Know Your Pop Music Genre

By Author: abhayraj Chauhan
Total Articles: 17
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The songs in pop music are characterized by short, simple and catchy tunes that often make use of technological innovations like auto-tune to produce new variations on many common subjects like love, friendships and relationships. Keep in mind that other musical genres like classical music and jazz have their own distinctive characteristics and markets than pop music.

The history of popular music is closely related to the changing preferences of the audience for which the music was composed. The relationship between popular music and its audience is one of symbiosis - the composers and singers of popular music are influenced by and influence the musical tastes of their audience. Pop music arguably is one of the most influential genres with numerous charts devoted to tracking the rise – and fall, for that matter – of the songs and artists belonging to the genre.

To have a better understanding of the history of popular music, it is worthy to mention the origin of the term pop music or pop song. Its first recorded use was in 1926 to describe a song with popular appeal especially among the masses. However, there ...
... are contentions that the term actually originated in the British music scene in the mid-1950s to refer to non-classical songs by the likes of the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

Nowadays, pop music is one of the strongest genres in the music industry. Most of the superstars have pop music inclinations like Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Justin Beiber. Other genres of music like hip-hop, rhythm and blues, and jazz have their audiences, too, but are not as mainstream as their artists will like. Look at the charts for the top-selling songs and albums and you will realize that pop music rules, so to speak.

Well, of course, the history of popular music is filled with influences from other music genres. The music industry is always in a constant state of flux – absorbing influences while also influencing others so much so that we hear pop music that incorporates elements other genres. Think of gospel’s vocal harmonies, of classical music’s orchestration, and of fast tempo from dance, among a few examples.

And of course, we must appreciate the melding of pop music with technological innovations. Perhaps more than any other music genre, the purveyors of pop music has the uncanny ability to harness technology for their own ends from recording the songs to distributing the music to the intended audience. Think of the pace from vinyl to cassette tape to compact discs as well as wildly popular television shows like MTV.
Indeed, we have so many reasons to be thankful for in pop music. The legacy of pop music superstars like Michael Jackson cannot be underestimated because it continues to influence our own listening habits.