and fiddle taking fast turns, joy on an Appalachian porch.

Horns, piano montuno and clave rhythm set the whole dance floor spinning.

Accordion and guacharaca's two-step shuffle, the riverside town dance that's slow yet impossible to stop.

The rolling rhythm of a full percussion corps, the heartbeat of the carnival parade.

Street parties in Rio's hillside communities: bouncing drum-machine beats, a wall of speakers and an MC's chants.

One dembow rhythm, and the whole city sways together.

Accordion, brass and twelve-string guitar: from norteño and banda to today's corridos tumbados, Mexico's most local sound.

Guitar chops on the offbeat and a cheerful horn section: dance music faster than reggae and sweeter than punk.

Digital reggae: faster, more electronic, made for the dance floor, DJs toasting over riddims.

Light percussion and warm melodies turn a party into an easy, rolling groove.

House's four-on-the-floor with South African rhythms, melodies and vocals in African languages: dance music with a spiritual feel.

Trumpets and tubas racing in odd meters, like a street wedding that won't stop.

Balalaika and accordion getting faster and faster, clapping, stomping and squat-kicking: one song becomes a village party.

Big song-and-dance numbers from Bollywood films: strings, tabla and electronic beats all making a grand entrance.

Harpsichord, basso continuo and interlocking counterpoint, ornate yet precise court music.

Songs written on old console sound chips: square, triangle and noise waves that take you straight back to childhood.

Lets a song say what a character can't do yet, and hasn't admitted yet, right now.

Characters drive the plot through song, orchestra and chorus pushing emotion to a showstopper.

Optimistic, clean, unobtrusive background music written for launches, promos and tutorials.

Simple melodies, repeated lyrics and gentle tones: songs for children and for bedtime quiet.