Graphic Design

Pop music

Pop music is a genre of popular music which originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll . The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are often used interchangeably, even though the former is a description of music which is popular (and can include any style). 

As a genre, pop music is very eclectic, often borrowing elements from other styles including urban , dance , rock , Latin andcountry ; nonetheless, there are core elements which define pop. Such include generally short-to-medium length songs, written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure ), as well as the common employment of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, andcatchy hooks . 

So-called "pure pop" music, such as power pop , features all these elements, using electric guitars , drums and bass for instrumentation;  in the case of such music, the main goal is usually that of being pleasurable to listen to, rather than having much artistic depth. [ 1 ] Pop music is generally thought of as a genre which is commercially recorded and desires to have a mass audience appeal. 

Influences and development

Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music , instrumentation from jazz , country , and rock music , orchestration from classical music , tempo from dance music , backing from electronic music , rhythmic elements from hip-hop music , and has recently appropriated spoken passages from rap . 

It has also made use of technological innovation. In the 1940s improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and ten or twenty years later inexpensive and more durable 45 rpm records for singles "revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated" and helped to move pop music to 'a record/radio/film star system'.  Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "pop stars had to have a visual presence". In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers could listen to music outside of the home.  Multi-track recording (from the 1960s); and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been utilized as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music.  By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of Music Television channels like MTV , which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson andMadonna who had a strong visual appeal". 

Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries , whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture , but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics.  Some of these trends (for example Europop ) have had a significant impact of the development of the genre. 

According to Grove Music Online , "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures".  Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop, has for several years has produced a greater quantity of music of everywhere except the USA.  The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism, and/or a more general process of globalization.