Although gospel music, by which we mean traditional church music, can be traced back over 2,000 years, the Afro-American inspired gospel music that we recognise today can find its roots in the 17th century.

Origins of Gospel

Gospel music was originally founded to promote group participation during times of worship. As it involved oral interaction, it was seen as ideal...

In terms of the musical genres that we all identify with today, classical is definitely the one that stretches back furthest into history.

Classical Music Origins

The known use of music stretches as far back as Ancient Greek times. Mathematician Pythagoras created a tuning system and was one of the first to codify musical notation. Several instruments from Ancient Greece s...

While R&B refers to rhythm and blues music, as in the genre that originated in 1940s America, when most people refer to R&B they tend to be talking about contemporary R&B, which rose during the 1980s as a variety of genres, particularly disco, soul, and jazz, were in decline. The rhythm and blues genre of the past is the parent of contemporary R&B. While the modern variant has a...

This history of pop music is, perhaps surprisingly, not the easiest thing to analyse and track. The primary reason for this is that pop is an abbreviation of the word popular. Therefore, the true history of pop music would go right back to when music began, and trace its way through every genre or style that has been popular in up until the present day. However, we are going to look at what mos...

House music originated in Chicago in the early 1980s, first breaking out in 1984. Just a year later, house music had gone global; it was popular across the world from L.A. to New York City and across the Atlantic to London and Paris, as well as across Mexico and Canada.

Origins of the Term

The term house music comes from legendary Chicago club The Warehouse, where Frankie...

Although most people see metal as a relatively new genre, its roots can actually be traced back as far as the 1950s, when power chords and riffs reliant on distortion effects were first introduced. However, metal itself wouldn’t begin to grow or become known until into the 1960s.

Early Metal

Legends of the music industry Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are most often...