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Pop music

 
 

Term applied since the late 1950s to the central, most widely circulated and commercially successful kinds of popular music.



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WordNet: pop music
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: music of general appeal to teenagers; a bland watered-down version of rock'n'roll with more rhythm and harmony and an emphasis on romantic love
  Synonym: pop


 
Wikipedia: Pop music
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Pop music
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins
1950s, United States and United Kingdom
Typical instruments
Mainstream popularity Continuous worldwide since emergence
Subgenres
Avant-pop - Baroque pop - Bastard pop - Bubblegum pop - Dance-pop - Electropop - Girly-pop - Disco - Indie pop - Manufactured pop - Noise pop - Operatic pop - Power pop - Sophisti-pop - Space age pop - Sunshine pop - Synthpop - Teen pop
Fusion genres
Country pop - Dream pop - House-pop - Jangle pop - Pop punk - Pop rap - Pop rock - Psychedelic pop - Technopop -Urban pop

Pop music is a music genre that features a noticeable rhythmic element, melodies and hooks, a mainstream style and a conventional structure. The term "pop music" is first recorded as being used in 1926 to mean "having popular appeal" (see popular music), but since the 1950s it has been used in the sense of a musical genre, originally characterized as a lighter alternative to rock and roll.[1][2]

Contents

Style

The standard format of pop music is the song, customarily less than five minutes in duration, with instrumentation that can range from an orchestra to a lone singer. Pop songs are generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and traditional structure. 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. Typically the beat of the music and the melodies tend to be very simple and "catchy" with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of pop songs frequently focus on love and romantic relationships although there are notable exceptions.

See also

References

Bibliography

  • Adorno, Theodor W (1942) "On Popular Music". Institute of Social Research.
  • Bell, John L. The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song. GIA Publications, 2000. ISBN 1579991009
  • Billboard Genre Index
  • Frith, Simon; Will Straw; John Street (eds). The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521556600
  • Johnson, Julian. Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value. Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0195146816
  • Pleasants, Henry (1969) "Serious Music and All That Jazz". Simon & Schuster.
  • Roxon, Lillian (1969) "Rock Encyclopedia". Grosset & Dunlap.
  • Gillet, Charlie (1970) "The Sound of the City. The Rise of Rock and Roll." Outerbridge & Dienstfrey.
  • Middleton, Richard (1990) "Studying Popular Music". Open University Press.
  • 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]
  • Lonergan, David F. Hit Records, 1950-1975. Scarecrow Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8108-5129-6
  • Negus, Keith. Music Genres and Corporate Cultures Routledge, 1999. ISBN 041517399X
  • Maultsby, Portia K (1996) "Intra- and International Identities in American Popular Music." Trading Culture.
  • Official UK Charts Company information pack
  • Dolfsma, Wilfred (1999) "Valuing Pop Music: Institutions, Values and Economics". Eburon.
  • Shuker, Roy. Popular Music: The Key Concepts. Routledge, (2 edition) 2002. ISBN 0415284252
  • Starr, Larry & Waterman, Christopher (2002) "American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV". Oxford University Press.
  • Frith, Simon (2004) "Popular Music: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies". Routledge.
  • Dolfsma, Wilfred. (2004) "Institutional Economics and the Formation of Preferences: The Advent of Pop Music". Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Watkins, s. Craig. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Beacon Press, 2005. ISBN 0807009822

External links


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pop music" Read more

 

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