Industrial Music Genre List

The most comprehensive list of Industrial Music genres and sub genres available on the Internet

The Music Genres List site covers many of the most popular styles of industrial music, we hope this becomes the definitive list of industrial music genres on the Internet, send an email to add @ musicgenreslist dot com if you feel any industrial music genres are missing and we’ll add to complete the music list.

Industrial Music is a difficult genre to define, you have many hardcore critics who become very outspoken concerning their opinions of the genre , many believe that if a band isn’t compromised of 100% electronic components , that is 100% sythesized, and makes use of real musical instruments it isn’t true industrial and is industrial metal fusion. In the beginning industrial music was mainly composed of highly distorted music and keyboards as well as very controversial lyrics and remained mainly underground, consisting of bands like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, bands of the like are considered to be of the “first wave” of industrial music between the 70’s to 80’s. The “Second Wave” is when Industrial Music started to come into it’s own and became more well known, this mainly happened during the 80’s and 90’s, this is also where industrial becomes hard to pin down because people started to break it off into many different sub genre’s which I will list later on. During the second wave there was a flood of great bands that are still around today and some that have unfortunately fallen to the wayside, Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Front 242, Leather Strip, (now widely considered Dark wave), and many others. Then you move into the “Third Wave” where the bands become really mainstream and image became as important as the music, here you have some of my favorite bands such as Apoptygma Berzerk (widely considered Electro-Pop/Synth-Pop), VNV Nation (again, considered by many Electro-Pop/Synth-Pop), Velvet Acid Christ (considered Dark Wave), Today is the Day (considered Noise), KMFDM, and the short lived MDFMK. As it stands now there are too many “Industrial” bands to list but what sets them apart from the musical norm is that they still consist mainly of electronic components, such as drum loops, electronic noises, distortions, samples, keyboards, and in many cases simple or controversial lyrics.

Industrial Sub Genres:- Aggrotech – Ambient Industrial – Cybergrind – Dark Ambient – Dark Electro – Dark Wave – Death Industrial – Electronic Body Music
Electro-Industrial – Electro-Pop – Futurepop – Industrial DnB – Industrial Metal – Industrial Rock – Industrial Techno – Japanoise – Martial Industrial
Neofolk – Noise – Power Noise – Synth-Pop, and others.