Pop music



This article is about a specific music genre. For popular music in general, see Popular music. For other uses, see Pop music (disambiguation).
Pop music
Stylistic origins Rock and roll • Jazz • Doo-wop • Folk • Dance music
Cultural origins 1950s, United States and United Kingdom
Typical instruments Vocals • Electric guitar • Bass guitar • Drums • Keyboards• Acoustic Guitar • Synthesizer • Drum machine • Sequencer • Sampler
Mainstream popularity Continuous worldwide since emergence
Subgenres
Baroque pop • Bubblegum pop • Dance-pop • Electropop • Europop • Indie pop • Operatic pop • Power pop • Sophisti-pop • Space age pop • Sunshine pop • Teen pop
Fusion genres
Country pop • Disco • Dream pop • Jangle pop • Pop punk • Pop rap • Pop rock • Psychedelic pop • Technopop • Urban pop
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Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short and simple love songs and utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is particularly associated with the rock and roll and later rock style.

Contents

Definitions

The term "pop song" is first recorded as being used in 1926 in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".[1] According to Grove Music'Online, 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 "[e]arlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience...[,] [s]ince the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non‐classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, perf[ormed] by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Abba, etc."[3]

Hatch and Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz and folk musics" [4]and they state that the "birth of the pop music industry" was with the "discovery of Jimmie Rodgers in 1927"[5]. Hatch and Millward claim that pop music is distinguished from other popular music, such as Hollywood soundtrack music or Tin Pan Alley music in that pop music relies on an "aural tradition" (learning "by ear" from records or other musicians), whereas other popular music forms were transmitted via sheet music. [6]

Grove Music Online also states that "...in the early 1960s [the term] ‘pop music’ competed terminologically with Beat music [in England], while in the USA its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of ‘rock and roll’."[7] Chambers' Dictionary mentions the contemporary usage of the term "pop art" [8]; Grove Music Online states that the "term pop music...seems to have been a spin-off from the terms pop art and pop culture, coined slightly earlier, and referring to a whole range of new, often American, media-culture products".[9]

From about 1967 the term was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.[10] Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music[11], pop was more commercial, ephemeral and accessible.[12] According to Simon Frith pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" and "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste." 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." [13]

Although pop music is often seen as oriented towards the singles charts, as a genre it is not the sum of all chart music, which has always contained songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing and developing separately.[14] Thus "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.[15]

Characteristics

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:[15][16][12][17]

  • a focus on the individual song or singles, rather than on extended works or albums
  • an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology
  • an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities
  • an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance
  • a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments
  • much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms[12]

The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure.[18] Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, and a chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse.[19] The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment.[20] The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.[15]

Harmony in pop music is often "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded."[21] Cliches include the barbershop harmony (e.g., moving from a secondary dominant harmony to a dominant harmony, and then to the tonic), blues scale-influenced harmony, and others[22]. "The influence of the circle-of-fifths paradigm has declined since the mid-1950's. The harmonic languages of rock and soul have moved away from the all-encompassing influence of the dominant function. ...There are other tendencies (perhaps also traceable to the use of a guitar as a composing instrument) -- pedal-point harmonies, root motion by diatonic step, modal harmonic and melodic organization -- that point away from functional tonality and toward a tonal sense that is less directional, more free-floating."[23]

Influences and development

Technological developments played an important role in the dissemination of pop music, particularly the 7-inch 45 rpm record (right) and the Compact Disc (above). The 12-inch 33 rpm record (left) was more associated with rock albums than with pop music.

Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music and has recently appropriated spoken passages from rap.[15]

It has also made use of technological innovation. In the 1940s, the development of inexpensive 45 r.p.m. records for singles " revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated" and helped to move pop music to ‘to a record/radio/film star system’ .[24] The 45s were much more durable than the fragile 78 r.p.m. records, which meant that 45s could be "distributed far more easily". [25] This led to a a "market led by pop singles". Another technological change was the widespread availablility of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "[p]op stars had to have a visual presence ".[26] In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers could listen to music outside of the home.[27] By the early 1980s, the "promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of Music Television (MTV)", which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince who had a strong visual appeal".[28]

Other technological innovations that affected pop music were the widespread use of the microphone (in the 1940s) –which allowed a more intimate singing style –[29]; multi-track recording (in the 1960s); and digital sampling as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music.[15] Pop music was also communicated largely through the mass media, including radio, film, TV and, particularly since the 1980s, video.[15]

Pop music has been dominated by the American (and from the mid-1960s British) music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics.[30] Some of these trends (for example Europop) have had a significant impact of the development of the genre.[15]

According to Grove Music Online, "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures".[31] Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music indutry. The "output of the Japanese record industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop, for several years has surpassed in quantity that of every nation except the USA". [32] The "spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing Americanization, homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism, and/or a more general process of globalization" [33].

Notes

  1. ^ J. Simpson and E. Weiner, Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), cf pop.
  2. ^ Richard Middleton, et al. "Pop". Grove Music Online. Accessed March 6, 2010.
  3. ^ "Pop", The Oxford Dictionary of Music . Accessed online on March 9, 2010
  4. ^ Hatch, David and Millward, Stephen. From blues to rock: an analytical history of pop music. p.1
  5. ^ Hatch, David and Millward, Stephen. From blues to rock: an analytical history of pop music. p.49
  6. ^ Hatch, David and Millward, Stephen. From blues to rock: an analytical history of pop music. p.vii
  7. ^ Richard Middleton, et al. "Pop". Grove Music Online. Accessed March 7, 2010.
  8. ^ Chambers' Twentieth Century Dictionary, Chambers 1977, pop.
  9. ^ Richard Middleton, et al. "Pop". Grove Music Online. Accessed March 14, 2010.
  10. ^ Kenneth Gloag in The Oxford Companion to Music, OUP, 2001, p.983
  11. ^ Kenneth Gloag in The Oxford Companion to Music, OUP, 2001, p.983
  12. ^ a b c T. Warner, Pop music: technology and creativity: Trevor Horn and the digital revolution (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 3.
  13. ^ Frith (2001), pp. 95–6.
  14. ^ R. Serge Denisoff, and William L. Schurk. Tarnished gold: the record industry revisited (Transaction Publishers, 3rd edn., 1986), pp. 2–3.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g S. Frith, "Pop Music" in S. Frith, W. Stray and J. Street, The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock (Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 93–108.
  16. ^ "Early Pop/Rock". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=77:283. Retrieved 2009-08-07. 
  17. ^ R. Shuker, Understanding popular music (London: Routledge, 2nd edn., 2001), pp. 8–10.
  18. ^ W. Everett, Expression in Pop-rock Music: A Collection of Critical and Analytical Essays (London: Taylor & Francis, 2000), p. 272.
  19. ^ J. Shepherd, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Performance and production (Continuum, 2003), p. 508.
  20. ^ V. Kramarz, The Pop Formulas: Hamonic Tools of the Hit Makers (Mel Bay Publications, 2007), p. 61.
  21. ^ Winkler, Peter (1978). "Toward a theory of pop harmony", In Theory Only, 4, pp. 3-26.
  22. ^ Sargeant, p.198. cited in Winkler (1978), p.4.
  23. ^ Winkler (1978), p.22.
  24. ^ David Buckley. "Pop" "II. Implications of technology". Grove Music Online. Accessed March 15, 2010.
  25. ^ ibid
  26. ^ ibid
  27. ^ ibid
  28. ^ ibid
  29. ^ David Buckley. "Pop" "II. Implications of technology". Grove Music Online. Accessed March 15, 2010.
  30. ^ J. Kun, Audiotopia: music, race, and America (University of California Press, 2005), p. 201.
  31. ^ Peter Manuel. "Pop. Non-Western cultures 1. Global dissemination. ". Grove Music Online. Accessed March 14, 2010
  32. ^ ibid
  33. ^ ibid

Bibliography

  • Adorno, Theodor W., (1942) "On Popular Music", Institute of Social Research.
  • Bell, John L., (2000) The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song, GIA Publications, ISBN 1579991009
  • Bindas, Kenneth J., (1992) America's Musical Pulse: Popular Music in Twentieth-Century Society, Praeger.
  • Clarke, Donald, (1995) The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, St Martin's Press. http://www.musicweb.uk.net/RiseandFall/index.htm
  • Dolfsma, Wilfred, (1999) Valuing Pop Music: Institutions, Values and Economics, Eburon.
  • Dolfsma, Wilfred, (2004) Institutional Economics and the Formation of Preferences: The Advent of Pop Music, Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Frith, Simon, Straw, Will, Street, John, eds, (2001), The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521556600.
  • Frith, Simon (2004) Popular Music: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, Routledge.
  • Gillet, Charlie, (1970) The Sound of the City. The Rise of Rock and Roll, Outerbridge & Dienstfrey.
  • Hatch, David and Stephen Millward, (1987), From Blues to Rock: an Analytical History of Pop Music. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719014891
  • Johnson, Julian, (2002) Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195146816.
  • Lonergan, David F., (2004) Hit Records, 1950-1975, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0-8108-5129-6.
  • Maultsby, Portia K., (1996) Intra- and International Identities in American Popular Music, Trading Culture.
  • Middleton, Richard, (1990) Studying Popular Music, Open University Press.
  • Negus, Keith, (1999) Music Genres and Corporate Cultures Routledge, ISBN 041517399X.
  • Pleasants, Henry (1969) Serious Music and All That Jazz, Simon & Schuster.
  • Roxon, Lillian, (1969) Rock Encyclopedia, Grosset & Dunlap.
  • Shuker, Roy, (2002) Popular Music: The Key Concepts, Routledge, (2nd edn.) ISBN 0415284252.
  • Starr, Larry & Waterman, Christopher, (2002) American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV, Oxford University Press.
  • Watkins, S. Craig, (2005) Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement, Beacon Press, ISBN 0807009822.

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