| Style | Description |
|---|
| Merseybeat | See beat music |
| Metal | See Heavy metal music |
| Metalcore | Metalcore is a fusion genre that incorporates elements of thrash metal, Alternative metal, melodic death metal and hardcore punk. |
| Mexican son | a broad group of Mexican folk music |
| Mezwed | Mezwed is a genre of popular traditional music based on oriental rhythms, believed by Tunisians to be completely different from Egyptian Saahbi music. It incorporates traditional Tunisian drums called Darbouka and a kind of flute called a Zokra which is made from ewe's leather. Usually sang in a local (Tunisian) dialect of Arabic. |
| Miami bass (booty bass) | Miami bass (also known as booty music, a term that may also include other genres, such as dirty rap), is a type of hip hop music that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. |
| Miami Sound | a popular form of salsa music |
| Microhouse | Microhouse, Minimal house, Buftech or sometimes just minimal, is a subgenre of house and glitch music. |
| Mini-jazz | Mini-jazz is a type of jazz music characterized by swing dancing and jazzy melodies with influences from rock music. Predominant in Haiti in the 1970s, its popularity has waned since the 1990s. Marco Bottura is a major artist in the mini-jazz era. Mini-jazz typically includes a small jazz orchestra ensemble. |
| Minuet | A minuet, sometimes spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two persons, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted, under the influence of the Italian minuetto, from the French menuet, meaning small, pretty, delicate, a diminutive of menu, from the Latin minutus; menuetto is a word that occurs only on musical scores. The word refers probably to the short steps, pas menus, taken in the dance. |
| Milongas | Milonga is an Argentinian, Uruguayan and southern Brazilian form of music, as dance, as the term for the place where tango is danced. The term milonga comes from the Bantu languages of Africa, an expression that means "lyrics". |
| Min'yo | Min'yō (民謡) is a genre of traditional Japanese music. The term is a translation of the German word "Volkslied" (folk song) and has only been in use during the twentieth century. |
| Mini-jazz | Mini-jazz is a type of jazz music characterized by swing dancing and jazzy melodies with influences from rock music. Predominant in Haiti in the 1970s, its popularity has waned since the 1990s. Marco Bottura is a major artist in the mini-jazz era. Mini-jazz typically includes a small jazz orchestra ensemble. |
| Minimalist trance | See Progressive psytrance |
| Minstrel show | The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the American Civil War, African Americans in blackface. |
| Minneapolis sound | The Minneapolis sound is a hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, R&B & new wave that was masterminded by Prince in the late 1970s. Its popularity was given a boost throughout the 1980s, thanks to his musical adherents, including The Time, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Morris Day, Vanity 6, Apollonia 6, Ta Mara & the Seen, Sheila E., Jesse Johnson, Mazarati, & The Family. |
| Mittelalter-rock | See Medieval rock |
| Modern classical music | 20th century classical music begins with the late Romantic style of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Impressionism of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, American Vernacular music of Charles Ives and George Gershwin, and continues through the Neoclassicism of middle-period Igor Stravinsky, the twelve-tone music of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. |
| Modern Laika | "Modern Laika" is traditional Greek music mixed in with modern music and other genres such as pop and dance. One of the first artists' in Greece to pioneer this was Anna Vissi. She introduced rock in the early 1990s and dance in the early 2000s. |
| Modern rock | Modern rock is term commonly used to describe a rock music format found on American commercial radio. Generally beginning with late 1970s punk but referring especially to rock music since the 1980s, the phrase "modern rock" is used to differentiate the music from "classic rock", which focuses upon music recorded in the 1960s and 1970s. |
| Modinha | A modinha is a kind of sentimental love song. The modinha is of uncertain origin, but it may have evolved in either Brazil or Portugal. |
| Mohabelo | neo-traditional music from South Africa and Lesotho |
| Momedy | Momedy is a music genre. The term Momedy, is a combination of the words Musical and Comedy. It was first suggested as a genre by Australian Momedy group - Tripod. |
| Mor lam | Mor lam is an ancient Lao form of song in Laos and Isan. Mor lam means expert song, or expert singer, referring to the music or artist respectively. |
| Mor lam sing | popular form of Laotian traditional music developed by Laotians in Thailand |
| Morna | Morna is a genre of Cape Verdean music, related to Portuguese fado, Brazilian modinha, Argentinian tango, and Angolan lament. Lyrics are usually in Cape Verdean Creole, and instrumentation often includes cavaquinho, clarinet, accordion, violin, piano, and guitar. |
| Moshcore | Moshcore--also known as beatdown hardcore, heavy hardcore, and tough guy hardcore--is the most simple form of metalcore. It is mainly characterized by the breakdowns and strong, brutal vocals. |
| Mozambique | Mozambique (pron.: mo.sam.'βi.ke) is a vigorous style of Cuban music and dance similar to pachanga, except faster paced. It does not originate in the country of the same name. |
| MPB (música popular brasileira) | catch-all term for multiple varieties of Brazilian pop music |
| Mugam | classical music of Azerbaijan, featuring sung poetry and instrumental passages |
| Murga | Uruguayan street carnival dance with heavy percussion, also popular in Argentina. |
| Musette | Musette can refer to a style of French popular music featuring the accordion, which flourished in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. |
| Mushroom Jazz | Mushroom Jazz is a series of 5 musical compilations released between 1997-2005 by American DJ and Producer Mark Farina. Farina Combines elements of downtempo, hip hop, jazz and r&b, beatmatching and mixing songs together in the style of house music. |
| Music drama | Music drama is the term ascribed to the revolutionary medium of artistic expression created by the German composer Richard Wagner. This was a musical dramatic work for the theatre, where the music does not stop and is a part of the emotional telling of sung drama. |
| Music Hall | Music hall is a form of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to the type of popular music normally associated with such performances. |
| Música campesina | Cuban rural music |
| Música criolla | Musica criolla is a Peruvian genre of music, which combines mainly African, Spanish and Andean influences. The most popular style of musica criolla in Perú is the marinera, said to be the national dance of Perú. |
| Música de la interior | indigenous folk music from Colombia |
| Música llanera | harp-based form of folk music from Los Llanos, Colombia |
| Música nordestina | Northeast Brazilian popular music, centered around Recife |
| Música tropical | Salsa music is a diverse and predominantly Spanish Caribbean genre that is popular across Latin America and among Latinos abroad. Salsa incorporates multiple styles and variations; the term can be used to describe most any form of popular Cuban-derived genre, such as chachachá and mambo. |
| Musiqi-e assil | Persian traditional music (also known as Iranian traditional music, Musiqi-e Sonati-e Irani, also Persian classical music or Iranian classical music, Musiqi-e Assil-e Irani) is the traditional and indigenous music of Iran and Persian-speaking countries: musiqi, the science and art of music, and moosiqi, the sound and performance of music (Sakata 1983). |
| Musique concrète (or electroacoustic music) | Musique concrète (French; literally, "concrete music"), is a style of avant-garde music that relies on natural environmental sounds and other non-inherently-musical noises to create music. |
| Muwashshah | Muwashshah or muwaššah is an Arab poetic form and an eastern secular musical genre which uses muwaššah texts for lyrics. The poetic form is also used in Andalusi nubah and is similarly of Al-Andalus origin. In Maghrib the term refers to the poetic form, while in Mashriq it refers to the "poetic-musical product in its entirety." In North Africa poets ignore the strict rules of Arab meter while the poets in the East follow them. |
| Muzak | See elevator music |
