Technology and media was the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his recordings onto
magnetic tape. In the 1940s, improved
microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and, ten or twenty years later, inexpensive and more durable 45 rpm records for singles "revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated", which helped to move pop music to "a record/radio/film star system". Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s with televised performances, which meant that "pop stars had to have a visual presence". Music critic
Simon Reynolds writes that beginning with 1967, a divide would exist between "progressive" pop and "mass/chart" pop, a separation which was "also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class." The latter half of the 20th century included a large-scale trend in American culture in which the boundaries between art and pop music were increasingly blurred. Between 1950 and 1970, there was a debate of pop versus art.
Stylistic evolution marked a period when the US charts were inundated with British acts such as
the Beatles (pictured 1964). Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on
traditional pop, an American counterpart to German
Schlager and French
Chanson, however compared to the pop of European countries, traditional pop originally emphasized influences ranging from
Tin Pan Alley songwriting,
Broadway theatre, and
show tunes. As the genre evolved more influences ranging from
classical,
folk,
rock,
country,
electronic music, and other popular genres became more prominent. In 2016, a
Scientific Reports study that examined over 464,000 recordings of popular music recorded between 1955 and 2010 found that, compared to 1960s pop music, contemporary pop music uses a smaller variety of pitch progressions, greater average volume, less diverse instrumentation and recording techniques, and less timbral variety. became one of the biggest pop stars of the 1970s. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar, drum and bass groups or singers backed by a traditional orchestra. Since early in the decade, it was common for pop producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form,
orchestration,
unnatural reverb, and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are
Phil Spector's
Wall of Sound and
Joe Meek's use of homemade electronic sound effects for acts such as
the Tornados. At the same time, pop music on radio and in both American and British film moved away from refined Tin Pan Alley to more eccentric songwriting and incorporated reverb-drenched electric guitar, symphonic strings, and horns played by groups of properly arranged and rehearsed studio musicians. A 2019 study held by
New York University in which 643 participants had to rank how familiar a pop song is to them, songs from the 1960s turned out to be the most memorable, significantly more than songs from recent years 2000 to 2015. Before the
progressive pop of the late 1960s, performers were typically unable to decide on the artistic content of their music. Assisted by the mid-1960s economic boom, record labels began investing in artists, giving them the freedom to experiment, and offering them limited control over their content and marketing. This situation declined after the late 1970s and would not reemerge until the rise of
Internet stars.
Indie pop, which developed in the late 1970s, marked another departure from the glamour of contemporary pop music, with guitar bands formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music without having to procure a
record contract from a major label. The 1980s are commonly remembered for an increase in the use of
digital recording, associated with the usage of
synthesizers, with
synth-pop music and other
electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity. By 2014, pop music worldwide had been permeated by
electronic dance music.
International spread and crosspollination Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British
music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics. Some of these trends (for example
Europop) have had a significant impact on the development of the genre. According to
Grove Music Online, "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures". Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop. Japan has for several years produced a greater quantity of music than everywhere except the US. The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization,
homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation,
cultural imperialism, or a more general process of
globalization. Later,
Los Lobos and
Chicano rock gained in popularity during the 1970s and 1980s, and musician
Selena saw large-scale popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, along with crossover appeal with fans of
Tejano musicians
Lydia Mendoza and
Little Joe. With later
Hispanic and Latino Americans seeing success within pop music charts, 1990s pop successes stayed popular in both their original genres and in broader pop music. Latin pop hit singles, such as "
Macarena" by
Los del Río and "
Despacito" by
Luis Fonsi, have seen record-breaking success on worldwide pop music charts. Notable pop artists of the late 20th century that became global superstars include
Whitney Houston,
Michael Jackson,
Madonna,
George Michael, and
Prince.
21st century has been named "
Princess of Pop" for revitalizing teen pop in the 2000s.|upright At the beginning of the 2000s, the trends that dominated during the late 1990s still continued, but the music industry started to change as people began to download music from the internet. People were able to discover genres and artists that were outside of the mainstream and propel them to fame, but at the same time smaller artists had a harder time making a living because their music was being pirated. Popular artists were
Avril Lavigne,
Justin Timberlake,
NSYNC,
Christina Aguilera,
Destiny's Child, and
Britney Spears. Pop music often came from many different genres, with each genre in turn influencing the next one, blurring the lines between them and making them less distinct. This change was epitomized in Spears' highly influential 2007 album
Blackout, which under the influence of producer
Danja, mixed the sounds of
EDM,
avant-funk,
R&B,
dance music, and
hip hop. By 2010, pop music impacted by dance music came to be dominant on the charts. Instead of radio setting the trends, it was now the club. At the beginning of the 2010s,
Will.i.am stated, "The new bubble is all the collective clubs around the world. Radio is just doing its best to keep up." Songs that talked of escapism through partying became the most popular, influenced by the impulse to forget the economic troubles during the
Great Recession; this style of pop music is now known as
recession pop. Throughout the 2010s, a lot of pop music also began to take cues from
alternative pop. Popularized by artists such as
Lana Del Rey,
Justin Bieber,
Adele,
Ariana Grande, and
Lorde in the early 2010s and later inspiring other highly influential artists including
Billie Eilish and
Taylor Swift, it gave space to a more sad and moody tone within pop music. In the 2020s, Canadian pop singer
the Weeknd's song "
Blinding Lights", became a staple hit of the decade, reaching the top spot of
Billboard greatest
Hot 100 songs of all time, surpassing "
The Twist" by
Chubby Checker. It also broke the record for the first song to reach five billion streams on the
Spotify streaming platform, becoming the
most-streamed song of all time in the platform's history. This further led to a success from pop music dominating other streaming platforms including Spotify,
Apple Music and
YouTube Music, alongside other artists, which include
Taylor Swift,
Drake,
Ariana Grande and
Olivia Rodrigo. The former becoming a successful artist of the century breaking numerous music records such as album sales, streaming and touring. ==See also==