The pop genre

                                          The pop genre

Originally an abbreviation for popular music, pop is now a genre of its own. Derived from rock and roll, pop music really became its own genre in the 1950s, although it often mixes with other genres and can be very diverse. Pop songs are rarely long songs, and usually follow the structure of verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus.

Pop is associated more with the younger generation of under 30, both for audience and music artists, although it is not exclusively for one age bracket. The charts are mostly dominated by pop music, and can often be heard on radio stations such as capital and kiss. Also award ceremonies such as the teen choice awards, kids’ choice awards and BBC radio one teen awards often have a line up of pop artists performing due to the younger audience. For this reason pop music doesn’t usually include swear words or inappropriate language whereas rap music contains a lot because it has a different market.

Pop artists often have large fan bases and the very successful pop artists have their fans named a fandom e.g. one direction fans are directioners and Justin Bieber fans are beliebers. This is an example of how some people take the view that pop music is commercialised and all about getting fans and making money.

Most pop songs are around two and a half to three and a half minutes in length, and often are arranged around a catchy hook. A common format for a pop song is a verse followed by the chorus then another verse, another chorus and a bridge ending again with the chorus. Pop songs can be very repetitive and are therefore not always considered to be ‘proper songs’, some critics claim the pop genre is too manufactured and not expressive enough.