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Popular Music clearlyexplained.com

 

A random collage of popular music album covers from Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, The Beatles, Eminem and Madonna

What is Popular Music? Actually defining popular music is not easy. Popular music is generally consider any music that can be easily accessed by the general public and often distributed by commercial means. There are wide range of definitions for the actual term 'popular music'. These definitions are considered either narrow or broad. reference: Popular music - Wikipedia

Typically popular music is considered music that is not classical, although classical music has a large popular appeal and would fit into a definition of being popular. The diference between 'pop' and popular music is that pop is more of a specific type of music with catchy, light repetitive commercial appeal.

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Why is popular music important ? Culturally... Popular music forms part of our everyday culture. It provides a way of connecting to ones feelings or associations for the current time. It often represents social or political issues or makes subtle comments about society or even rebels against aspects of a society.

Economically... It is also important from the perspective of being a business enterprise. For example some popular music relies on targetting specific groups. Technlogically... Popular music has an impact on the development of recording and distributing music. For example the development of CDs, MP3s and other digital mediums.

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News about popular music. Try a search on Google for your favourite band or group. This week's top 20 Australian singles ClearlyExplained.Com Web ClearlyExplained.Com

Here are some general sites about pop music, mostly charts information   Australian take40 australia ARIA charts UK BBC Radio 1 charts US Billboard.com Yahoo! Launch DotMusic.com

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How is popular music studied? Pop music can be classified in various ways. Here is one way. Interestingly pop music is actually studied quite seriously. Here are some links to instutes that study the phenomena in more detail The Center for Popular Music, US International Association for the study of Popular Music   How is popular music made? Much of popular music is developed by studying what has worked in the past and applying a new twist or variation that is likely to appeal to a particular audience. The singer song writer is probably one of the key features of popular music. Also computer software that samples and sequences sounds can help to produce a similar sound. For example Apple's GarageBand software allows some people to produce popular sounding music.

Types of popular music This is sometimes called genres of music, the following includes a small sample of better known genres: Although it is certainly possibly to have a combination of genres. Alternative rock Goth rock Grunge Indie rock Big band Blues Blues rock Contemporary Christian Country music Disco Easy listening Electro Electronic music Funk Gospel Hard rock Heavy metal Hip hop Jazz New Age Pop music Punk rock Reggae Rock and roll (rock) Rhythm and blues Soul music Trance music World music

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What is the history of popular music?   The history of popular music as we know it today probably relates more to development of technology. In particular the development of the transistor. This led two important pieces of technology: microphones electric amplifers and of course that gets connected to a guitar to give you the electric guitar. Interestingly the electric guitar was developed in the 1930s for big bands so they could be heard over the blare of trumpets.

Perhaps one of the first popular music styles (rock) that incorporated these pieces of technology was Bill Haley and His Comets, followed by Personality singer song writer Elvis Presley and the Beatles as one of the first popular music bands. In the US popular music has also been heavily influenced by african american (black) cultures through the development of jazz. reference : Wikipedia - Jazz

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The future of Popular music? What will popular music be like in 10, 20, 30, 100 or 200 years time? Based on looking at history it is quite likely to be relatively similar. Popular music will probably sample and compile melodies and tunes from the past using sophisticated computer technologies.

Perhaps popular music in the far future will be an extraordinary mix of every type of musical genre blended into one thing. Or there will be a retro style in which people can re-live original concerts through 3D digital simulations.

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