Pop music

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

Pop music is short for popular music. Usually, this means music that is successful because it sells the most. Sometimes this music is just trying hard to be popular, rather than trying to be good music.

Making Pop music is not just about the group that perform it. There are many more people working on the music than just those singing and playing. Some of these people include studio personnel (people who help the musicians), production (people who help make the music), distribution (people who help sell the music to stores) and retail (people that sell the music to people). Everybody gets some of the money for what they do.

Pop music came from the Rock and Roll movement of the early 1950s, when record companies saw a a chance to make money. Teenagers were the perfect people to sell music to, and the perfect way to make money.

Pop music usually follows some musical trend. Any style of music can "become" pop music if given enough time. Blues-influenced Rock & Roll and Rockabilly were popular in the 1950s. Acid and Folk Rock were very popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s; Disco in the late 1970s; New Wave in the 1980s; and Grunge in the 1990s.

Thinking hard about some ideas usually starts a music trend. If that trend becomes popular the music will also "turn pop". Sometimes, the artists are said to have "sold out".

Some artists were Pop from when they started. Some examples are:

• 1980s
  • Madonna
  • Cyndi Lauper
  • Debbie Gibson
  • Paula Abdul
  • Prince

• 1990s
  • New Kids on the Block
  • Spice Girls
  • Color Me Badd
  • Bobby Brown
  • Mariah Carey

• 2000s
  • Britney Spears
  • Christina Aguilera
  • Jessica Simpson
  • *NSYNC
  • Backstreet Boys
  • Westlife
  • Aaron Carter
  • McFly
  • Hilary Duff
  • Lindsay Lohan