Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe. As such there is no real body of music which can be accurately described as Celtic, but the term has stuck and may refer to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded popular music. Celtic music saw a revival in the 1980s with the emergence of the Irish group Clannad, who became innovators in the genre by blending their heritage of harmony and melody with the design science of the hi-tech studio.

Celtic music means two things mainly. First, it is the music of the peoples calling themselves Celts (a non-musical, primarily political definition), as opposed to, say, "German music" or "English music." Secondly, it refers to whatever qualities may be unique to the musics of the Celtic Nations (a musical definition). Many (most notably Alan Stivell and Paddy Moloney) claim that the different Celtic musics have much in common while some claim they do not.