Pop music is defined as the most “popular” music; it combines sounds influenced by all different types of music.
The music of Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Bruno Mars and Britney Spears get a great deal of airplay, and have big iTunes sales and countless YouTube views of music videos. A muscial artist such as Lady Gaga makes the biggest and most eccentric fashion statements and will be very controversial.
When stars like Spears first burst onto the scene in 1999, she quickly became the most important figure in pop music. Before her time, idols such as Madonna filled this void by creating such visual appeal from their music videos and iconic dance moves that people couldn’t get enough of the music. An album from 1982, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, still remains the biggest selling album of all time, a remarkable achievement that shows how certain pop music helps stand over time.
Even rappers like Kanye West, if they want to appeal to a bigger audience, record with some of the biggest pop stars in the industry. So why is this? Why is pop so popular? Pop music appeals to anyone because of its vibes and influences from jazz and rock and roll, creating a catchy beat from every part of music in one pop song. But over the years, it has also changed.
The bubbly pop stars have now transcended their tunes into heavy dance tracks, trying to appeal more to the club and party scene of young people who always listen to their music. Spears’ new single “Hold It Against Me” is a club-ready track produced by Max Martin that combines industrial beats and dub-step influenced breakdown, different from Spears’ other tunes, but her voice is still the biggest attribute and the most iconic, especially to her fans, who only want Spears.
Frontman Will.i.am. has transformed his group, The Black Eyed Peas, as well, with his new single “The Time (Dirty Bit)” complete with electronic beats, as well as dance beats. These groups and singers are focusing on getting their music straight to the dance floor and letting people get up and realize what music is really about. Expect pop music to continue its evolution for the next fifty years.
