Genre: POP
Pop music is difficult to define. The content of its definition has shifted throughout the course of time. What started as a network of white songwriters manufacturing premade songs for crooners and groups (Tin Pan Alley), became an individual crusade (singer/songwriter) and eventually a herald for integration and emancipation, where blacks as artists and teens as audience were given recognition and a platform.
From the sixties until the eighties, Rock forms the basis for Pop, but that foundation shifts towards House in the nineties and R&B/Rap in the nillies. Lately (from 2010 onwards), Pop has become too eclectic to identify another super-genre within as the dominant core. Whatever that core may be, Pop is always a lighter, more accessible variant with catchy, pronounced melodies, but not too complex. Pop songs are always 100% radio friendly, i.e. they are edited to play up to four minutes or less and have politically correct lyrics, often bordering on shallowness. Pop has plain song structures, which are easy to memorize and so are the chords or melodies. A strong focus on video clips and visual performance have become staples in the Pop industry throughout the years, as most Pop does try to sell. More than any other super-genre, Pop has a commercial nature, or – in better terms – Pop transmutes in what sells the most.
The word “Pop” is short for popular music and first coined in the fifties. Crooners from that decade were the first to be mentioned as “pop”. These artists had a tremendous popular appeal and their songwriters would seek inspiration from the most diverse genres in order to attain the perfect success formula. This means that at first Pop was not seen as a separate genre, but a collection of music from different genres that are the most popular. This is of course a matter of perspective. But although Pop may be vague as a group, especially in the beginning, its various subsequent subgenres are often well-defined. Therefore Pop is rightfully a super-genre on its own. Sometimes Pop is being used as a term for all popular music, but this is highly confusing and will not be used in musicmap.
