Popular music is music with wide appeal[1][2][3] that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.[1] As a kind of popular art, it stands in contrast to art music.[4][5][6] Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of written music, although since the beginning of the recording industry, it is also disseminated through recordings. Traditional music forms such as early blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences.[4][5][6]
The original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period in the United States.[1] Although popular music sometimes is known as "pop music", the two terms are not interchangeable.[7] Popular music is a generic term for a wide variety of genres of music that appeal to the tastes of a large segment of the population,[8] whereas pop music usually refers to a specific musical genre within popular music.[9] Popular music songs and pieces typically have easily singable melodies. The song structure of popular music commonly involves repetition of sections, with the verse and chorus or refrain repeating throughout the song and the bridge providing a contrasting and transitional section within a piece.[10] From the 1960s through the mid-2000s, albums collecting songs were the dominant form for recording and consuming English-language popular music, in a period known as the album era.[11]
In the 2000s, with songs and pieces available as digital sound files, it has become easier for music to spread from one country or region to another. Some popular music forms have become global, while others have a wide appeal within the culture of their origin.[12] Through the mixture of musical genres, new popular music forms are created to reflect the ideals of a global culture.[13] The examples of Africa, Indonesia, and the Middle East show how Western pop music styles can blend with local musical traditions to create new hybrid styles.[clarification needed]
- ^ a b c Popular Music. (2015). Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Definition of "popular music"". Collins English Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2019-03-27. Retrieved 2015-11-15.
- ^ a b Arnold, Denis (1983). The New Oxford Companion Music, Volume 1: A-J. Oxford University Press. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-19-311316-9.
- ^ a b Arnold, Denis (1983). The New Oxford Companion to Music, Volume 2: K-Z. Oxford University Press. p. 1467. ISBN 978-0-19-311316-9.
- ^ a b Philip Tagg (1982). "Analysing popular music: theory, method and practice" (PDF). Popular Music. 2: 37–67. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.628.7469. doi:10.1017/S0261143000001227. S2CID 35426157. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-04-12. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
- ^ Lamb, Bill. "Pop Music Defined". About Entertainment. About.com. Archived from the original on 20 October 2005. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
- ^ Allen, Robert. "Popular music". Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage. 2004.
- ^ Laurie, Timothy (2014). "Music Genre As Method". Cultural Studies Review. 20 (2), pp. 283-292.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:7was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Bus, Natalia (August 3, 2017). "An ode to the iPod: the enduring impact of the world's most successful music player". New Statesman. Archived from the original on November 10, 2020. Retrieved November 9, 2020.
- ^ Lashua, Brett (2014). Sounds and the City: Popular Music, Place and Globalization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 19. ISBN 9781137283115.
- ^ Furlong, Andy (2013). Youth Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge. p. 237. ISBN 9780203862094.