popular music

popular music
Any music intended to be received and appreciated by ordinary people in a literate, technologically advanced society dominated by urban culture.

Unlike traditional folk music, popular music is written by known individuals, usually professionals, and does not evolve through the process of oral transmission. Historically, popular music was any non-folk form that acquired mass popularity
from the songs of the medieval minstrels and troubadours to those elements of fine art music originally intended for a small, elite audience but that became widely popular. After the Industrial Revolution, true folk music began to disappear, and the popular music of the Victorian era and the early 20th century was that of the music hall and vaudeville, with its upper reaches dominated by waltz music and operettas. In the U.S., minstrel shows performed the compositions of songwriters such as Stephen Foster. In the 1890s Tin Pan Alley emerged as the first popular song-publishing industry, and over the next half century its lyricism was combined with European operetta in a new kind of play known as the musical. Beginning with ragtime in the 1890s, African Americans had begun combining complex African rhythms with European harmonic structures, a synthesis that would eventually create jazz. The music audience greatly expanded, partly because of technology. By 1930, phonograph records had replaced sheet music as the chief source of music in the home. The microphone enabled more intimate vocal techniques to be commercially adapted. The ability of radio broadcasting to reach rural communities aided the dissemination of new styles, notably country music. U.S. popular music achieved international dominance in the decades after World War II. By the 1950s, the migration of African Americans to cities in the North had resulted in the cross-fertilization of elements of blues with the uptempo rhythms of jazz to create rhythm and blues. Rock and roll, with figures such as Elvis Presley, soon developed as an amalgam of rhythm and blues with country music and other influences (see rock music). In the 1960s, British rock groups, including the Beatles, became internationally influential. Rock quickly attracted the allegiance of Western teenagers, who replaced young adults as the chief audience for popular music. From the late 1960s black pop (see Motown) achieved greater sophistication and a wide audience. The history of pop through the 1990s was basically that of rock and its variants, including disco, heavy metal, punk rock, and rap, which spread throughout the world and became the standard musical idiom for young people in many countries.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Popular music — Popular songs redirects here. For the album by Yo La Tengo, see Popular Songs. Popular song redirects here. For songs called Popular , see Popular (song). This article is about popular music of various genres. For the pop music genre, see Pop… …   Wikipedia

  • popular music — popular music, pop music The two terms are not interchangeable. Popular music is a generic term for music of all ages that appeals to popular tastes (e.g. one can refer to nineteenth century popular music, the popular music of Greece, etc). Pop… …   Modern English usage

  • Popular Music —   [englisch/amerikanisch, pɔpjʊlə(r) mjuːzɪk; wörtlich »populäre Musik«], kommerzielle Kategorie und Bezeichnung einer Rubrik in den Charts, unter der die jeweils meistverkauften Musiktitel zusammengefasst sind. Musikalisch ist der in den USA… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • popular music — noun any genre of music having wide appeal (but usually only for a short time) (Freq. 2) • Syn: ↑popular music genre • Hypernyms: ↑music genre, ↑musical genre, ↑genre, ↑musical style …   Useful english dictionary

  • Popular music pedagogy — alternatively called Rock music pedagogy, Popular music education, or Rock music education is a recent development in the field of music education consisting of the application of the systematic teaching and learning of rock music and other forms …   Wikipedia

  • Popular music of Manchester — Contents 1 The pop groups of the 1960s and early 1970s 2 The Sex Pistols at the Free Trade Hall and Punk Rock 3 Factory Records and the post punk period 4 …   Wikipedia

  • popular music genre — noun any genre of music having wide appeal (but usually only for a short time) • Syn: ↑popular music • Hypernyms: ↑music genre, ↑musical genre, ↑genre, ↑musical style • Hyponyms: ↑ …   Useful english dictionary

  • Popular music artists from Atlanta — Atlanta, Georgia has a thriving music industry and is home to many famous hip hop and R B musicians. Jermaine Dupri s 2001 hip hop single Welcome to Atlanta (feat. Ludacris) declares Atlanta the new Motown , referencing the city of Detroit,… …   Wikipedia

  • popular music — noun music appealing to the popular taste, including rock, pop, reggae, dance music, etc …   English new terms dictionary

  • popular music — noun Any genre of music that has a wide appeal amongst the general public of a society dominated by urban culture and advanced technology, especially music with less complexity than classical music …   Wiktionary

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”