Rise of Pop Music And What Makes It So Popular

Popular music commonly known as "Pop" music is one of the most widely enjoyed genre of music. The peppy notes and rhythmic tunes make it easy on ear. It has been instrumental in the success of many musical icons.

According to Classissima, Pop music can be of many types, ranging from minstrelsy to hip hop. It led to the formation of a diversified culture of music especially in the United States of America. In his book "Love for Sale: Pop Music in America", the author David Hadju narrates the history of popularity for different kinds of music before 1940, when Billboard used to compile and distribute list of songs with the sole aim of tracking their sales.

Hadju is a well known critic who has written for The Nation and also a professor of journalism at Columbia University. His other literary creations are "Lush Life: A bIography of Bill Strayhorn and Positively 4^th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina."

In his book, Hadju shapes in the transformation of music starting from the stage performances in late 19^th and early 20^th century before the records became commonplace to modern times with the advent of albums. His interesting take on the subject of sex in music says,"there was never any doubt that to slip and slide, to shake and rattle, to rock and roll, meant to have sex." His book though lacks much insight on the era of radio and its impact on music.

According to an earlier report on Music.Mic, anyone who listens to pop music religiously will find that they all sound similar after a particular period of time. Based on a survey involving more than 50,000 albums, it is a sure thing that "simplicity sells best" irrespective of the music genre. It says that as a song becomes popular, it also becomes monotonous and fails to deliver anything out of the box.

The main motto behind the production becomes sales-centric instead of art or passion and as the researchers say, "as music becoming increasingly formulaic in terms of instrumentation under increasing sales numbers due to a tendency to popularize music styles with low variety and musicians with similar skills." They also say that the record companies promote what they find sales worthy.

On finding a song or an artist worthy of selling on their radar, the radio companies promote them in a way that audience gets connected to that particular song or artist. Clear Channel's "On the Verge" is one of the best citations in this regard. When a particular song is played "On the Verge", every station on the network of Clear Channel plays it for almost 150 times and thus embedding it in a network of 245 million listeners. Artists like Iggy Azalea benefited hugely from this cycle of operations.

Despite being accused of sounding similar, pop music has enough diversity to weave its magic across age barriers. Music trends will come and go but pop music will remain evergreen as it the most common choice of millions of music lovers.

Tagsmusic, Pop, Popular, Music genres, Science of Music