By the s, pop was a genre with endless roads for artists to travel down, each with its own flair and twist to the classic traditions of pop music. Pop music had become an electric melting pot of subgenres and sounds that all shared the common tropes of a pop song. Today, pop music is as diverse and rich as it is because of the influences on its evolution.
Pop is a complicated, wondrous genre of music where the possibilities feel endless, and the sounds feel like all of your favorites coming home to play. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK". Sign Up. Travel Guides. Videos Beyond Hollywood Hungerlust Pioneers of love. Katherine Myers.
The s. Give us feedback. Read Next View. Residence Inn Los Angeles L. The introduction of the reel-to-reel tape recorder paved the way for several innovations that would transform the music industry. The first commercially available tape recorders were monophonic, meaning that they only had one track on which to record sound onto magnetic tape. This may seem limiting today, but at the time it allowed for exciting innovations.
By the time four-track and eight-track recorders became readily available in the s, musicians no longer had to play together in the same room; they could record each of their individual parts and combine them into a finished recording.
Reel-to-reel tape recorders and magnetic tape not only helped artists experiment with overdubbing, but they also were a compact method for reproducing and preserving audio.
While the reel-to-reel recorders were in the early stages of development, families listened to records on their gramophones. The 78 revolutions per minute rpm disc had been the accepted recording medium for many years despite the necessity of changing the disc every 5 minutes.
In , Columbia Records perfected the inch 33 rpm long-playing LP disc, which could play up to 25 minutes per side and had a lower level of surface noise than the earlier and highly breakable shellac discs. Ronald D. Cohen New York: Routledge, , The 33 rpm discs became the standard form for full albums and would dominate the recorded music industry until the advent of the compact disc CD.
During the s, a mutually beneficial alliance between sound recording and radio existed. Artists such as Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald profited from radio exposure.
Until this time, music had primarily been recorded for adults, but the popularity of Sinatra and his contemporaries revealed an entirely untapped market: teenagers. The postwar boom of the s and early s provided many teenagers spending money for records. Radio airplay helped to promote and sell records and the recording artists themselves, which in turn stabilized the recording industry. The near riots caused by the appearance of New Jersey crooner Frank Sinatra in concert paved the way for mass hysteria among Elvis Presley and Beatles fans during the rock and roll era.
New technology continued to develop in the s with the introduction of television. The new medium spread rapidly, primarily because of cheaper mass-production costs and war-related improvements in technology. The radio industry adapted by focusing on music, joining forces with the recording industry to survive.
In an effort to do so, it became somewhat of a promotional tool. Stations became more dependent on recorded music to fill airtime, and in the Top 40 format was born. Playlists for radio stations were based on popularity usually the Billboard Top 40 singles chart , and a popular song might be played as many as 30 or 40 times a day. Radio stations began to influence record sales, which resulted in increased competition for spots on the playlist.
This ultimately resulted in payola The illegal practice of receiving money from record companies for playing particular songs on the radio. The payola scandal came to a head in the s, when Cleveland, Ohio, DJ Alan Freed and 8 other disc jockeys were accused of taking money for airplay.
King surged in popularity among white and black teenagers alike. Marketed under the name rhythm and blues A combination of blues and jazz that was a precursor to rock and roll. Nonetheless, there was a considerable amount of crossover among audiences.
Although banned from some stations, others embraced the popular new music. Taking its name from a blues slang term for sex, the music obtained instant notoriety, gaining widespread support among teenage music fans and widespread dislike among the older generation. Frenetic showmen Little Richard and Chuck Berry were early pioneers of rock and roll, and their wild stage performances became characteristic of the genre. As the integration of white and black individuals progressed in the s with the repeal of segregation laws and the initiation of the civil rights movement, aspects of black cultures, including music, became more widely accepted by many white individuals.
However, it was the introduction of a white man who sang songs written by black musicians that helped rock and roll really spread across state and racial lines. The reaction Presley inspired among hordes of adolescent girls—screaming, crying, rioting—solidified his reputation as the first true rock and roll icon. Prior to , rock and roll was primarily an American export. Although U. This situation changed almost overnight, with the arrival of British pop phenomenon the Beatles. Combining elements of skiffle—a type of music played on rudimentary instruments, such as banjos, guitars, or homemade instruments—doo-wop, and soul, the four mop-haired musicians from Liverpool, England, created a genre of music known as Merseybeat Term used to describe the music of bands originating in the Mersey area of England during the s, e.
When the Beatles arrived in New York in , they were met by hundreds of reporters and police officers and thousands of fans.
Their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show a few days later was the largest audience for an American television program, with approximately one in three Americans 74 million tuning in. During their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show , the Stones were lewd and vulgar, prompting host Ed Sullivan to denounce their behavior although he privately acknowledged that the band had received the most enthusiastic applause he had ever seen.
The British Invasion transformed rock and roll into the all-encompassing genre of rock, sending future performers in two different directions: the melodic, poppy sounds of the Beatles, on the one hand, and the gritty, high-volume power rock of the Stones on the other.
The branching out of rock and roll continued in several other directions throughout the s. Surf music Carefree, hedonistic music that developed around the California surf culture in the s and is characterized by twanging, distorted electric guitar sounds.
With their twanging electric guitars and glossy harmonies, the surf groups sang of girls, beaches, and convertible cars cruising along the West Coast. In Detroit, some black performers were developing a sound that would have crossover appeal with both black and white audiences.
Producer and songwriter Berry Gordy Jr. Capitalizing on the s girl-group craze, Gordy produced hits by the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, and, most successfully, Diana Ross and the Supremes. For his bands, he created a slick, polished image designed to appeal to the American mainstream.
In the late s, supporters of the civil rights movement—along with feminists, environmentalists, and Vietnam War protesters—were gravitating toward folk Unpolished genre of music based on oral traditions and often associated with the social protest movement of the s.
Broadly referring to music that is passed down orally through the generations, folk music retained an unpolished, amateur quality that inspired participation and social awareness. Carrying on the legacy of the s labor activist Woody Guthrie, singer-songwriters such as Joan Baez; Peter, Paul, and Mary; and Bob Dylan sang social protest songs about civil rights, discrimination against black Americans, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Having earned himself a reputation as a political spokesperson, Dylan was lambasted by traditional folk fans for playing an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival. However, his attempt to reach a broader crowd inspired the folk rock Folk music played with electric instruments.
Protest music in the s was closely aligned with the hippie culture, in which some viewed taking drugs as a form of personal expression and free speech. Artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and the Doors believed that the listening experience could be enhanced using mind-altering drugs. This spirit of freedom and protest culminated in the infamous Woodstock festival in the summer of , although the subsequent deaths of many of its stars from drug overdoses cast a shadow over the psychedelic culture.
Here was a song in six parts unheard of at the time , sung in an endless "round. A few centuries before it was cheapened by ice-cream vans and endless reruns of the Lassie TV series, this was possibly the first widely-heard song in the English language, a love ballad with a melody as catchy as anything by the Beatles or Sara Bareilles.
Strangely, it probably began life as a vigorous dance tune. It is often credited to Henry VIII, but while he was supposedly an accomplished musician, he probably can't claim this one. The words were first published around some years after they were written. This very different song has lasted as long as "Greensleeves," and like so many early songs has a simplicity that has turned it into children's song.
Its lyrics are nonsense, obviously not written for worship or information, but for pure entertainment value. In fact, the words were possibly racist, referring to Elizabeth I's French suitor, the Duke of Anjou.
A "pop song" by almost any definition. Written by John Howard Payne, the simple lyrics and hummable melody made this opera song a hit with the masses. Yet even as late as , over three-quarters of records sold were classical pieces. Still, recorded music allowed a greater audience for music than ever before, no longer limited to households with a piano or a sight-reading singer. Pennsylvania-born Stephen Collins Foster's songs were inspired by and often mistaken for Negro spirituals, with their smoother and more accessible melodies than the intricate, opera-inspired tunes of the time.
Exactly how successful is difficult to say, because song piracy was an issue even in the midth century. Over 20 editions of the sheet music, mostly illegal, had spread all over the U.
In , "Old Folks at Home" had unprecedented sales of , in legal copies , back when 10, was considered a good sale and 50, a major hit. During the Civil War, it was sung by soldiers on both sides. Foster still didn't become wealthy from his success. Before the war was over, he had died in New York at age 38, reportedly suicide.
The success of "After the Ball" was truly amazing. Before it was published, million-selling songs were unheard of.
The secret: a new ish concept called PR.
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