Charts · Genre coverage analysis
Mixcloud only publishes charts for a set list of genres. This looks at what creators in our top-price countries are actually uploading, finds genres popular enough to deserve a chart but that don’t have one, and asks whether that leaves those creators shut out of the charts or just lumped into a bigger one.
Mixcloud only publishes a chart for genres on a fixed list. If a creator’s genre isn’t on that list, their shows can’t appear in a chart of their own.
We found about 160 established genres that people are actively uploading right now but that have no chart. Most already turn up inside a bigger genre’s chart, so their own chart would mainly help fans find them. A couple of scenes have nowhere to appear at all, and a chart there genuinely opens a door.
17 of these genres are already busy enough to fill a chart today, and switching one on is just a setting, with no new engineering needed. Everything below is the evidence behind those numbers.
The core finding
The surprising part: the genres with the most activity usually aren’t the ones leaving creators with nowhere to chart. A missing chart means one of two things, and each needs a different response.
These creators only use genres that have no chart at all, so they can’t appear in any chart, anywhere. Giving their genre a chart genuinely opens a door for them.
These are busy genres, but their creators also tag a bigger genre that does have a chart (like Techno or House), so they already chart, just in a broad, crowded one. A dedicated chart mainly helps people find them.
Recommendation 1 · Ship now
Established genres with no chart of their own that already pull enough uploads to fill one, measured worldwide over the last two weeks (the same count our own system uses to decide how big a chart should be). Enabling one is a setting we already control: no new genre, no engineering. The bar is uploads in the last 14 days; Earns is the chart size that many uploads unlocks under the same rule (more uploads, longer chart: 10, 20, 50 or 100 slots); and the Markets column shows which pass that bar in our top-price countries on their own (we label these ‘Tier-1’), and which only reach it once the whole world is counted.
Not hand-picked. This is every established genre with no chart that clears our own rule for creating a chart, more than 20 uploads in 14 days, measured worldwide: 17 of them. The Tier-1 flag marks the 8 that also clear that bar in our top-price countries on their own, so they carry the most commercial weight. Every other active genre either isn’t an established genre yet (Recommendation 2) or is too quiet to fill a weekly chart (see the appendix).
| Genre | Under | Uploads (14 days) | Creators | Earns | Markets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| melodic techno | Techno | 403 | chart of 100 | Tier-1 | |
| organic house | House | 207 | chart of 100 | Tier-1 | |
| Hypnotic Techno | Techno | 183 | chart of 100 | Tier-1 | |
| Peak-time Techno | Techno | 166 | chart of 100 | Tier-1 | |
| minimal house | House | 117 | chart of 50 | Tier-1 | |
| Hardgroove | Techno | 98 | chart of 50 | Tier-1 | |
| Modern soul | R&B / Soul | 76 | chart of 50 | Tier-1 | |
| Gospel House | House | 62 | chart of 20 | Worldwide | |
| Dark Disco | Disco | 29 | chart of 20 | Tier-1 | |
| schranz | Techno | 48 | chart of 20 | Worldwide | |
| Pop soul | Pop | 30 | chart of 20 | Worldwide | |
| psytech | Techno | 44 | chart of 20 | Worldwide | |
| FUTURE RAVE | EDM | 39 | chart of 20 | Worldwide | |
| Deep Dubstep | Dubstep | 27 | chart of 10 | Worldwide | |
| piano house | House | 27 | chart of 10 | Worldwide | |
| Jump blues | Blues | 18 | chart of 10 | Worldwide | |
| Bebop | Jazz | 19 | chart of 10 | Worldwide |
Two patterns: the 7 busiest are all Tier-1 wins too (led by melodic techno and organic house), and modern techno dominates the top, a whole vocabulary funnelled into the one broad Techno chart. All 17 are more specific styles inside a bigger genre that already has a chart (except Modern soul, whose R&B / Soul parent does not), so a chart here mainly helps fans find these styles rather than giving them their first place to chart at all.
Does it hold up · over longer periods
The list above comes from a single two-week window, so we re-ran it two more ways: over 90 days, and ranked by listening instead of uploads. Three things came out.
17 established genres pull enough weekly uploads to fill a chart today. Widen to 90 days and ~160 show real activity but no chart of their own. Most are more specific styles inside a bigger genre that already has a chart: Bebop and Modal jazz inside Jazz, Nu metal and Sludge metal inside Metal, Texas country inside Country, Gospel House and piano house inside House. So a chart here mostly helps fans find these styles rather than giving them their first place to chart, since a show tagged with both the style and its parent genre already appears in the parent’s chart.
Whether you look at two weeks, three months, or by listening, the same ten rank near the top. The safest bets: melodic techno, organic house, Hypnotic Techno, Peak-time Techno, minimal house, Hardgroove, Modern soul, Gospel House, piano house, Pop soul.
Summer tags (summer, ibiza, festival, party, pride) only appear because it’s August, so treat them as seasonal, not permanent. Ranking by listening finds quieter but well-loved niches (Spiritual Jazz, slow jams, quiet storm), and also vibe tags (underground, chill) that get plays but aren’t genres. Rule of thumb: a real genre has many creators each played a little; a vibe or a label is a few shows played a lot.
A made-up or non-music tag is never an established genre, so the simplest way to get the full list of charts we could turn on is to look only at established genres that have no chart (594 of them) and see which are active. There’s no messy tags to filter out, because none can get onto that list in the first place. It returns ~160 genres with real recent activity, and that is the definitive list of charts we could simply switch on. The core of it stays the same whichever time period you use; the seasonal and ‘vibe’ cautions below only matter when spotting brand-new genres to add.
Reality check · week to week
A live chart is rebuilt from just the last 7 days of uploads, so a genre needs a steady stream of uploads every week, not just a busy few months. Two findings decide whether the ~160 pass that test.
All 17 in the ship-now table above clear our own rule for a chart (more than 20 uploads in 14 days, worldwide), so each fills a weekly chart on its own. The 8 flagged Tier-1 also clear it in our top-price markets, making them the highest-confidence, most commercial adds. These are the no-regrets moves.
The other ~140 would run quiet, a few uploads a week. That is well below the typical live chart (the middle chart gets about 28 a week), but it matches the quietest fifth of the charts we already run: ~120 of the 560 current charts get fewer than 10 a week, and a handful (dub step, UK Drill, Grindcore) had zero this week. So this quieter group is no worse than today’s thinnest charts. Adding it means accepting charts that thin.
melodic techno gets 532 uploads in the two-week window we use to size a chart: more than five times the bar for a full chart of 100, and busier than almost every genre that already has a chart of its own. It is a more specific style within Techno (which has a chart), so its shows fold into the broad Techno chart, but it has no chart of its own. For a scene that big, that is the single clearest case of a big audience with no chart to call its own.
The evidence · who is shut out
Creators whose every qualifying show is tagged only with genres that have no chart, so they can’t appear in any chart at all. This is a deliberately small slice of a genre’s total creators (the ship-now table counts everyone), and the size of the slice is the point: it separates creators who would gain a genuine first way into the charts from those who already chart somewhere else.
These are shut-out counts, not totals. melodic techno has 1,294 creators overall but only 9 with nowhere else to chart, because the rest already chart via Techno; so its chart adds discoverability, while the shut-out scenes (anime, ecstatic dance) gain access. The anime labels (anime / anison / vocaloid) are one scene split across a few names, as are the dance labels; each creator is counted once.
Recommendation 2 · Investigate
Where the demand lives
Breaking it down by country shows scenes that get lost in the worldwide totals.
Top or near the top in 11 of our top-price markets. Not a niche. It’s everywhere.
Melodic, hypnotic, peak-time, hardgroove and schranz: a whole wave of modern techno, none of it charting.
Led by anime, anison and Vocaloid: a distinct national scene with no chart at all.
Rare groove and modern soul pull real listens, under a layer of non-genre tags.
How to read this
Worth keeping separate: a lot of “nowhere to chart” creators aren’t blocked by a missing chart at all: they tag with their show name, a format (Radio Show, Mixtape) or their software (Rekordbox) instead of a genre. That’s about how people tag their uploads, not about which charts exist.
Appendix · how often & how many
Two views of the same question: how busy are these genres? Each row is an activity level, busiest at the top, and each bar shows the share of that group sitting at that level (worldwide, over 90 days). The honest read on both: genres that already chart skew busy and broad, candidates cluster small, and they overlap only at the quiet end. Under each row, the blue names are example genres that already chart and the coral names are example candidates, busiest first. Tags that aren’t really genres are left out of the examples.
Uploads per week
Unique creators per genre