| Style | Description |
|---|
| Bocet | Bocet is a form of Romanian folk music. Bocet is a lament in free rhythm. The bocet is sung by one or more people with their eyes in tears or just expressing a deep grief. Encountered throughout Romania, bocet is a part of the traditional mourning observances. |
| Bohemian Dub | Contemporary music style that blends Hip-Hop, Dub, Funk, Pop and Klezmer music |
| Boi | Boi is a style of Central Amazonian folk music now moving into the mainstream in Brazil. |
| Bolero | The bolero is a type of dance and musical form. Bolero is a 3/4 dance that originated in Spain in the late 18th century, a combination of the contradanza and the sevillana. In Cuba, the bolero developed into a distinct dance in duple time which eventually spread to other countries, while the dance itself gradually disappeared from Cuba, leaving behind what author Ed Morales has called the "most popular lyric tradition in Latin America". |
| Bomba | Bomba is one of Puerto Rico's most famous musical styles. Although there is some controversy surrounding its origin, most agree that it is a largely African music. |
| Bongo | distinctive African drum and style of drumming; Bongo drums or bongos are a percussion instrument made up of two small drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called a hembra (Spanish: female), the smaller drum is called a macho (Spanish: male). Someone who plays the bongos is called a bongocero. |
| Boogie woogie | Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became very popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. |
| Boogaloo | Boogaloo (shing-a-ling, popcorn music) is a genre of Latin music and dance that was very popular in the United States in the late 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City among teenage Cubans and Puerto Ricans. |
| BooM Rock | Persian Melodies & Sounds and world Funk-RockBOOMBAND for exmpl. |
| Borbannadir | type of Tuvan xoomii said to sound like the rapids of a river |
| Border ballad | The English/Scottish border has a long and bloody history of conquest and reconquest, raid and counter-raid (see Wars of Scottish Independence). It also has a stellar tradition of balladry, such that a whole group of songs exists that are often called "border ballads", because they were collected in that region. |
| Bossa nova | Bossa Nova is a style of Brazilian music popularized by Vinicius de Moraes, Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto. Bossa Nova acquired a large following, initially by young musicians and college students. Although the Bossa Nova movement only lasted six years (1958-63), it contributed a number of songs to the standard jazz repertoire. |
| Bothy ballad | Bothy Ballads are songs sung by farm labourers, specifically in the North-East of Scotland. |
| Bouncy techno | Bouncy techno (also known as happy gabber, funcore, or tartan techno - see terminology) is a rave hardcore dance music style that developed from around 1992, mostly emanating from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Originally, it was influenced by the music found in the scene in the north of the United Kingdom (Scotland, North East England and Northern Ireland), where European (mostly from Belgium and Italy) produced techno was widely played. |
| Boy band | A boy band is a type of pop group featuring three or more young male singers. |
| Brass band | A brass band is a musical group generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles which include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands (particularly in the context of New Orleans-style Brass Bands), but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert bands, wind bands or wind ensembles. |
| Brazilian funk | Brazilian Funk, also known as Funk Carioca (which also relates to a 1970's musical style), Favela Funk and, elsewhere in the world, Baile Funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro, derived from and superficially similar to Miami Bass, with deep rapid beats and aggressive vocals. In Rio it is most often simply known as Funk, although it is very different musically from what Funk means in most other places - including Brazil itself. |
| Brazilian jazz | Brazilian jazz is the term for the style of jazz popular or associated with Brazil. The style is sometimes seen as a Brazilian outgrowth of cool jazz as many of the early popularizers of jazz in Brazil were associated with that sub-genre. It was noted for the bossa nova, which mixes samba and jazz, and a greater use of guitar than in North American jazz. |
| Breakbeat | Breakbeat (sometimes breakbeats or breaks) is a term used to describe a collection of sub-genres of electronic music, usually characterized by the use of a non-straightened 4/4 drum pattern (as opposed to the steady beat of house or trance). These rhythms may be characterised by their intensive use of syncopation and polyrhythms. |
| Breakbeat hardcore | Breakbeat hardcore (popularly known as rave music, originally referred to as simply hardcore in the United Kingdom, with oldskool hardcore a common term in the 21st century) is a style of electronic music that primarily uses breakbeats for its rhythm lines. It was an early 1990s offshoot of the acid house scene of late 1980s Britain and was the precursor to various genres including jungle/drum and bass and happy hardcore. |
| Breakcore | Breakcore is a genre of electronic dance music which uses rearranged, cut-up breakbeats to create extreme sounds. Beginning in the mid 1990s breakcore as a genre developed from different styles of music such as drum and bass, hardcore techno, IDM, mashup, industrial and noise. |
| Brill Building Pop | named after New York's Brill Building at 1619 Broadway |
| Britfunk | Brit funk is a music style that has its origins in the British music scene of the late 1970s-80s. It mixes elements from funk and soul music with original jazz funk music and Caribbean over tones. |
| Britpop | Britpop was a mid-1990s British alternative rock genre and movement. The movement emerged from the indie scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. |
| British blues | The British blues is a type of blues music that originated in the late 1950s. American blues musicians like B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf were massively popular in Britain at the time. |
| British dance band | British Dance bands evolved a unique style of popular jazz and dance music during the 1920's and 1930's that evolved in British dance halls and hotel ballrooms thousands of miles away from the true origins of jazz. |
| British Invasion | The British Invasion was the term applied by the news media - and subsequently by consumers - to the influx of rock and roll, beat and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States, Australia and Canada. |
| Broadside ballad | Broadsides were written by hand before the invention of the printing press, and only grew extremely popular after they could be cheaply reproduced. Broadside ballads were sold by traveling chapmen and peddlers, at shops and stalls at markets, and were pasted on walls or other locations before being learned; after the words had been committed to memory, the broadside was replaced or pasted by another. |
| Broken beat | Broken beat is an electronic music genre first appearing at the end of the 20th century and pioneered by Goya Music Distribution. |
| Brown-eyed soul | Brown-eyed soul is a subgenre of soul music or rhythm and blues created in the United States mainly by Italian Americans and Latinos during the 1950s and thriving into the 1980s. The genre of soul music occasionally draws from Latin and Italian folk music, and often contains rock music influences. |
| Brukdown | Brukdown is a genre of Belizean music. Its most well-known performer and innovator, Wilfred Peters is regarded as a Belizean national icon. |
| Brutal prog | Brutal prog is a music sub-genre that describes a more extreme, more d.i.y. punk influenced form of progressive rock. The term was coined by Weasel Walter of The Flying Luttenbachers. Brutal prog is more concerned with intensity, dissonance and odd time signatures than the standard progressive rock form, and is gaining in popularity. |
| Bubblegum dance | Bubblegum dance (also known as happy house) is a type of Euro House a.k.a. Eurodance music that usually has silly lyrics and happy sounds. Bubblegum dance usually has a more Pop sound than other Eurodance. The lyrics and style are often silly and should not be taken seriously, but are often amusing and cheerful. |
| Bubblegum pop | Bubblegum pop (also known as bubblegum rock, bubblegum music, youth music, or simply bubblegum) is a genre of pop music. Some of the defining characteristics of bubblegum pop include catchy melodies, simple three chord structures, simple harmonies, danceable beats, and repetitive riffs or "hooks". |
| Bikutsi | Bikutsi is a musical genre from Cameroon. It developed from the traditional styles of the Beti, or Ewondo, people, who live around the city of Yaounde. The word 'bikutsi' literally means 'beat the earth' or 'let's beat the earth' (bi- indicates a plural, -kut- means 'to beat' and -si means 'earth'.) The name indicates a dance that is accompanied by stomping the feet on the ground. |
| Bulerias | It originated in Jerez during the 19th century, originally as a fast, upbeat ending to soleares or alegrias (which share the same rhythm and are still often ended this way) . It is among the most popular and dramatic of the flamenco forms and often ends any flamenco gathering. |
| Bumba-meu-boi | See boi |
| Bunraku | Bunraku (文楽), also known as Ningyō jōruri (人形浄瑠璃), is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684. |
| Burger-highlife | Burger-highlife is a distinctive form of highlife music created by Ghanaian immigrants to Germany. It is considered a German musical style. |
| Burgundian School | The Burgundian School is a term used to denote a group of composers active in the 15th century in what is now northern and eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, centered on the court of the Dukes of Burgundy. |
