pop music

The tradition & historical record

Pop music, or simply pop, is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which pop became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible. Identifying factors of pop music usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse–chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much of pop music also borrows elements from other styles such as rock, hip-hop, urban, dance, Latin, and country. The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, as the former also describes all music that is targeted for mass appeal (compare art music) and includes many disparate styles.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Pop music”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

pop music is popular music genre originating in the mid-1950s in the US and UK; initially overlapping with rock and roll, later becoming associated with more commercial, accessible, and ephemeral styles distinct from rock, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ¹

The source record links this tradition to 55 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ¹