Justice in concert (2007).

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres, and stands in contrast to art music,^[1][2] and traditional music which was disseminated orally.^[2][3] Although popular music sometimes is known as "pop music", the term pop music usually refers to a specific musical genre.

[edit] Form

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

[edit] 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^{[citation needed]}. 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^{[citation needed]}. For some genres, such as ragtime 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 was the highest-selling recording artist in the United States. His fan base had no age division. The average Kraft Music Hall listener was 21 years old. But after Crosby's semi-retirement in 1954, a large generation gap emerged. Elvis Presley became the most popular recording artist among teenagers^{[citation needed]}, while Frank Sinatra was most popular among adults^{[citation needed]}. In the 1980's and early 1990's, Michael Jackson, dubbed "King of Pop", became the most prominent popular music figure before the late 1990's pop explosion with hundreds of new artist achieving success in popular music sales.

[edit] See also

• Music radio
• Popular culture
• List of popular music performers
• Popular music pedagogy
• List of honorific titles in popular music

[edit] Sources

• Tagg Philip (1982) "Analysing Popular Music : Theory, Method and Practice" in Popular Music, 2
• 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.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Famous Music Videos - Music Video Database - YouTube, Google Video, MySpace TV, MetaCafe, DailyMotion, Veoh, Current.com, ClipFish.de, MyVideo.de, Break.com and EyeSpot
• Pop and Rock Argues that Pop and Rock are inferior musical genres.
• The 1950s-2000's Week-By-Week - Looks at pop music/albums/radio and music news through these decades.
• Pop Culture Madness Features the most requested pop songs 1920s through today
• The Daily Vault music reviews