Noise Music
Noise music is experimental music made mainly from noise itself, such as feedback, distortion, static and harsh electronic sounds, instead of melody and rhythm.
Its ideas go back to the Italian Futurists of the 1910s, and it became a distinct underground practice in the late 1970s and 1980s, with Japan as a major center. Performers use overloaded amplifiers, contact microphones, tape, broken electronics and effects pedals to build dense, often very loud walls of sound. Unlike noise rock or noise pop, it usually has no songs, beats or tunes.
Artists it is known for: Merzbow, Whitehouse, Masonna.
- Family
- Alternative & Indie
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- Europe and Japan, 1910s roots, late 1970s as a scene
- Also called
- noise
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 5%
About 4,000 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have noise music among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Noise Music artists
Stray Kids
ATEEZ
P1Harmony
NCT 127
Xdinary Heroes
NCT DREAM
MONSTA X
NCT U
WayV
EVERGLOWThe noise music 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.