Pop music had been originally been simplified from the term "popular music," which considers the music form to be typically very well-liked by audiences due to its catchy, repetitive sound, resulting in its own popularity. The genre emerged in the 1950’s but had not been dominated by the American and British music industries until the mid-1960’s. The first modern credit card was introduced in 1950 which may have allowed this genre to emerge do to the affordability of instruments that artists in pop music commonly used. The first Playboy Magazine in 1953 could have likely consisted of few photographs of pop singers, wildly increasing their popularity. In 1954, American segregation was ruled illegal which provided more equality within the country and diversity the music it consisted of. Although Elvis was typically considered a rock singer, he had elements in his music that had similarities to pop music in his time, and it was shared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. Pop was not considered a distinct genre itself until the 1960's, what inexpensive, portable transistor radios were introduced. This resulted in a large teenage audience who could listen to pop whenever and where ever they desired, which increased the genres popularity significantly.
Two main innovations in technology were beneficial in the recording techniques and methods of distributing music to help pop emerge as a genre. Microphones were greatly improved in the 1940’s, resulting in more intimate sounding vocals. Also, color TV was introduced not long before this type of music, and was considered as regular as black and white television in 1951. When music was played in audio and colored video, it became more intriguing to its audience. Thus, more likable and popular!
Requirements to fit the genre consisted of upbeat, repetitive, and rhythmic sounding songs. This made it generally catchy to most audiences and age groups.Vocals and backing vocals are generally always used to verbalize lyrics, and instruments consisted of the drums, bass, electric guitar, synth, and other strings. Female singers in the beginning typically wore short skirts and tight clothing which was considered part of the "pin-up" look. For both genders, it was popular to wear leather jackets, plaid, stripes, and jeans. Artists often mixed clashing prints in their clothing, and had "free hair", meaning gel was becoming out-of-style and au naturale was the way to go. Album artwork and music video imagery consisted of lots of vivid colors showing vintage cars, streets and cities, stages, and close-ups of the singers' faces themselves.
Typically, pop artists write about love, lust, relationships, and persevering through life’s general hardships and struggles. By the early 1980's, pop music was greatly promoted by channels such as MTV, who were dedicated to music on television. These channels favored certain artists such as Madonna and Michael Jackson for their powerful visual appeal that was thought to be very intense. Artists typically see the world in a positive light, and their lifestyle seemed to be just as upbeat, happy, bubbly, energetic, romantic, full of life, and self-expressive - similarly to a lot of their songs.
It is suggested that pop music has become to "popular" because it had been formed and originated by often borrowing elements from other styles. This included urban, dance, Latin, country, and especially rock. However, the vocal harmonies of pop were influenced by gospel and soul music, and its first instrumentation was used in the same way as jazz. The orchestration was encouraged by classical music and dance music, and pops rhythmic elements came from hip-hop. Recently, even rap has even became accepted as part of the pop genre.
Madonna is an important artist for this genre because she helped to express sexuality within pop music, which has become a large theme of the genre since then. Michael Jackson is also influential to pop music because not only was he a singer; he was also a songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actor who had greatly contributed to the pop genre. This resulted in his title, "the King of Pop". As a conclusion, pop has become one of the most favorite types of music within the media and is a very well-liked genre even in our society today.
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