Pop Music Style

Some people use the terms "popular music" and "pop music" interchangeably. In this class we will use "popular music" to include a number of musical genres that have wide appeal to a mass audience of the sort that is distributed by the music industry.

"Pop music" on the refers to a genre of popular music. Here are some of the characteristics.

• Pop songs are generally fairly short (2.5 - 3 minutes) and use verse-chorus structure with melodic tunes and hooks.
  
  
• Pop music emphasis recording, production, and technology over live performance, and much is intended to encourage dancing and/or use dance-oriented beats.
  
  
• Choruses contrast melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically with verses.
  
  
• Sub genres of pop music include power pop and pop rock.
  
  
• Pop is aimed at a youth market and is usually softer than rock and roll. Good examples of pop songs can be found in the music of The Beatles and ABBA. By the early 1980s pop music was typified by Michael Jackson (sometimes called "The King of Pop") and Madonna and affected by the rise of MTV. In the 1990s Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears were considered the "Princesses of Pop."

-adapted from Wikipedia

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