Reading the other active thread reminded me that Servant asked me to do this years ago. This is a compilation, with a few new additions, of a couple documents I made a few semesters ago for my college radio station. A lot of these genres have subgenres that I don't distinguish because I'm not that familiar with their respective scenes. I also realize I'm missing some pretty important subgenres of metal. My excuse is I don't know enough about the subgenre or was too lazy to find the examples. Enjoy it for what its worth. Chat later.

Ska: rock with brass or wind instruments, sometimes has swing influence
Christian Artists: Five Iron Frenzy, The W’s, early Supertones
Secular Artists: The Aquabats, Goldfinger, Less than Jake

Techno: completely electronically manufactured music either by computers, synthesizers, or mix boards, subgenres include House, Drum and Bass, Synthpop, Ambient, and Trance to name a few (I’d define the different subgenres but am not into that culture enough to know the differences)
Christian Artists: World Wide Message Tribe, The Echoing Green, Joy Electric
Secular Artists: Fatboy Slim, Darude, ATB, Dirty Vegas

Rap (aka Hip Hop): some distinguish between the two with Hip Hop being poppier and catchier while rap is simpler and the lyrical message is emphasized, generally has a strong beat with rapping vocals
Christian Artists: Cross Movement, Blood Related, John Reuben, KJ-52
Secular Artists: Eminem, 50 Cent, Jay Z

Punk: fast simple repetitive rock, vocals are aggressive
Christian Artists: MxPx, Dogwood, One 21, Eleventyseven
Secular Artists: Flogging Molly, Rancid, NOFX

Pop Punk: catchier poppier punk
Christian Artists: Relient K, FM Static, Hawk Nelson
Secular Artists: Green Day, Blink 182, Good Charlotte

Soft Rock: quieter softer rock sound
Christian Artists: Jars of Clay, Phil Joel
Secular Artists: Elton John, Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow

Worship/Praise: soft rock or rock with highly religious/spiritual/evangelical lyrics, can be heard in more contemporary worship services
Christian Artists: Matt Redman, Sonicflood, Chris Tomlin

Pop Rock: poppy, catchy sound, something one would expect to hear on a Top 40 station
Christian Artists: Switchfoot, Newsboys, Superchic[k], Jump 5, Family Force 5
Secular Artists: Backstreet Boys, Avril Lavigne, Aqua

Emo: emo is short for emotional, the common person considers it music focused around emotions (esp. depression and suicide), this does not define a genre, my definition is a form of rock that makes a drastic change in style between verses and choruses, typically going from soft rock to rock or rock to hard rock, the vocals follow getting more passionate or aggressive appropriately, in short the music communicates shifts in emotion
Christian Artists: Mae, Anberlin
Secular Artists: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco

Classic Rock: old rock pre-90s
Christian Artists: Rez Band, Stryper, Whiteheart
Secular Artists: AC/DC, Queen, Led Zepplin

Hard Rock: heavier, more aggressive rock sound, vocals are more aggressive though typically not screaming
Christian Artists: late Skillet, Red, Flyleaf
Secular Artists: Chevelle, Rage Against the Machine, Linkin Park

Metal: the pinnacle of rock, highly technical, often chaotic, strong emphasis on guitar work, screaming voice becomes more of an instrument than a communicator of comprehensible meaning, has many subgenres that emphasize different aspects of metal sound, Metal encompasses the subgenres of Post-Hardcore, Metalcore, Thrash, Mathcore, Death Metal, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Rap Metal, Industrial, Nu Metal, Emocore, and other smaller harder to define subgenres (the artists will be put with their subgenres)

Rap Metal (aka Rapcore): metal with rap lyrics, can have rap vocals or screaming as long as the lyrics are a rap
Christian Artists: Travail, POD, Thousand Foot Krutch
Secular Artists: Limp Bizkit, Skindred, Nonpoint

Nu Metal: close to Post-Hardcore, but vocals aren’t screaming and at best are yelling, basically aggressive rock vocals to metal music
Christian Artists: early Project 86, Pillar, late Skillet
Secular Artists: Slipknot, Mushroomhead, Korn

Hardcore: add screaming vocals to punk and you have hardcore
Christian Artists: Bloodlined Calligraphy, xDeathStarx, Means
Secular Artists: (couldn’t think of any)

Post-Hardcore (aka Melodic Hardcore): this is the gray area between metal and hardcore, post-hardcore takes more influence from rock and is catchier, more technical than hardcore, neither the vocals nor the guitars are drowning out the other so there is a harmony so to speak between the two
Christian Artists: middle Zao (Parade of Chaos and All Else Failed), early Demon Hunter, Destroy the Runner
Secular Artists: (couldn’t think of any)

Emocore (aka Screamo): change is even more drastic than emo rock going from some form of rock to some form of metal, vocals go from singing or something aggressive to screaming, change occurs like an outburst of emotion
Chirstian Artists: Emery, Showbread, Underoath
Secular Artists: Hawthorne Heights, others I can’t think of

Industrial: Nu Metal/Post-Hardcore combined with techno
Christian Artists: early Skillet, Re:zound, Rackets and Drapes
Secular Artists: Rammstein, Powerman 5000, Marilyn Manson

Black/Death/Doom Metal: not all the same thing but distinctions are beyond this definition, very heavy, highly distorted guitars, low gutteral scream that sounds more like a growl, fast rhythms
Christian Artists: early Living Sacrifice, early Immortal Souls, With Blood Comes Cleansing
Secular Artists: Amon Amarth, Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse

Metalcore: fuses a lot of the different metal subgenres together for a variety of metal sound within the song, even vocalist may change between different types of screams (low growls, mid-range screams, high shrieks), most popular contemporary metal today is Metalcore
Christian Artists: As I Lay Dying, Nodes of Ranvier, Sinai Beach
Secular Artists: Chimaira, Hatebreed, Shadows Fall

Thrash: fast rhythms, highly technical guitar work, guitars tend not to be distorted very much, extremely fast and difficult guitar solos (aka shredding)
Christian Artists: late Immortal Souls, Gunmetal Grey
Secular Artists: Trivium, Sepultura, Demiricous

Mathcore: subgenre of metal core, very discordant sound due to complex time signatures, sounds very chaotic
Christian Artists: Norma Jean, The Chariot, August Burns Red
Secular Artists: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Protest the Hero, Misery Signals

Music is no mere hobby for you.

That's a pretty detailed breakdown. I must be getting old because I don't recognize many of those bands.

Very nice bro. Very nice. Now I have a launching point to expand my musical tastes!

No offense meant, but why go to the effort to label things that are barely different? Don't get me wrong, I listen to all kinds of music but we don't label things that intensely. Not even classical music does that. Don't most of them fit in a general 'alternative' catagory? Classical music does that, ei music 21st century is considered modern music but within that there is neoclassical, neobaroque, technology based tunes, minimalism. But even those are REALLY different. Even an untrained ear could tell them apart. You really had to work to think up the catagories and most people can't tell the difference. Sometimes I think we try to hard to be different and just wind up sounding the same.

It's in the ear of the beholder. Most classical music sounds the same to me that why I turn it off when NPR starts playing it. Those subgenres are very different, but I think people hear metal and it turns them off so fast that it all just sounds the same to them like me and classical. A listening ear is a trained ear, but since no one listens very few people have trained ears. Chat later.

Well, that's a little to cynical for me.

When I was younger I was a music encyclopedia. Of course, back then it was a different type of music, but I was one of those guys that could hear a note and instantly recognize the song, the singer, the band, the album it was on, if there were any significant players in the band and multiple other types of music trivia. I was the music man for much of my youth.

But now, some 30 years later (or thereabouts), though I still LOVE music, I have neither the time nor inclincation to devote the kind of time required to keep up on such information. These days, I simply like listening to what I like to listen to. And, like Amanda, I keep my genres simple. Classic Rock, Alternative Rock, Country, R&B, Jazz and the like. No real sub-genres with possibly one exception- Country Rock (I'm a BIG Marshall Tucker fan!).

Yeah, these days I gotta keep things simple.

I was only making the point that just like I don't listen to classical my ear isn't trained to distinguish the subgenres of it and likewise with most people and metal. I don't care if you or anyone including myself doesn't like or appreciate certain genres of music. We all have only so much time to devote to things. Even music nerds can't appreciate every genre and subgenre; that'd be a full time job. Chat later.

I'm trying to decide whether to be offened or not lol. I think the term subgenre helps bc the main genre is easy for anyone to pick but all that stuff you listed one would really have to sit around and analyze to notice the difference.

Dogwood can go in the christian thrash

and Job for a Cowboy can go in your secular screamo catagory.

and, norma jean isn't really mathcore in their earlier albums... just my opinion tho :p awesome list though. And, i think blindside could go in your 'emo' genre, particularily their new album 'The Great Depression'

sorry for double post.

Welcome to the forums. Dogwood is punk through and through. The only time Norma Jean wasn't mathcore was when they were Luti-Kriss. I've considered them mathcore from the time Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child came out. JFAC has changed genres since they began. I don't like their new cd so I don't even know what they are anymore. They've changed genres since Doom. The list wasn't meant to be exhaustive only to provide the most popular examples I could think of. Chat later.