Whether you like it or not, you listen to it all the time. Because it’s everywhere. Ariana Grande. Taylor Swift. Dua Lipa. Justin Bieber. You know pop music when you hear it. But if someone asked you to define it, you might have a tough time. And you might not care. Regardless, we’re going to try to answer the question. What is pop music? Here’s a simple explanation.
Basic Concepts
As mentioned previously, placing music into different genres isn’t always a clear process. All music shares basic concepts like notes, intervals (the distance between individual notes), rhythm, etc. Obviously, how these concepts are put together can yield dramatically different results. We’re talking about the feel, the emotion, and all that stuff. The bottom line is that musical genres are sometimes defined by such hazy factors as opposed to pure musical structure.
With all that said, as we try to break down pop music, we’ll throw in a little about musical structure. But don’t worry, we’ll go light on the hard core music theory.
Pop Music
The term popular music describes all music that is popular. Within that general category is the specific genre of pop music, which is the one we’re discussing. Pop music as we know it came into existence in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States and United Kingdom. The style has since influenced music across the world, giving rise to things like Latin pop, K-pop (South Korea), and J-pop (Japan).
Pop music tends to consist of short or medium-length songs in the range of three to four minutes. The tunes can be described as catchy, sometimes danceable, often about love, and designed for a broad audience. Time signatures and chord progressions are typically simple. (Don’t worry if you don’t know what these mean.) It’s hard to know if the commercial success of the genre has to do with some sort of mind-music connection, aggressive marketing, or a mix of the two.
In terms of song structure, pop music is known for using the verse – chorus form, which is not at all unique to pop. A simple example would be verse / chorus / verse / chorus, where the verses share the same music (but not lyrics), and the chorus is identical throughout. (The chorus is the most recognizable part of a song and is repeated multiple times.)
The above elements can be connected by other elements such as an introduction, pre-chorus (or lift), post-chorus, bridge, and outro. A common structure is intro / verse / pre-chorus / chorus / verse / pre-chorus / chorus / bridge / chorus / outro.
You may have heard the term hook. This simply refers to a catchy musical idea that is usually found in the chorus.
Examples
There is no shortage of options to choose from when it comes to examples. Here are a couple current pop hits.
“Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles
This song is in 4/4 time and the key of C major. We don’t know what that means, but we know musicians who told us this information. Check out the video, and listen for the parts of the song listed below. The time shown is when the given part starts. (If you’re on mobile, make sure the video is not in full screen mode.)
0:10 Verse. 0:30 Pre-chorus. 0:50 Chorus. 1:01 Verse. 1:20 Pre-chorus. 1:30 Chorus. 1:51 Post-chorus. 2:01 Bridge. 2:20 Chorus. 2:41 Post-chorus (or outro).
“Heat Waves” by Glass Animals
This song is in 4/4 time and the key of B major. (Again, someone told us so.) Notice how the first chorus actually precedes the first verse. You can follow along with the timeline below.
0:00 Intro. 0:30 Chorus. 0:54 Verse. 1:17 Chorus. 1:29 Verse. 1:53 Chorus. 2:17 Bridge. 2:43 Chorus. 3:07 Outro.
Now you’re totally set to rock. Or is it pop? Either way, you might be kind of cool.
