Spotify Pie Chart

  1. Genres
  2. Alternative & Indie

Experimental

Experimental is an umbrella term for music that deliberately breaks the usual rules of melody, rhythm, structure or sound.

Rather than one style, it describes an approach found across rock, electronic, jazz, classical and pop. Artists may use unusual instruments, found sounds, noise, chance, extreme length or silence, or studio and computer techniques in unexpected ways. The term goes back to mid-20th-century composers such as John Cage. As a genre tag it marks artists whose work is too unconventional to file neatly elsewhere.

Family
Alternative & Indie
On Spotify
A current genre
What it is
A broad heading
From
United States and Europe, mid-20th century
Also called
experimental music
Trackify listeners who play it
3%

About 2,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have experimental among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.

Experimental artists

The experimental artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.

Sources

The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.