[DISCUSSION]
So as the title says, is pop music a genre of songs, or is it just the popular music of the current times and can be a collection of multiple genres.
I've personally always thought that pop is a genre, in my mind pop music has it's own sound no matter if it's really popular or not, but recently I heard a couple of people say that it's the other way.
For example - Old Town Road, I think it's not a pop song by any means, but is it for you?
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The interesting thing about Pop Music is that it started off as just a way to define popular music, but over time the type of music that was popular merged itself into the genre.
Genres like Rock, Hip Hop, Country, etc. have always had a distinct sound but Pop sounds distinct in the era it’s in.
For example, Madonna has always been Pop but her albums from the 80s sound different from her newer albums.
Pop is influenced by other genres but it ultimately merged itself into a newer sound based on what sort of music is popular.
Pop is a genre of music. It’s not easy to define compared to other genres like rock, hip hop, and country, but I’d say the main thing about pop is its emphasis on catchy choruses and a melodic sound.
Imo, the best way to see this is not with pop on its own but when it’s fused with other genres. Compare pop punk with punk rock or glam metal with most other forms of metal. Pop punk and glam metal tend to put more emphasis on the chorus compared to the un-popified versions
Yes to both, I would say: Pop is a genre that you can often recognize by the sound or structure, but it's also an aggregate formed by whatever music happens to become popular. There is often lots of overlap between the two, so I like to think of it as one big Venn diagram, with pop sound/structure as one circle on the left, and music that becomes popular as the circle on the right. The area where they overlap is just broadly "pop music".
Pop music in its early days simply meant music that became popular, that was played on the radio, crossed into the mainstream, and had the attention of the general public. Rock And Roll, for that matter, was the first genre to be considered Pop in the 1950s and 60s in the U.S.
Pop as it is and as we know now, however, became a genre as it progressed into a very specific formula, where a song basically consisted of the first verse, pre-chorus, chorus (or hook, if you will), second verse, a bridge, the final chorus, and an outro. It also became more and more common to have Pop songs made of synthetic productions rather than "organic" ones. Lyrical content also defined what Pop was once a pattern was established.
Like with most genres, vocals also became key to be able to tell if a song is Pop or isn't, which is why we are able to listen to, say, Charli XCX and know she and, I don't know, Cupcakke aren't in the same musical category. Does that make sense?
Hmmm it is a genre. But it is influenced by a lot of other genres. There have been a lot of trap tinged pop songs lately, but it’s been influenced by rock music too. And no OTR is definitely not pop at all
it used to be just popular music, but over the years it developed into a genre. Disco, dance, electronic and even some parts of rock and r&b are all labelled as pop nowadays, but there used to be more of a distinction.
These days I see it as more of a category. There are different styles of pop - trop, bubble gum, electro - but I wouldn’t say there’s one “pop” genre like there is rock or rap. Especially these days, pop artists take influence from so many different genres. Pop, to me, stands for popular.