History of Pop Music in the World: Cultural and Social Changes Essay

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Introduction

Pop music can be defined as a form of musical entertainment that is recorded for business purposes and mostly targets the youths. It comprises of short love songs that are simple. Pop music is the short form of Popular Music. This form of entertainment has been developed over a long period of time from many popular dances. It is thought to have its origin from Europe (Scaruffi, 2007).

Origin of pop music

Pop music is thought to have started in 1679 at Napoli in Italy (Inglis, 2006). At around this time Alessandro composed his very first Opera that Francesco later coined its musical language. In Vienna, Americans caused a lot of revolution and development of factories. This brought a lot of cultural and social changes to the people in the 19th century. This new living style needed a new dancing style that was ‘popular’ hence the development of Waltz that was a folk dance from Australia at around 1800. Waltz was viewed as a good dance for the new living standard of people.

In Paris, pop music started at around 1870 and this was after the end of the Terror and Napoleonic Wars (Scaruffi, 2007). These people had cafes that sold alcohol and food and the common form of entertainment was concert. With time the singers started to write down their presentations and they could sing severally. This lead to improvement and they started addressing issues that the audience could understand. They started with Cabaret around 1882 that was improved as lifestyle improved.

Factors that promoted pop music

Pop music is thought to have been an indication of the interaction of people and their environment. As the lifestyle of people improved a great improvement in the form of entertainment was as well noted especially among the well able people but for the poor this was not the case. Later, following the evolvement of industries and development of urban centers, also the lifestyle of poor people improved considerably and this lead to the improvement of music among the poor and the rich.

Another factor that led to music improvement was the development of theaters where singers would dance as audience watched. Also in America, pop music advanced due to immigrants and slaves that brought diversity in language (Inglis, 2006). Colonization also greatly influenced musical entertainment especially pop music in different parts of the world.

Comparison

Comparing today’s pop music with that of the 19th century, great improvement can be noted. This is through the influence from other types of music example the current gospel, soul, blues, rock and electronic music (Hatch & Millward, 2008). It has incorporated different instrumentation, vocal harmonization, and backing from other popular music. With the advancement in technology, pop music has adapted the use of powerful microphones, proper recording using multi-track and also sampling. The media especially radio and television have really popularized pop music leading to its advancement.

Conclusion

It should be noted that different countries and regions have their own pop music depending on culture and lifestyle, example the Japanese have their own pop music that has got no western influence. Due to westernization of most regions, the pop style of America is spreading quickly making pop music to become something of the world. Therefore the future of pop music looks bright as there are new developments in the music industry every time. We look forward to a time when pop music will be fully global and of the highest level.

References

Hatch, D. & Millward, S. (2008). From blues to rock: an analytical history of pop music. Cengage Learning

Inglis, I. (2006). Performance and pop music: history, place and time. Ashgate Plc.

Scaruffi, P. (2007). A brief history of pop music. McGraw Hill Plc.

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IvyPanda. 2022. "History of Pop Music in the World: Cultural and Social Changes." February 5, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-pop-music-in-the-world/.

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IvyPanda. "History of Pop Music in the World: Cultural and Social Changes." February 5, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-pop-music-in-the-world/.

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