Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially. It stands in contrast to classical music, which historically was the music of elites or the upper strata of society, and traditional folk music which was shared non-commercially. It is sometimes abbreviated to pop music, although pop music is more often used for a narrower branch of popular music. Music is conceptual time expressed in the structures of tones and silence. ... A music genre is a category (or genre) of pieces of music that share a certain style or basic musical language (van der Merwe 1989, p. ... Mainstream is, generally, the common current of thought of the majority. ... Classical music is a broad, somewhat imprecise term, referring to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, European art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day. ... Folk Music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the common people. ... For Popular music (music that is popular, rather than of a specific genre or style), see Popular music. ...

Definitions

The term "popular music" is used in broad and narrow senses. At its broadest, it refers to all music other than classical music, also known as art music. In the early 19th century, the traditional songs of the common people were referred to as "popular songs." By the late 19th century these songs were referred to as "folk songs." At that time, a distinction was made between folk music and more recently developed urban popular music. Today, popular music is distributed via mass media such as recordings and radio (as classical music is now also). Popular music forms part of popular culture. For specific varieties of popular music, see the list of genres below. Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in any given society. ...

See the separate article on pop music for the narrower genre of very commercial, light, catchy, melodic music. For Popular music (music that is popular, rather than of a specific genre or style), see Popular music. ...

Theories of popular music

Among scholars in the humanities, a broader range of definitions have been proposed.

Frans Birrer (1985, p. 104) gives four conceptions or definitions of "popular" music: Popularity is the quality of being well-liked or common. ...

1. Normative definitions. Popular music is an inferior type.
2. Negative definitions. Popular music is music that is not something else (usually 'folk' or 'art' music).
3. Sociological definitions. Popular music is associated with (produced for or by) a particular social group.
4. Technologico-economic definitions. Popular music is disseminated by mass media and/or in a mass market.

All of these, according to Middleton (1990,p.4) "are interest-bound; none is satisfactory." According to Hall (1978, p.6-7), "The assumption...that you might know before you looked at cultural traditions in general what, at any particular time, was a part of the elite culture or of popular culture is untenable." Thus popular music must be comprehended in relation to the broader musical field (Middleton 1990, p.11).

Bennett (1980, p.153-218) distinguishes between 'primary' and 'secondary' popular culture, the first being mass product and the second being local re-production, discussed further below.

"While repetition is a feature of all music, of any sort, a high level of repetition may be a specific mark of 'the popular', enabling an inclusive rather than exclusive audience." (Middleton 1990, p.139) Repetition is the occurrence of an event which has occurred before. ...

The nature of popular music

Fred Lerdahl ( Lerdahl's theories explicitly exclude "associational" details which are used to help articulate form in popular music, while Allen Forte's book The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era 1924-1950 analyses popular music with traditional Schenkerian techniques. (Middleton 1999, p.144) Fred Lerdahl, Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, is a composer and music theorist, best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or musical grammars. ... Allen Forte (born December 23, 1926) is a music theorist and musicologist. ... Schenkerian analysis is an approach to musical analysis devised by Heinrich Schenker. ...

Popular music as a business enterprise

Much popular music is the product of the modern business enterprise, disseminated for the purpose of earning a profit. Executives and employees of popular music businesses try to select and cultivate the music that will have the greatest success with the public, and thus maximize the profits of their firm. In this respect, popular music differs from traditional folk music, which was created by ordinary people for their own enjoyment, and from classical music, which was originally created to serve the purposes of the Church or for the entertainment of the nobility. (Today classical music is often subsidized by governments and universities.) Folk Music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the common people. ... Classical music is a broad, somewhat imprecise term, referring to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, European art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day. ...

Although the controlling forces of popular music are business enterprises, young people who aspire to become popular musicians are not always driven by the profit motive. Rather, they often want to find an outlet for their sense of expression and creativity, or simply to have fun. Historically, the conflicting motives of business people and musicians has been a source of tension in the popular music industry.

Debate continues about the status of popular music. Some emphasize the commercial motive and suggest the big companies manipulate the audiences and sell them products with no intrinsic value. This is the debate about "authenticity" which rages whenever popular music is discussed. Commercial interests can cause the dilution of music as corporations take over their distribution, and may cause music to move away from the grassroots level of Folk or Blues. Several movements such as punk in the 80s, and Indie in the 90s, have attempted to try to take back control. Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... In popular music, indie music (from independent) is any of a number of genres, scenes, subcultures and stylistic and cultural attributes, characterised by perceived independence from commercial pop music and mainstream culture and an autonomous, do-it-yourself (DIY) approach. ...

The electric guitar and amplification has had a big impact on modern music. In the 30s and 40s amplified instruments became necessary to compete with the loud volumes in the Big Swing bands of the era. Gibson introduced the first Gibson Les Paul solid body guitar in 1952. In the 1960s, the tonal palette of the electric guitar was further modified by introducing an effects box in its signal path, the wah-wah pedal.

Classical music in the 20th Century

Classical music compositions in the 20th century attempted to strip away the erroneous, the extra details, and as with modern art, remove everything apart from the essence of the image. It was often atonal, dissonant and discordant, and used the unexpected. It is often characterised by a lack of harmony and by a harsh or confused mingling of sounds. As composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall points out, (20th Century Greats: BBC Channel 4) Classical music soon 'began a perilous journey into an arid form of modernism that the mainstream audience couldn't, or didn't want to, follow.' Classical music lost the mainstream in the 1920s, with popular music gaining in influence.

Which 20th century composers will still be around and enthralling audiences in 300 years time? Though the earlier composers, like Stravinsky and Shostakovich, were pushing the boundaries, their compositions were still related to the work of previous composers.

By the 1920s, popular music entered the process with songs that were catchy and entertaining, though often banal in their simplicity, but began to rival classical compositions in their complexity and sophistication. This transformation was led by Cole Porter, a musician who was part of a generation of gifted composers that developed the musical on Broadway in New York, and included George Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Porter was classically trained and used classical techniques in his music. He also drew on the new rhythms and beats in jazz; the rhythms of Porter’s music fused European with African American traditions. The best interpretations of Porter's songs were by the some of the greatest African American jazz, blues and swing singers, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday. Porter introduced songs for all to enjoy and re-established the connection between the kind of music everyone liked and that enjoyed by the educated classes. Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter from Indiana. ... George Gershwin photograph by Edward Steichen in 1927. ... Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989), born Israel Isidore Beilin (as per [1]), in Tyumen, Russia (or possibly Mogilev, now Belarus), was an American composer and lyricist, one of the most prodigious and famous American songwriters in history. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as Lady Ella (the First Lady of Song), was an American singer, considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century, alongside Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Billie Holiday photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1949 For the Canadian broadcaster, see Billie Holiday (broadcaster). ...

In the 1920s Jazz was the rhythm of the moment, and the lifeblood of popular music. The biggest change in music was in the rhythm, as the two worlds of Folk music and the Caribbean traditions collided. Traditional Folk music was in Triple time, but the sounds of the Caribbean were in 2 and 4 time. Jazz also has brilliant harmonies and melodies. Porter used both the folk and the jazz rhythms in his songs, creating a dynamic interplay. He also used minor keys, which require greater musical complexity, but make songs that are more mysterious and exotic. The Blues had also arrived, and the new dances of the Foxtrot and the Charlston. Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ...

Performance of popular music by amateurs

Many people play popular music together with their friends, often in garages and basements, on a casual amateur basis. This activity is one of the most widespread forms of participatory music-making in modern societies. As participatory music, "garage bands" are in a sense a resurrection of the old tradition of folk music, which in premodern times was composed and performed by ordinary people and transmitted exclusively by word of mouth. The difference between the old folk music and modern amateur performance of popular music is that the participants in the latter genre are well acquainted with the expert performances that they hear on recordings, and often try to emulate them. Folk Music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the common people. ...

The older folk music of a society often lives on in a popularized version, which is likewise performed by experts and commercially disseminated. Such updated versions of folk music often have heavy amateur participation.

Form

Main article: Song structure (popular music).

Form in popular music is most often sectional. Songs in popular music are almost never through-composed. ...

Performers

A list of performers of popular music can be found at:

• List of popular music performers

This is an alphabetical list of popular music performers. ...

Genres

Popular music dates at least as far back as the mid 19th century. Below is a list of 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 music continues to have a following, but it is probably a rather older group, on average, than the audience for rap. For a few of the genres listed below (for instance, Ragtime), the original target generation may have died out almost entirely. A big band is a large musical ensemble that plays jazz music. ... Hip hop music (also referred to as rap or rap music) is a style of popular music. ... Second edition cover of Maple Leaf Rag, perhaps the most famous rag of all Ragtime is an American musical genre, enjoying its peak popularity around the years 1900–1918. ...

This "generation gap" in the consumption of popular music is particularly marked since the second world war and the increased economic and social independence of younger people. Music hall and other forms before the 1940s are not so clearly marked by generation. // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ...

• Adult Contemporary
  • Album-oriented rock
  • Middle of the road
• Alternative rock
  • Agit-pop
  • Emo
  • Goth rock
  • Grunge
  • Indie rock
  • Hardcore
  • Shoegazing
• Arabesque music
• Big band
• Blues
• Blues rock
• Britpop
  • Baggy
  • Indie Dance
  • Lion Pop
• Cheese
• Chinese rock
• Contemporary Christian
• Country music
  • Alt-country
  • Americana
  • Bluegrass
• Dance
  • Acid house
  • Ambient House
  • Big Beat
  • Bleep
  • Chill-out
  • Clunk
  • Dreamhouse
  • Drum and bass
  • Electronica
  • Eurodance
  • Gabba
  • Garage
  • Happy Hardcore
  • Hardbeat
  • Hardcore
  • House music
  • Italio-house
  • Rave
  • Techno
  • Trance music
• Desert rock
• Disco
  • Boystown
  • Hi-NRG
• Easy listening
  • Lounge Music
• Electro
• Electronic music
  • Electroclash
• Elevator music
• Enka
• Folk, specifically in its popularized forms, as opposed to performed by traditional folk musicians
• Gospel
• Hard rock
  • Glam rock
  • Hair metal
  • Heavy metal
  • Poodle Rock
  • Power metal
  • Speed Metal
  • Thrash
• Indie Music
  • C86
  • Garage Rock
  • Scumpop
  • Urchin Rock
• Industrial rock
• Jazz
  • Smooth jazz
  • Swing
• J-pop
• J-rock
• Latin Pop
• Lo-fi
• Music hall
• New Age
• New Wave
  • The New Wave Of The New Wave
• Northern Soul
• Pop music
  • Bubblegum pop
  • Cantopop
  • Dream Pop
  • Turkish pop music
  • Teenybopper music
  • Tweeny pop
  • Traditional pop music
• Pop standards
• Post-punk
  • Punk-funk
• Progressive rock
• Psychedelic music (was popular circa 1967)
  • Acid rock
• Punk rock
• Ragtime
• Reggae
  • Dancehall
  • Lover's Rock
  • Reggaeton
  • Ragga
  • Ska
• Rock and roll (rock)
• Romo
• Rhythm and blues
• Rhythmic
• Southern rock
• Tin Pan Alley music
• Urban Music
  • Acid Jazz
  • Crunk
  • Funk
  • Hip hop
  • New Jack Swing
  • Nu Soul
  • Loser Dork
  • Rap Music
  • R & B
  • Soul music

Chicano Rap Adult contemporary music, frequently abbreciated to just AC, is a type of radio format that plays mainstream and pop music, without hip-hop or rap since, as per the name, it is geared more towards adults than teens. ... Album-oriented rock, abbreviated AOR and originally called Album-oriented radio, was originally an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists. ... Middle of the road or MOR is a broad term encompassing a number of musical styles. ... The terms alternative rock and alternative music[1] were coined in the 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired bands which didnt fit into the mainstream genres of the time. ... Agitpop, A band from Upsate New York which formed in 1981 and released four records on the Comm3, Twintone [1] and Rough Trade labels. ... This article deals with the genre of music. ... This article is about notable bands within the goth scene. ... Grunge music (sometimes also referred to as the Seattle Sound) is an independent-rooted music genre that became a commercially successful offshoot of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and alternative rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music often used to refer to bands that are on small independent record labels or that arent on labels at all. ... Shoegazing is a style of alternative rock that emerged in Ireland and the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. ... History (Timeline and Samples) Genres: Alternative - Classical - Dance - Folk - Hip hop - Jazz - Military - Ottoman - Pop - Religious - Rock Music awards Kral - MÜ-YAP - MGD Charts Powerturk 40 - Kral 20 Annual festivals Istanbul International Music Festival - Istanbul International Jazz Festival - Ankara IMF - Izmir European Jazz Festival Media Bant magazine - Mix! - Adante - BlueJean... A big band is a large musical ensemble that plays jazz music. ... The blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on a pentatonic scale and a characteristic twelve-bar chord progression. ... Blues-rock, is a hybrid musical genre combining elements of the blues with rock and roll. ... Britpop was a British alternative rock and cultural movement which gained popularity in Great Britain in the mid 1990s, characterised by the prominence of bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. ... Baggy was a British music scene popular in the early 1990s. ... Lion Pop was a pre-Britpop term first coined by the lead singer (Carl) from the band Cud to discribe his music. ... Chinese rock (中国摇滚, pinyin: Zhōngguó yáogǔn; also 中国摇滚音乐, Zhōngguó yáogǔn yīnyuè, lit. ... The Beautiful Letdown, a 2003 CCM album by Switchfoot. ... country music, see Country music (disambiguation) In popular music, country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the Southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, Celtic music, blues, gospel music, and old-time music that began... Alternative country can refer to several ideas. ... An apple pie and baseball bat sitting atop an American flag. ... Bluegrass music is considered a form of American roots music with its own roots in the English, Irish and Scottish traditional music of immigrants from the British Isles (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants of Appalachia), as well as the music of rural African-Americans, jazz, and blues. ... Dance as a musical form is a smaller musical composition intended for the presentation of dance. ... Acid house is a variant of house music characterized by the use of simple tone generators with tempo-controlled resonant filters. ... Ambient house, a mix between house music and ambient music is a music style that describes itself as dreamy, chill out and quiet music. ... Big beat (also Big Beat, or sometimes chemical breaks) is a term devised in the mid 1990s by the British music press, as a way of describing the work of The Chemical Brothers, but was defined by the work of Fatboy Slim. ... A bleep censor is used to filter out inappropriate audio content during a live United States the Federal Communications Commission has the constitutional right to regulate indecent broadcasts. ... Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated dnb) is a type of electronic dance music also known as jungle. ... Electronica is a rather vague term that covers a wide range of electronic or electronic-influenced music. ... Eurodance stands for European Dance Music that has been popular in Europe, Oceania, South America, Canada, and parts of Asia between 1992 to 1996 and up until now. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... House music is a collection of styles of electronic dance music, the earliest forms of which originated in the United States in the early- to mid-1980s. ... Rave music consists of forms of electronic music for dancing that are associated with the rave scene. ... Techno- is a prefix relating to technology. ... Trance is a style of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s. ... Desert Rock is a term given to several bands that hail from the California desert. ... Disco is a genre of music that originated in discothèques. ... Several things are commonly known as Boys Town, Boys Town, Boys Town, or Boystown: Places Boys Town, Nebraska — a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska and the headquarters of the Boys Town organization Boys Town, Nuevo Laredo — a district in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, notorious for its prostitution and also known... Hi-NRG (High Energy) is a type of electronic dance music popular in nightclubs in the early 1980s. ... Easy listening music is a style of popular music which emerged in the mid-20th century. ... Electro is either (a) a prefix used to indicate a relationship to electricity, as in electro-mechanical, or electro-magnet, or (b) a stand-alone word. ... Electronic music is a term for music created using electronic devices. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Elevator music, also known as piped music or Muzak, refers to the gentle, bland instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for play in shopping malls, grocery stores, telephone systems (while the caller is on hold), and elevators. ... The term enka refers to two different styles of Japanese music. ... Folk Music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the common people. ... Gospel music may refer either to the religious music that first came out of African-American churches in the 1930s or, more loosely, to both black gospel music and to the religious music composed and sung by white southern Christian artists. ... Hard rock is a form of rock and roll music which finds its closest roots in early 1960s garage rock and psychedelic rock. ... Glam is also the name of the lead singer of Wig Wam. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Classic Metal. ... Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that emerged as a defined musical style in the 1970s, having its roots in hard rock bands which, between 1967 and 1974, took blues and rock to create a hybrid with a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterised by the... Power metal is a style of heavy metal music with the aim of evoking an epic feel, often within a fantastic or (less often) symphonic context. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The term thrash may refer to: Thrash (computer science), a term used in computer science. ... Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music often used to refer to bands that are on small independent record labels or that arent on labels at all. ... Taken literally, C86 was simply a cassette given away with the (British) New Musical Express in 1986 (hence (C)assette 86). ... Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that enjoyed wide success in the United States and Canada from 1963 to 1967. ... Industrial rock is a musical genre which is a fusion of industrial music and rock music. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... Smooth jazz is generally described as a genre of music that utilizes instruments (and, at times, improvisation) traditionally associated with jazz and stylistic influences drawn from, among other sources, funk, popular and R&B. Since the late 1980s, it has become highly successful as a radio format; one can tune... Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of jazz music that developed during the 1920s and solidified as a distinctive style during the 1930s in the United States. ... J-pop is an abbreviation of Japanese pop. ... Japanese rock is the Japanese form of rock and roll music, often abbreviated to J-Rock or jrock, as J-Pop and jpop are used as an abbreviation of Japanese Pop. ... Latin pop or Pop Latino, in Spanish is pop music from Latin America, Spain, Portugal and from some Hispanic singers. ... Lo-fi — from Low Fidelity — describes a sound recording which contains accidental artifacts, like distortion, or environmental noise, or a recording which has a limited frequency response. ... Music Hall is a form of British theatrical entertainment which reached its peak of popularity between 1850 and 1960. ... New Age music, sometimes referred to as space music, is a vaguely defined style of music that is generally quite melodic and often primarily instrumental. ... New Wave is a term that has been used to describe many developments in music, but is most commonly associated with a movement in American, Australian, British, Canadian and European popular music, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For Popular music (music that is popular, rather than of a specific genre or style), see Popular music. ... Bubblegum pop (bubblegum rock, bubblegum music) is a genre of popular music and rock and roll. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Natacha Atlas as she appears on the cover of Ayeshteni. ... The collective musical genres of Pop-Punk, Dance, Hip Hop, Pop, Rap and RnB can be described as Teenybopper Music because Teenyboppers listen to such musical genres. ... mainstream pop music Traditional pop music is a genre of music which encompasses music that succeeded big band music and preceded rock and roll as the most popular kind of music in the United States, most of Europe, and some other parts of the world. ... The term pop standards refers to an American songwriting, arranging, and singing style that is widely considered as the high point of Western vocal popular music. ... Post punk generally refers to the particularly fertile and creative period following the initial punk rock explosion. During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1976-1983, bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock... Progressive rock (shortened to prog rock or prog) is an ambitious, eclectic, and often grandiose style of rock music which arose in the late 1960s, reached the peak of its popularity in the 1970s, and continues as a musical form to this day. ... Psychedelic music is a musical style inspired by or attempting to replicate the mind-altering experience of drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, and especially LSD. Psychedelic music is a misnomer and should properly be called psychedelic rock music, but for the purposes of this article it is not rigorously... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Acid rock is a form of psychedelic music and was the first form of it to achieve popular acclaim. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Second edition cover of Maple Leaf Rag, perhaps the most famous rag of all Ragtime is an American musical genre, enjoying its peak popularity around the years 1900–1918. ... Reggae is a music genre developed in Jamaica. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Reggaeton is a form of dance music which became popular with Latin American youth during the late 1990s and spread to North American, European, Japanese, and Filipino audiences during the first few years of the 21st century. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Dancehall. ... Ska is a form of Jamaican music which began in the early 1960s. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Romo was a short-lived British pop cultural movement, which had its heyday in late 1995 and early 1996. ... Rhythm and blues (or R&B or even Runub) was coined as a musical marketing term in the United States in 1949 by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine, and was used to designate upbeat popular music performed by African American artists that combined jazz, gospel, and blues. ... Rhythmic music and Rhythmic radio, also known as Rhythmic Crossover or Rhythmic Pop, is a term used to describe a certain group of radio stations and the Billboard chart that is compiled based on airplay from those radio stations. ... Southern rock is a style of rock music that was very popular in the 1970s, and retains a fan base to the present. ... Tin Pan Alley was the name given to the collection of New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. ... Acid jazz (sometimes groove jazz) is a musical genre that combines jazz influences with elements of soul music, funk, disco and hip hop. ... Crunk music is a specific type of hip hop music, based out of the southern United States, particularly on the eastern side of Atlanta, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Memphis, Tennessee. ... Funk is a distinct style of music originated by African-Americans, e. ... Hip hop music (also referred to as rap or rap music) is a style of popular music. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Hip hop music is a style of popular music. ... Rhythm and blues (or R & B) is a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Billboard magazine. ... Soul music is a combination of rhythm and blues and gospel which began in the late 1950s in the United States. ...

• • Swing Beat
  • UK Garage a.k.a Two-Step
• World music

Show Tunes are generally considered to be in between popular and art music. Examples being that " Memory" (Cats) is a very acceptable song, while only select groups of people enjoy listening to "One" (A Chorus Line) , "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" (Cats), "The Dream" (Fiddler on the Roof), "We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover" (Annie), "Over the Moon" (RENT), etc. World music is, most generally, all the music in the world (Bohlman 2002, Nidel 2004, p. ... Memory is the showstopper song from the musical Cats sung by the character Grizabella, a one-time glamour cat who is now a shell of her former self. ...

Genres that are not popular music

Musical genres usually considered not to be popular music include:

• Most classical music, including opera
• Children's songs (including nursery rhymes and jumprope songs)
• Folk music, as created by traditional performers
• Gregorian chant, hymns, and many other forms of religious music
• Military music
• National anthems and other patriotic music
• Sea shanties and other work songs

As noted earlier, these have a distinct character from popular music: either they are transmitted by word of mouth rather than in organized fashion (children's songs, authentic folk music) or else they are produced to fill the needs of a particular social institution (church, aristocracy, the military, or the state). Note that music pieces of each of these genres can become part of the popular music either in their pure form (like various gregorian compilation CD's) or as remixes (like Moby's Play). Classical music is a broad, somewhat imprecise term, referring to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, European art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day. ... Sydney Opera House: one of the worlds most recognizable opera houses and landmarks Opera refers to a dramatic art form, originating in Europe, in which the emotional content or primary entertainment is conveyed to the audience as much through music, both vocal and instrumental, as it is through the... Childrens songs may be nursery rhymes set to music or modern creations intended for entertainment or use in the home or education. ... A nursery rhyme is a traditional song or poem taught to young children, originally in the nursery. ... Folk Music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the common people. ... Gregorian chant is also known as plainchant or plainsong and is a form of monophonic, unaccompanied singing, which was developed in the Catholic church, mainly during the period 800-1000. ... A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a god or other religiously significant figure. ... Military Band marching A military band is a group of soldiers assigned to musical duties. ... A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that is evoking and eulogizing the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nations government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people. ... Sea shanties (singular shanty, also spelled chantey; derived from the French word chanter, to sing) were shipboard working songs. ...

Classical music and popular music

The relationship (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. A controversy is a contentious dispute, a disagreement over which parties are actively arguing. ... Venus de Milo exhibited in the Louvre museum, France. ...

The elevation of classical music to a position of special value is closely connected to the concept of a Western canon, and to theories of educational perennialism. The Western canon is a canon of books and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that has allegedly been highly influential in shaping Western culture. ... Perennialists believe that one should teach the things that they believe are of everlasting importance to all people everywhere. ...

The very distinction between classical and popular music is blurred in the border regions, for instance minimalist music and light classics, and are disregarded as art music. In this respect music is like fiction, which likewise draws a distinction between classics and popular fiction that is not always easy to maintain. This article is about a musical style. ... Genre fiction is a term for writings by multiple authors that are very similar in theme and style, especially where these similarities are deliberately pursued by the authors. ...

"Neat divisions between 'folk' and 'popular', and 'popular' and 'art', are impossible to find... arbitrary criteria [is used] to define the complement of 'popular'. 'Art' music, for example, is generally regarded as by nature complex, difficult, demanding; 'popular' music then has to be defined as 'simple', 'accessible', 'facile'. But many pieces commonly thought of as 'art' (Handel's 'Hallelujah Chorus', many Schubert songs, many Verdi arias) have qualities of simplicity; conversely, it is by no means obvious that the Sex Pistols' records were 'accessible', (trashy?) Frank Zappa's work 'simple', (Frank Zappa is considered by many a serious composer) or Billie Holiday's 'facile'." (light?) (Middleton, 1990)

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, guitarist, singer, film director, and satirist. ...

Complexity

It might be argued that, at least on the average, classical works have greater musical complexity than popular music. For instance, classical music is distinguished by its heavy use of development, and usually involves more modulation (changing of keys), less outright repetition, and a wider use of musical phrases that are not default length--that is, four or eight bars long (however, much minimalist music goes against these tendencies, thus are considered by many non-serious music). Musical development is the transformation and restatement of initial material, often contrasted with musical variation, with which it may be difficult to distinguish as a general process. ... In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key (tonic, or tonal center) to another. ... Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. ...

This is not to say that popular music is definitively or always simpler than classical. The "default length" of phrases which classical music supposedly deviates from were set as the default by music of the common practice period. Jazz, rap and many forms of technical metal, for instance, make use of rhythms more complex than would appear in the average common practice work, and popular music sometimes uses certain complex chords that would be quite unusual in a common practice piece. Popular music also uses certain features of rhythm and pitch inflection not analyzable by the traditional methods applied to common practice music. Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... Hip hop music (also referred to as rap or rap music) is a style of popular music. ... ... Fingering for a C-major trichord on a guitar in standard tuning (assuming all six strings are played). ...

One may argue that it is normally only in classical music that very long works (30 minutes to three hours) are built up hierarchically from smaller units (phrases, periods, sections, and movements). Structural levels are distinguished by Schenkerian analysis. Fred Lerdahl (1992), for example, claims that popular music lacks the structural complexity for multiple structural layers, and thus much depth. However, Lerdahl's theories explicitly exclude "associational" details which are used to help articulate form in popular music, while Allen Forte's book The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era 1924-1950 analyses popular music with traditional Schenkerian techniques. (Middleton 1999, p.144) Schenkerian analysis is an approach to musical analysis devised by Heinrich Schenker. ... Fred Lerdahl, Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, is a composer and music theorist, best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or musical grammars. ... Allen Forte (born December 23, 1926) is a music theorist and musicologist. ...

Bach had many contempories whose music was mediocre at best, and today their music is forgotten, surviving perhaps in libraries. The repertoire of classical music is skewed toward works recognized as excellent by listeners over long periods of time.

It follows that genres of popular music that have existed for a long time might also produce works that show staying power. For instance, the work of Scott Joplin, a popular musician of about a century ago, continues to be played--often, curiously enough, by classical musicians. The advent of high fidelity audio recordings in the 1950s meant that the actual performances of popular musicians could be preserved forever, and this has raised the possibility that certain works popular music will achieve permanent status in their original recorded form. This may be happening now in the case of the most outstanding artists. Scott Joplin (Born June 1868 – died April 1, 1917) remains the best-known ragtime musician and composer, setting the standard for the many who followed. ...

Influences between classical and popular music

Works of classical music sometimes achieve a sudden, hard to explain popularity, and thus take on the temporary status of popular music; for details, see crossover. Moreover, many popular songs over the years have made use of themes and melodies from well-known classical pieces; for a list of examples see List of popular songs based on classical music. In music, crossover is a term used to describe material borrowed from a different style or genre and whose popularity crosses the considered boundaries of styles or genres. ... This is a list of examples of popular songs that are arrangements of, or otherwise make use of, works of classical music. ...

Songwriters such as Paul Simon have used classical techniques such as, during his early solo career in the 1970s, the twelve tone technique, though Simon actually only employs the full chromatic rather than strict tone rows (Everett 1997). Publicity still for Youre the One, released in 2000 Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter of Hungarian descent who received Kennedy Center Honors in 2002. ... Twelve-tone technique is a system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. ... The chromatic scale is the scale that contains all twelve pitches of the Western tempered scale. ... In music, a tone row or note row is a permutation, an arrangement or ordering, of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. ...

Versatile artist Michael Jackson used excerpts of classical music in his works, and composed for orchestra some postmodernistic/polystylism pieces, as well as ones influenced by symbolism and impressionism. For other people with the same name, see Michael Jackson (disambiguation) Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958) is an American musician and entertainer whose successful music career and controversial personal life have been at the forefront of pop culture for the last quarter-century. ... The Boston Pops orchestra performing on the Charles River Esplanade in Boston, Massachusetts. ... Postmodern music is both a musical style and a musical condition. ... Polystylism is the use of multiple styles or techniques of music, and is seen as a postmodern characteristic. ... Impressionism was a 19th century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists who began publicly exhibiting their art in the 1860s. ...

See also

• Music radio
• Popular culture

Music radio is a radio format where music is the primary source of broadcast content on both commercial and non-commercial stations. ... Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in any given society. ...

External links

• Tunecaster Online Pop And Rock Music Encyclopedia - United States music charts and popular artists pages.
• Pop and Rock An analysis of musical form and technique in popular music.
• The 1950's-2000's Week-By-Week - Looks at pop music/albums/radio and music news through these decades.
• Arabic music
• Free Preview of "The Next Big Thing in Pop Music"
• Pop Culture Madness Features the most requested pop songs 1920s through today

Sources

• Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
• 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 0195100042.