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Any type of music that a large number of people enjoy can be called popular music. In general, popular music is created by professional musicians within an industry devoted entirely to its manufacture and sale. Although popular music may be derived from folk music, they are not the same. Folk music is the traditional music of common people, which is not usually written down or popular with many people throughout the world. Popular music is also different from classical music, which is more formal or artistic.

Early Forms

Historically, popular music was any non-folk form that gained mass popularity—from the songs of the medieval minstrels to the religious music popular with Pilgrim settlers in the American Colonies. Before 1800 most popular music in America was brought to the New World by English, Irish, and Scottish immigrants. Sad, sentimental songs introduced from England led to the beginning of the United States song-publishing industry in the 1790s. It was to the melody of a popular English drinking song that Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814. Another typically sentimental song of the 19th century was “Home, Sweet Home,” a collaboration between an English composer and an American lyricist.

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The first troupes of minstrels began to appear in the United States in the 1840s. The minstrels were white men who painted their faces black and performed songs in crude, often racist, imitations of black musicians. Minstrel shows often featured the songs of Stephen Foster, the first American to make a career of writing songs.

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Immensely popular throughout the 1800s were European music hall and variety shows, which offered successive acts featuring singers, comedians, dancers, actors, and other performers. In the 1890s the American equivalent to music hall and variety, known as vaudeville, became popular. Such vaudeville singers as Lillian Russell introduced the newest songs from New York City’s Tin Pan Alley, the center of the song-publishing industry in the late 19th century. Vaudeville paved the way for the development of the musical comedy, or the musical.

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By the early 20th century new American forms of popular music, including ragtime and the musicals of Broadway, began to spread to Great Britain and the rest of Europe. Since then, Western popular music has been dominated by developments in the United States. The rags created by Missouri composer Scott Joplin were especially popular. John Philip Sousa, a former leader of the United States Marine Band who directed his own band in the famous marches he composed, was the foremost American bandleader and also toured in Europe.

Phonograph, Radio, and Movie Music

In the early 20th century improvements in recording technology made phonograph records a principal means of spreading music. Before 1920 the most popular recording artist was the opera singer Enrico Caruso. Popular songs also began to be recorded, and in 1913 African American bandleader James Reese Europe directed the first recordings by a band of black musicians. As the record industry grew, such popular bandleaders as Paul Whiteman, Ben Selvin, and Sam Lanin recorded hundreds of songs in the 1920s. By 1930 phonograph records had replaced sheet music as the chief source of music in the home, thereby allowing people without any musical training to hear popular songs.

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Commercial radio stations, which first appeared in 1920, also had a profound effect on popular music. The ability of radio broadcasting to reach rural communities helped popularize new musical styles, especially country music. Radio also featured large ensembles playing popular songs suitable for dancing. These so-called dance bands, or big bands, enjoyed their greatest popularity from the 1920s to the end of World War II. In the late 1930s and ’40s jazz enjoyed its only period of mass popularity with the swing style of the big bands. Swing’s most prominent bandleaders included Glenn Miller, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington.

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The advent of motion pictures had an impact on the development of popular music as well. Motion picture musicals became a major source of popular songs. The most popular singer of the 1930s and ’40s was Bing Crosby, who made many hit records, broadcast a weekly radio program, and sang and acted in films. Most of the leading composers and lyricists wrote scores for the theater and also wrote music for films. They included Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Sammy Cahn, and Cole Porter. George Gershwin wrote hundreds of songs, including “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You.”

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After World War II and the decline of the big bands, individual singers were largely responsible for introducing popular songs. Frank Sinatra, who began in 1939 with the Harry James band, was still performing more than 50 years later. Other popular singers who emerged in the 1940s and early 1950s were Peggy Lee, Perry Como, and Tony Bennett.

Dawn of the Rock Era

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By the 1950s the migration of African Americans from the South to cities in the North had resulted in the melding of elements of blues with the up-tempo rhythms of jazz to create rhythm and blues, or R&B. Rock and roll, pioneered by figures such as Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, soon developed as rhythm and blues blended with country music and other influences. In the 1960s British rock groups, including the Beatles, became internationally influential and popular.

Rock and soul (an offshoot of rhythm and blues) came to dominate the world of pop music. The genres that emerged from the 1960s into the 21st century—including disco, heavy metal, funk, punk, rap, hip-hop, and pop-oriented world music—all had roots in rock, soul, or rhythm and blues.

Additional Reading

Bogdanov, Vladimir, and others, eds. All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music, 4th ed. (Backbeat, 2001).Campbell, Michael. Popular Music in America: The Beat Goes On, 4th ed. (Schirmer Cengage Learning, 2013).Larkin, Colin, ed. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 5th concise ed. (Omnibus Press, 2007).Roach, Martin. Music: Facts and Trivia (Virgin, 2004).Valdez, Stephen. A History of Rock Music, 4th ed. (Kendall/Hunt, 2006).Vinet, Mark. Evolution of Modern Popular Music: A History of Blues, Jazz, Country, R&B, Rock, and Rap (Wadem, 2004).