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Popular music is music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
 that is accessible to the general public
Mainstream

Mainstream is, generally, the common current of thought of the majority. It is a term most often applied in the The Arts . This includes:* something that is available to the general public;...
 and disseminated by one or more of the mass media
Mass media

Mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically envisioned and designed to reach a mainstream such as the population of a nation state....
. It belongs to any of a number of musical genres, and stands in contrast to classical music
Classical music

Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to mainstream music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of Western art history Religious music and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times....
, which historically was the music of the elite and upper strata of society, and traditional music
Traditional music

Traditional music is the term now used in the terminology of Grammy Awards, for what used to be called "folk music". Full details of this change can be found in the article World music terminology....
 which was disseminated orally. Popular music is sometimes referred to as "pop music".

Genres
Popular music dates at least as far back as the mid 19th century, and is commonly subdivided into genres.






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Popular music is music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
 that is accessible to the general public
Mainstream

Mainstream is, generally, the common current of thought of the majority. It is a term most often applied in the The Arts . This includes:* something that is available to the general public;...
 and disseminated by one or more of the mass media
Mass media

Mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically envisioned and designed to reach a mainstream such as the population of a nation state....
. It belongs to any of a number of musical genres, and stands in contrast to classical music
Classical music

Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to mainstream music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of Western art history Religious music and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times....
, which historically was the music of the elite and upper strata of society, and traditional music
Traditional music

Traditional music is the term now used in the terminology of Grammy Awards, for what used to be called "folk music". Full details of this change can be found in the article World music terminology....
 which was disseminated orally. Popular music is sometimes referred to as "pop music".

Form


Form in popular music is most often sectional, the most common sections being verse, chorus or refrain
Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in Poetry; the "chorus" of a song. Poetry fixed forms that feature refrains include the villanelle, the virelay, and the sestina....
, and bridge
Bridge (music)

In music, especially occidental popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section which also prepares for the return of the original material section....
.

Genres


Popular music dates at least as far back as the mid 19th century, and is commonly subdivided into genres. Different genres often appeal to different age groups. These often, but not always, are the people who were young when the music was new. Thus, for instance, Big band
Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the swing from the early 1930s until the late 1940s....
 music continues to have a following, but it is probably a rather older group, on average, than the audience for rap
Hip hop music

Hip hop music is a music genre typically consisting of a rhythmic vocal style called rapping which is accompanied with backing beats. Hip hop music is part of hip hop culture, which began in the Bronx, in New York City in the 1970s, predominantly among African Americans and Latino Americans....
. For some genres, such as ragtime
Ragtime

Ragtime is an originally American musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Ragtime was the first truly American musical genre, predating jazz....
 music, the original target generation may have died out almost entirely.

With the increasing social and economic independence of young people, this "generation gap" has grown wider and wider since the second World War. Music hall and other forms before the 1940s were not so clearly marked by generation. From the Depression through the end of the war, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an United States popular singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death.One of the first multimedia stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses....
 was the highest-selling recording artist in the United States. His fan base had no age division. The average Kraft Music Hall
Kraft Music Hall

The Kraft Music Hall was a major NBC radio variety program, featuring top show business entertainers, in a 16-year span from 1933 to 1949....
 listener was 21 years old. But after Crosby's semi-retirement in 1954, a large generation gap emerged. Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was an United Statesn singer, actor, and musician. A cultural icon, he is commonly known simply as "Elvis", and is also sometimes referred to as "List of honorific titles in popular music" or "The King"....
 became the most popular recording artist among teenagers, while Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an United States singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers"....
 was most popular among adults.

Classical music and popular music

The relationship between (particularly, the relative value of) classical music and popular music is a controversial question. Some partisans of classical music may claim that classical music constitutes art and popular music only light entertainment. However, many popular works show a high level of artistry and musical innovation and many classical works are unabashedly crowd-pleasing. The elevation of classical music to a position of special value is closely connected to the concept of a Western canon
Western canon

The Western canon is a term used to denote a wiktionary:canon of Western literatures, and, more widely, European classical music and Western art history, that has been the most Power in shaping Western culture....
, and to theories of educational perennialism
Educational perennialism

Perennialists believe that one should teach the things that one deems to be of everlasting importance to all people everywhere. They believe that the most important topics develop a person....
.

The very distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in the border regions , for instance minimalist music
Minimalist music

Minimalist music is an originally American genre of experimental music or Downtown music named in the 1960s based mostly in consonance and dissonance, steady pulse , stasis and slow transformation, and often reiteration of musical phrase or smaller units such as Figure , Motif , and Cell ....
 and light classics. In this respect music is like fiction, which likewise draws a distinction between classics and popular fiction that is not always easy to maintain.

See also


  • Music radio
    Music radio

    Music radio is a radio programming radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries....
  • Popular Hits
  • Popular culture
    Popular culture

    Popular culture is the totality of Distinction memes, ideas, Perspective s and Attitude s that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture....
  • List of popular music performers
  • Popular music pedagogy
    Popular music pedagogy

    Popular music pedagogy ? alternatively called Rock music pedagogy, Popular music education, or Rock music education ? is a recent development in the field of music education consisting of the application of the systematic teaching and learning of rock music and other forms of popular music both inside and outside formal classroom settings....
  • Art music
    Art music

    Art music , is an umbrella term generally used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition....
  • Experimental pop music
    Experimental pop music

    Experimental pop music or avant-garde pop music is any type of pop music which experimental music with the basic elements of the genre, and/or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or Definition of music....


Sources

  • Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.
  • Bennett (1980).
  • Birrer, Frans A. J. (1985). "Definitions and research orientation: do we need a definition of popular music?" in D. Horn, ed., Popular Music Perspectives, 2 (Gothenburge, Exeter, Ottawa and Reggio Emilia), p.99-106.
  • Hall, S. (1978). "Popular culture, politics, and history", in Popular Culture Bulletin, 3, Open University duplicated paper.
  • Everett, Walter (1997). "Swallowed by a Song: Paul Simon's Crisis of Chromaticism", Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510004-2.
  • Hamm, Charles (1979). Yesterdays: Popular Song in America. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-01257-3.
  • Manuel, Peter (1988). Popular Musics of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505342-7.


External links

  • - Music Video Database - YouTube, Google Video, MySpace TV, MetaCafe, DailyMotion, Veoh, Current.com, ClipFish.de, MyVideo.de, Break.com and EyeSpot
  • Argues that Pop and Rock are inferior musical genres.
  • - Looks at pop music/albums/radio and music news through these decades.
  • Features the most requested pop songs 1920s through today