Before a certain type of music is made into an official genre, like ‘punk’ or ‘rhythm and blues’, there’s just the music itself – a specific sound with its own cultural backstory.
At what point then do these musical styles get given a neat little name, and who are the people making them up?
We were curious to discover where some of the most well-known and obscure types of music originated, and at what moment in history they were given a title.
From the debate about who first scatted ‘hip hop’, to the journalist who invented ‘heavy metal’ as an insult, take a little musical history trip as we bust the myths behind the names of your favourite strands of music – their true origins are probably stranger than you think and bust a few music myths in the process.
