The moat
A type chart written by history
Genre is the type. Every strength cites the actual event or lineage behind it — a card game only a music nerd could design.
Grunge▶Hair MetalSuper ×2.0
Nevermind (1991) ended the Sunset Strip hair-metal era almost overnight.
Punk▶DiscoSuper ×2.0
Disco Demolition Night — Comiskey Park, July 12, 1979. Crates of disco were detonated between games; the backlash gutted disco's mainstream inside a year.
Hip-Hop▶SoulDrain ×1.5
Soul and funk breaks are the sampled DNA of hip-hop — it drains what it was built from.
Hip-Hop▶DiscoDrain ×1.5
Hip-hop was born in the Bronx from DJs breaking and looping disco and funk records — it absorbs their power.
New Wave▶DiscoSuper ×1.5
Synth-driven new wave filled the airtime disco left behind as it collapsed in the early '80s.
Punk▶Prog RockSuper ×1.5
Punk was a direct revolt against prog's side-long, over-produced excess.
Teen-Pop▶GrungeSuper ×1.5
The late-'90s TRL pop wave buried the grunge sound commercially.
Rock▶Prog RockSuper ×1.3
Straight-ahead rock always pulled listeners back from prog's excess.
Soul▶Hip-HopResist ×0.8
Hip-hop reveres its soul roots; soul takes reduced damage from its own descendants.
Reggae▶PunkAlly — resists
The Clash and the 2-Tone movement — cross-pollination, not conflict. These two shield each other.
The types
Twelve genres
Disco
Four on the floor. Ruled the '70s, then became the target.
Grunge
Flannel and feedback out of the Pacific Northwest.
Hair Metal
Sunset Strip spandex and stadium choruses.
Hip-Hop
Built from the breaks of everyone else's records.
Jazz
The improviser's art. The most-studied wax there is.
New Wave
Synths and skinny ties filling the void disco left.
Prog Rock
Side-long suites and 7/8 time signatures.
Punk
Three chords and the truth. Built to tear things down.
Reggae
Kingston basslines that crossed every border.
Rock
The broad church everything else splintered from.
Soul
Church-raised voices and Motown precision.
Teen-Pop
TRL-era hooks engineered for maximum reach.