Originating in the 1950's, Pop is a genre within music which is commonly bouncy, catch and fun. The melodic style can be fast paced or slow and will have lyrics which are supposed to represent some kind of meaning. Pop often takes parts of other genres like rock, jazz, country and dance and but has defining features such as its short to medium-length songs, its verse-chorus structuring as well as common use of repeated choruses and lyrics within, melodic tunes, and hooks.
With the development of new microphone technology in the 1940's, it allowed a crisper and more intimate singing styles and inspired the stem from rock and roll to pop in the 50's. At this time, Television was just lifting off for the first time and it made pop shows possible to be broadcast and this is when pop first became popular towards the end of the decade. In the 1960's, the introduction of portable radios meant that people of all ages, especially young people, in the developed world could listen to music in the open. By the early 1980's, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of music television channels like MTV, which often picked out artists like Madonna and Michael Jackson as representatives for the Pop genre image. Madonna and Michael Jackson, although with very different pop styles, were and still are to this day arguable the biggest pop artists of all time with millions of albums sold and a multitude of awards to back them up. With generation and evolution of technology, TV and radio became even more popular. The introduction of mobile phones and laptops to download music in the early 2000's was instrumental in the growth of music as a whole. Artists like P!nk, Girls aloud and Coldplay in the early 2000's where in line with the technological change and made massive success out of it, selling millions of albums under the pop name and this was the turning for pop domination. By 2006, just a year after its release, YouTube began being the main platform for musicians to make music videos. Pop music videos were being made and they were crazy, funky and original. Thousands of people at this point in the late 2000's will have seen pop as this energetic and almost electric type of music from these videos. This hasn't changed to present day, however with technological advancements like CGI, 4K resolution, Virtual reality, hybridity and major camera quality improvements, the music videos made today are of a very high quality in comparison to 2010 when 720p was the highest quality option available for a video. People now associate pop with a bouncy feel and expect a video to go with it where there is money splashed out into it and showed off.
It is thought that the Pop genre has dried up slightly, with melodies and lyrics now seeming to repeat. For example in 2018 where there was an outburst of a Hip Hop/Pop hybrid melody style which became very popular, but quickly died out as it was over played by top charts and general radio as well as people listening to it on streaming services like spotify. Genres like Rap and Hip Hop, popular in the early 2000's with artists like Eminem, Snoop Dog and 50 Cent, are making a major comeback. A futuristic rap style filled with auto-tune has been extremely popular among young people, of which is meant to be the main audience for the pop genre and has dominated charts since 2016.
A list of just some of the different pop types (musicgenrelist.com):
Adult Contemporary,Arab Pop,Baroque,Brit-pop,Bubblegum Pop (thx Haug & John ,Chamber Pop , Chanson, Christian Pop ,Classical Crossover, Euro-pop, Dance Pop, Dream Pop, Electro-Pop, EDM-dance-pop, Iranian Pop, Jangle Pop-Latin, Ballad, Levenslied Louisiana Swamp Pop, Mexican Pop, Motor-pop, New Romanticism, Orchestral Pop, Pop Rap, Popera, Pop/Rock, Pop Punk, Power Pop, Psychedelic Pop, Schlager, Soft Rock, Sophisti-Pop, Space Age Pop, Sunshine Pop, Surf Pop, Synth-pop, Teen Pop, Traditional Pop Music, Turkish Pop, Vis-pop, Wonky Pop, Post-Disco, Progressive Pop
Pop as a genre has been tried out as a hybrid with almost every other genre available. Even Heavy-metal has been crossed with pop with the likes of Bon Jovi whch some would consider to be an unlikely cross.
The 3 stages of Pop:
1960's: Pop-rock, Pop-punk
The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye,The Jackson 5, The Who
1980's: Afro-pop, Traditional pop, Sci-fi-pop
Witney Houston, Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Journey, New Order
2010's: Synth-pop, Disco-pop, Teen-pop
Adele, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars
A list of some of the most famous pop artists:
The Beatles
Elvis Presley
Elton John
Madonna
Frank Sinatra
Michael Jackson
Stevie Wonder
Mariah Carey
Janet Jackson
Beyonce
Britney Spears
ABBA
Prince
Bee Gees
Witney Houston
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