What is the history of Pop Music?

Pop music is one of the most widespread musical genres among young people who like music around the world. This brief history of pop music that we are going to present below seeks to synthesize the most significant elements that have given rise to this musical phenomenon.

What is pop?

We would say that pop is one of the great musical genres that is born from the combination of various genres, such as rock, dance, Latin music, or R&B, and their assembly with catchy melodies and choruses. All this is accompanied by the chords of a good guitar, a battery, a bass, and some synthesizer.

History of pop music:

To go back to the origins of pop music, we must go back to the very beginning of rock music in the year 1955. This brief wave of initial rock and roll would last approximately until the year 1958 when the top stars of that genre were distanced for various reasons.

Let’s remember that Elvis Presley leaves that year for military service, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash and Jerry Lee Lewis enters into the scandal of his wedding with a thirteen-year-old girl.

Rock music was in some way the foundational germ of what would later become pop music itself. The appearance in 1962 of the British group the Beatles marks another evolutionary turn of the screw for pop rock.

The Beatles generated the appearance of a good number of groups inspired by them that generated a considerable pop movement, both in Great Britain and in the United States of America.

At the end of the year 1974, it seems disco music was specially represented by Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer. This “disco” sound, as it is currently called, managed to make an even more significant advance and specialization to the musical genre at hand.

A variety of musical genres emerge from disco music, among which we find reggae, punk, “new wave” and “techno” music.

And, in this way, when the historical journey proposed by the documentary begins, hand in hand with the success achieved by Boys II Men in the 90s, it is understood that pop does not understand colors or social stereotypes: Normally, groups of R&B break out among black audiences, on black radio, and then they catch on. But they rocked it from the start.

Typically, R&B groups break out among black audiences, on black radio, and then catch on. But they rocked it from the start

Sometimes you could make the mistake of dismissing pop as a musical genre and isolating it as a mix of commercial melodies and hooks that everyone has to like.

This is Pop serves to erase any prejudice that could be attached to pop in order to understand its magnitude and its value within the music industry. Already at the end of the 1960s, concerts also played a role in cementing its consolidation, as did the Monterey International Pop Music Festival in California, which is considered the first pop festival. In the background, the Vietnam War was still playing, between demonstrations and protests in the streets.