Experimental pop

This article is about a pop subgenre defined by avant-garde sensibilities. Not to be confused with Avant-pop, Progressive pop, or Art pop.

Experimental pop
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1950s and 1960s, United States and United Kingdom
Derivative forms
Other topics

Experimental pop is pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries[1][2] or which attempts to push elements of existing popular forms into new areas.[3] It may incorporate experimental techniques such as musique concrète, aleatoric music, or eclecticism into pop contexts.[4] Often, the compositional process involves the use of electronic production effects to manipulate sounds and arrangements,[2] and the composer may draw the listener's attention specifically with both timbre and tonality, though not always simultaneously.[5]

Experimental pop music developed concurrently with experimental jazz as a new kind of avant-garde, with many younger musicians embracing the practice of making studio recordings along the fringes of popular music. In the early 1960s, it was common for producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration, unnatural reverb, and other sound effects, and by the late 1960s, highly experimental pop music, or sounds that expanded the idea of the typical popular song, was positively received by young audiences.

  1. ^ Landy 1994, p. 100.
  2. ^ a b Johnson 2009, p. 200.
  3. ^ Martin 2015, pp. 4–5.
  4. ^ Johnson 2009, p. 199.
  5. ^ Landy 2012, p. 14.