Pop music

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pop music is shorter way of writing popular music. Usually, pop music is music that sells the most CDs or tapes. Styles of pop music in the 2000s include rock music, hip hop, and pop punk.

1 What is pop music
2 How does the business of pop music work?
3 Types of music that became pop music
- 3.1 Controversy: Do pop bands "Sell out" their values?
4 Singers and bands that have always played pop music

[edit] What is pop music

The singers and bands that play pop music on stage at music concerts or in music videos are an important part of pop music. The singers sing the lyrics (words) of the songs and dance on stage. The musicians in the bands play musical instruments such as electric guitar, electric bass guitar, synthesizer keyboards, piano, and drums.

[edit] How does the business of pop music work?

There are also many more people working on pop music who are not seen on the stage or in the video. These people include the studio staff (people who help the musicians to record CDs and music videos in music studios), production staff (people who help make the music recordings sound good), distribution staff (people who help sell the music to stores) and retail staff (people that sell the music to people at CD stores).

Tour staff help the band to travel around the country (or around the world) for their concert tours. Some tour staff help by carrying heavy musical instruments onto the stage. Other tour staff drive buses or cars, so that the band can get to the concert. Some tour staff operate sound equipment, such as the large amplifiers and loudspeakers that are used to amplify (make louder) the band's music for the audience.

Promotional staff help to market or promote the band's music, so that more people will know about the band, and buy the band's CDs. Some promotional staff travel to radio stations and give the band's CD to radio station managers or DJs (disk jockeys: the people who announce songs on the radio). Other promotional staff write press releases (short articles) about the band which are sent to newspapers.

[edit] Types of music that became pop music

Pop music came from the Rock and Roll movement of the early 1950s, when record companies recorded songs that they thought that Teenagers would like. Pop music usually uses musical styles from the other types of music that are popular at the time. Many different styles of music have become pop music during different time periods. Often, music companies create pop music styles by taking a style of music that only a small number of people were listening to, and then making that music more popular by marketing it to teenagers and young adults.

In the 1950s, recording companies took Blues-influenced Rock & Roll and Rockabilly and promoted them as pop music. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, record companies took folk music bands and musicians and helped them to create a new type of music called folk rock or acid rock. Folk rock and acid rock mixed folk music, blues, and rock and roll (for example The Byrds and Janis Joplin). In the 1970s, record companies created several harder, louder type of blues called blues rock or heavy metal, which became a type of pop music (for example the bands Led Zeppelin and Judas Priest).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a type of nightclub dance music called Disco turned into a popular type of pop music. Record companies took an experimental, strange-sounding type of music called New Wave music from the 1980s and turned it into pop music bands such as The Cars. In the 1990s record companies took an underground type of hard rock called Grunge (for example the band Nirvana).

[edit] Controversy: Do pop bands "Sell out" their values?

Thousands of new pop bands are formed each year around the world. Each band tries to write songs and music that will become a popular new music trend. Record companies promote these bands and songs by sending the songs to radio stations and by making videos of the band. Some music fans say that the bands or musicians who write music that becomes popular (pop music) have "sold out" (betrayed) the values (beliefs) of their original fans.

In the 1960s, some people who liked folk music said that folk rock musicians had "sold out" the values (beliefs) of traditional folk music, because folk rock bands made a lot of money and were controlled by huge recording companies. In the 1990s, some punk rock bands began playing pop punk, which is punk rock mixed with pop music. Some people who like punk rock say that pop punk bands have sold out (betrayed) the rebellious values (beliefs) and political beliefs of punk rock.