Pop music

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Pop is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.[4] The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which pop became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.

Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles such as rock, urban, dance, Latin, and country.

Definitions and etymology[edit]

David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk musics".[5] According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music".[3] David Boyle, a music researcher, states pop music as any type a music that a person has been exposed to by the mass media. [6] Most individuals think that pop music is just the singles charts and not the sum of all chart music. The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to exist and develop separately.[7] Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults".[4][9]

Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class."[10] The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".[11] Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues, and hillbilly music.[12]

The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that the term "pop" refers to music performed by such artists as the Rolling Stones (pictured here in a 2006 performance).

According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience [...] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc."[13] Grove Music Online also states that "[...] in the early 1960s, [the term] 'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music [in England], while in the US its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of 'rock and roll'".[2]

From about 1967, the term “pop music” was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.[14] While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,[14] pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.[15] According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers, and concert promoters) rather than being made from below ... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged".[4]

References[edit]

  1. Traditional Pop, Allmusic.com. Retrieved 25 August 2016
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 R. Middleton, et al., "Pop", Grove music online, retrieved 14 March 2010. (subscription required) Archived 13 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  3. 3.0 3.1 Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 1 – Play A Simple Melody: Pete Seeger on the origins of pop music" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Firth2001
  5. D. Hatch and S. Millward, From Blues to Rock: an Analytical History of Pop Music (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), ISBN 0-7190-1489-1, p. 1.
  6. Boyle, J. David; Hosterman, Glenn L.; Ramsey, Darhyl S. (1981-04-01). "Factors Influencing Pop Music Preferences of Young People". Journal of Research in Music Education. 29 (1): 47–55. doi:10.2307/3344679. ISSN 0022-4294.
  7. R. Serge Denisoff and William L. Schurk, Tarnished Gold: the Record Industry Revisited (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 3rd edn., 1986), ISBN 0-88738-618-0, pp. 2–3.
  8. Moore, Allan F. (2016). Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-05265-4.
  9. Musicologist Allan Moore surmises that the term "pop music" itself may have been popularized by Pop art.[8]
  10. Lamb, Bill (29 September 2018). "What Is Pop Music?". ThoughtCo.
  11. J. Simpson and E. Weiner, Oxford English Dictionary(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). ISBN 0-19-861186-2, cf. pop.
  12. D. Hatch and S. Millward, From Blues to Rock: an Analytical History of Pop Music, ISBN 0-7190-1489-1, p. 49.
  13. "Pop", The Oxford Dictionary of Music, retrieved 9 March 2010.(subscription required) Archived 12 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  14. 14.0 14.1 Kenneth Gloag in The Oxford Companion to Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ISBN 0-19-866212-2, p. 983.
  15. T. Warner, Pop Music: Technology and Creativity: Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), ISBN 0-7546-3132-X, pp. 3–4.