Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.[1] 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 music 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.
Traditional pop (also known as classic pop and pre-rock and roll pop) is Westernpopular music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standardsorAmerican standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "Great American Songbook". More generally, the term "standard" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
AllMusic defines traditional pop as "post-big band and pre-rock & roll pop music".[2]
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s.[3]Itoriginated from black American music such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, rhythm and blues,[4] as well as country music.[5] While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s[6] and in country records of the 1930s,[5] the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.[7]
House-pop (sometimes also called "pop-house")[8] is a crossover of house and dance-pop music that emerged in early '90s.[9] The genre was came for make house music more radio friendly.[10] The characteristic of house-pop is similar to diva house music, like over-the-top vocal acrobatics, bubbly synth riffs, and four-on-the-floor rhythm. House-pop also has hip-hop influence.[9]
Pop soul / Motown is a genre of soul music that has upbeat tempo and given a commercially viable, crossover production.[12] The vocals are still raw, but the material and the sound of the record could easily fit onto pop radio stations' playlists. Motown was the pioneering label of pop soul, and through much of the 1960s, it was one of the most popular pop music genres. In the 1970s, pop soul became slicker, and it eventually metamorphosed into disco.[13]Luther Vandross is an example of pop soul musician.[14]
^Christ-Janer, Albert, Charles W. Hughes, and Carleton Sprague Smith, American Hymns Old and New (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 364, ISBN0-231-03458-X.
^ abPeterson, Richard A. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity (1999), p. 9, ISBN0-226-66285-3.
^Davis, Francis. The History of the Blues (New York: Hyperion, 1995), ISBN0-7868-8124-0.
^"The Roots of Rock 'n' Roll 1946–1954". 2004. Universal Music Enterprises.
