A historicist approach of music genres. Recent journalistic discourses have announced "the end of music genres", while common sense tends to perceive the latter as imposed categories, restricting the freedom of both artists and audiences In contrast to this preconceived idea, this special issue of Volume! draws on a historicist approach of the phenomenon to discuss the formation and development of music genres such as disco and dance, traditional music, heavy metal, dungeon synth, urban music, indie and progressive rock. Overall, the different papers pinpoint the powerful tool the concept of music genre can be to analyse the interconnection of musical sound and music's social meanings.