How Pop Music Evolved Through Time

Pop music is generally melodic and easy on the ears, with an upbeat, catchy beat that repeats itself throughout each track.

Jazz was the founding genre of pop music, evolving through jazz boogie woogie and gospel handclaps into rock ‘n’ roll.

MTV was instrumental in revolutionizing pop music during the 80s, providing artists like Michael Jackson a platform to display their talent through viral music videos that went global.

Disco

Disco music became an immensely popular form of nightclub dance music during the 1970s. This genre featured rhythmic “four on the floor” beats with arrangements featuring strings and horns; long songs encouraged dancing; it also proved immensely popular with both white music listeners as well as gay and lesbian club-goers alike.

Though disco was only popular for a brief period, its impact on music production was profound. Many songs employed up to 64 vocal and instrumental tracks to craft seamless compositions with built-in breaks; mixing engineers played an invaluable role here by merging all these separate layers together into a cohesive whole piece of music.

An essential development in disco music was the advent of synthesizers as musical tools to produce sounds, and alter song tones and styles. This allowed for a wide range of musical genres to emerge, further mainstreaming this subgenre of music.

Disco’s rapid rise to popularity was propelled by performers like Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, Gloria Gaynor and KC and the Sunshine Band. Other musicians began incorporating elements of disco into their music as well; for instance easy listening singer Barbra Streisand recorded an easy listening track with disco influences while country artist Dolly Parton successfully broke through to dance charts with “Baby I’m Burning”.

Not all artists were enthusiastic about disco, particularly rockers — typically straight, white males — who strongly opposed its sound. This feeling reached its pinnacle during Disco Demolition Night (1979) at Comiskey Park in Chicago where thousands of record albums were destroyed to demonstrate this disagreement with disco music.

Funk

After James Brown’s success with Cold Sweat, many R&B artists began exploring funk. Kool & The Gang, Sly & the Family Stone and Mother’s Finest popularised this genre through tight instrumental units and polyrhythmic grooves; often starting on different beats of each bar or adding/subtracting notes from chords; this groove could also be enhanced through melismas for vocalists, grace notes for guitar players or ghost notes and drags for drummers.

Funk music featured a repetitive electric bassline and drum pattern; its unique rhythms captured audiences. Furthermore, this style often featured sexual themes within its lyrics which reflected shifting attitudes about sexuality at the time.

Funk has had an enormous influence on other genres of music. Disco, developed later in the 70s, incorporated its repetitive beats and basslines, while hip-hop used its breakbeats as part of its sound. Furthermore, House and Techno dance music have long incorporated elements of Funk into their sound.

Modern rock bands also incorporated elements of funk into their musical styles, such as Living Colour, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction and Prince. Artists like Living Colour, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction and Prince introduced audiences to approaches and techniques learned from funk pioneers. Even bands which never achieved commercial success like Jamiroquai, Incognito Galliano or Brand New Heavies still kept its spirit alive with instrumental approaches that kept funk alive into the 1990s and 2000s.

Singer-Songwriter

Singer-songwriter is a musical genre defined by artists writing, composing and performing their own songs. They typically focus on personal themes or storytelling through emotive lyrics that connect deeply with listeners. Although its roots lie in folk music, singer-songwriter has since evolved with heavy influence from country rock. Today artists such as Ed Sheeran, Adele and Taylor Swift are considered singer-songwriters while this genre continues to develop as more artists explore novel ways of reaching their audience through songwriting.

Before the advent of phonographic recording, most songs were composed and written by professional songwriters to be performed by hired artists. Demos would then be played back for prospective clients as an audition of the composer’s talents and skills. Once phonographic recording became mainstream, however, some songwriters began performing their own material live. Notable examples include Carole King and her Brill Building cohort who frequently performed their hits during their live shows in the 1960s – an act which further blurred the distinction between performer and composer.

Early pioneers of singer-songwriter music often played their own instruments – whether solo on an acoustic guitar or with backing musicians from small ensembles – such as an acoustic guitar and/or bass. Lyrics were intimate and personal while still remaining obscure through metaphors or imagery; their style combined influences from folk, country music and Tin Pan Alley pop – artists such as James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell were prominent representatives from this era; Suzanne Vega and Tracy Chapman had similar contributions later in this decade.

1980s

As music technology advanced during the 1980s, so did pop music. CDs outshone vinyl albums while digital recording systems enhanced studio productions with greater clarity and editing abilities. Furthermore, this decade saw the emergence of an incredible roster of pop stars who became iconic mascots for their genre: Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Prince all reached superstardom as never seen before; these icons defined fashion trends through music videos while constantly reinventing themselves.

In the 1980s, various subgenres of music characterized its soundscape: disco’s infectious dance rhythms, punk’s raw energy and funk’s tight grooves were hallmarks of their time. New wave artists like Donna Summer, The Clash and Madonna utilized synthesizers into their sound while Duran Duran, Bon Jovi and The Cure took advantage of gothic themes with haunting lyrics to craft moody work.

Rock and metal music expanded through the proliferation of bands like Guns N’ Roses, who provided a theatrical yet hard-hitting style. Albums like Appetite for Destruction by Guns N’ Roses and Metallica’s Master of Puppets by Metallica expanded upon this by featuring thrash guitar riffs, dark themes and complex arrangements.

Hip-hop and rap music was another prominent genre during the 80s, bringing with it an increased socially conscious message, along with an active do-it-yourself ethic that changed popular culture. Groups like Run DMC and Public Enemy pushed the limits of genre to great critical acclaim as well as building dedicated fans who revered them.

Earworm Potential

Studies on earworms have focused heavily on discovering any musical characteristics that make certain songs more likely to become an earworm. While repetition in music may play a part, other possible characteristics could include pitch quality (tone quality), rhythm quality and whether the tune includes lyrics.

Noteworthy is the observation that music which most frequently is reported as an earworm often features unique characteristics like catchy melodies or distinct rhythms, suggesting they might serve as explanations as to why some pieces seem to repeat themselves over and over, seemingly for no particular reason.

Earworms typically last no more than 27 minutes and tend to be less prevalent among people who identify themselves as musicians; nonetheless, researchers found them difficult to dislodge from one’s mind even for musicians themselves.

This study also discovered that one of the most effective remedies for an earworm was to listen to another song; regardless of whether or not they had already heard one with similar lyrics as their earworm. “God Save the Queen”, “Happy Birthday”, and Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon proved popular cure tunes.

Psychologists from UC Santa Cruz conducted an experiment in order to gain more insight into why certain tunes become stuck in our heads, by asking participants to sing out their earworms into a microphone. Their study discovered that most earworms were easily identifiable and correctly pitched, with over half (68.9%) being within one semitone of their original song source material. These factors might play an integral role in deciding if a tune could become an earworm; however further investigation must be conducted into its causes in order to gain better insight.