How to Get Into a Music Genre You’ve Never Listened To

Why a new genre can sound like noise at first

Put on an album from a genre you've never touched and it can sound like somebody else's private joke. The drums land in odd places, the singer won't do what singers are supposed to do, and the song is over before you've worked out where it was heading. That's normal. It doesn't mean the music is bad, and it doesn't mean your ears are broken. Mostly it means you haven't heard enough of it yet for it to make sense.

That last part has a bit of science behind it. According to studies done at Berkeley, when you listen to a new song your brain looks for recognizable patterns. The music blog Obscure Sound takes the idea further and argues that pop is so popular because a lot of listeners can predict where the songs are going, unlike a genre like jazz. The same blog points to studies showing that listening to music makes the brain release dopamine, which makes people feel happy. Which is a nice reason to stick around until the new stuff starts making sense.

In practice, that makes the first listen the worst one to judge a genre on. If you don't like something immediately, that doesn't mean it's bad, so when you can, give some records a chance to grow on you, as one Substack writer puts it in a post about their own listening practice. As a musician you get a bonus on top of the listening. Every pattern your ears learn to follow is one you can borrow, bend or deliberately break in your own songs.

Start with the parts of music you already love

The quickest way in is through a door you already have the key to. Instead of jumping into a completely unrelated style, first pin down the elements you already enjoy: heavy bass, strong percussion, emotional lyrics, experimental production, acoustic instrumentation or a particular vocal tone. That list comes from a guide on the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance blog, and musicians have a head start with it, because you already know what you reach for when you write. If every song you make ends up built on a big, rolling bass line, that's a clue. If you're the one in the band who keeps asking for more space around the vocal, that's another.

Once you know your favourite ingredients, look for adjacent genres, the ones next door. They're especially useful because they share history or sonic characteristics with styles you already know. So you don't leap from your comfort zone straight to the far side of the map. You cross on stepping stones: from what you already love, to a next-door genre that keeps one of those ingredients, and only then on to the new genre you were curious about in the first place.

Stepping stones also help when a genre seems to put you off as a whole. Try two or three of its substyles side by side, rather than one random album. You may discover you don't dislike the genre at all; you simply prefer one substyle within it. That's a far more useful thing to find out, because it tells you where to keep listening instead of where to stop.

Give it enough listens, in the right shape

Your first impression needs more than one song to go on. Hear at least three tracks before deciding whether a style is for you, and don't stop at singles: they're helpful for quick sampling, but albums often reveal a genre more accurately. A single is the song picked to grab you. An album also shows you the slow ones, the weird ones and the bits in between.

Then comes repetition. Play the new genre over and over, three to four times a week, until you get the hang of it; that's the advice from Obscure Sound. The conservatory guide suggests a wider routine: pick two or three genres each month and rotate through playlists, albums, live sets and artist interviews related to them. These two ideas pull in slightly different directions. Three or four plays a week of one album is depth; three genres a month is breadth. If you want to learn a style well enough to play in it, lean towards depth. If you're mostly hunting for fresh ideas, breadth gives you more to pick from.

Changing how you listen helps as much as changing what you listen to. To get out of a musical rut, swap some album streaming for a public or internet radio station, a DJ mix or a few playlists. Live performance deserves a slot too. If you can't get to a show, try live sessions, Tiny Desk performances, NPR Music features, Boiler Room sets and concert films. For musicians these are gold, because you can see who's playing what, and a baffling sound on a record can turn out to be something you could have a go at yourself. And if you can travel, some festivals exist for exactly this kind of curiosity: Open Ear, held every year on Sherkin Island off the coast of County Cork in Ireland, focuses on experimental and avant-garde music.

If you need a regular nudge, Fridays are handy. Friday is the music industry's set new release day, although artists can and do release music on any day of the week. Pitchfork publishes a piece every Friday called “New Albums You Should Listen to Now”, which covers a wide breadth of albums. Picking one record a week from a list like that, from a genre you'd normally skip, is a simple habit to keep.

Treat genre names as signposts, not walls

There are a lot of signposts out there: Spotify says there are thousands of genres, with new ones created each year. Rather than working through a list, use a map. Every Noise at Once, built by The Echo Nest's genre expert Glenn McDonald, is a map of the genre space, so you can see the stepping stones laid out in front of you and pick the one next to where you already are.

Genre names are made up by people, often for very practical reasons. Seymour Stein of Sire Records came up with “new wave” to market the bands he was signing fresh off the stage at CBGB's, according to the Ringo Dreams newsletter. If a label puts you off, skip the label and go straight to the songs filed under it. The same goes the other way when you share your own music: the genre you tag your song with is a hint for listeners, not a promise you have to keep.

Bring something home to your own songs

The listening is the fun part, but what makes it count for you as a musician is what you carry back. After a few weeks with a new genre, sit down with your own song and ask one small question: what did that music do that mine doesn't? Maybe it leaves more silence. Maybe the drums sit back and the bass leads. You don't have to switch genres to borrow one idea, and you don't have to like a whole genre to pinch its best trick.

That patience works in the other direction too. When you share a song with a friend or a relative that's a bit outside what they usually hear, they're where you were on your first listen of something new: looking for patterns and not finding them yet. A second play, or a little context about how the song came together, can help. For some of that context in one place, here's what musicians wish listeners knew about how their songs get made. And if, after a month of honest listening, a genre still leaves you cold? That's allowed. You gave it a fair go.

See how songs get made, from the musician's side. Read: What Musicians Wish Listeners Knew About How Their Songs Get Made

Sources

1. How to get into a new genre of music? – obscuresound.com
2. Infinite Queue: One Person's Practice for Listening to New Music – anotherthoughtanotherthought.substack.com
3. How to Explore New Music Genres in 2026: A Practical Guide to Finding Your Next Favorite Sound – SFCOfDance – sfconservatoryofdance.org
4. Open Ear Festival – Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org
5. listening genres Archives — Spotify – newsroom.spotify.com
6. Learn about a new genre every day – by Paul – musicmachinery.substack.com
7. Ringo 031: Embrace the Genre – by Michael Donaldson – ringodreams.substack.com