Popular Music

Pop music is a very complex cultural and media form, not least because it is so interdependent on other media for its continued existence. It is an industry worth some $40 billion a year, globally, but it is also an industry with big question marks over its future. Does the Internet spell the slow agonising death of record companies as we know them? You need to be aware what the developments and issues are. There are many websites aimed at music industry professionals, but it is well worth wading through all the jargon to find information which is useful for your research. There is much heated online discussion at the moment about the efforts of the big companies to begin selling via downloads and to win back a seemingly disinterested youth market.

Popular music can generally be defined as "commercially mass produced music for a mass market" (Roy Shuker: Understanding Popular Music 2001). However, this definition does not address the part that popular music plays in reflecting and expressing popular culture, nor its socio-economic role, nor the fact that much of popular music does not make a profit nor does it effectively reach a mass market. It cannot be defined in musical terms, as it encompasses such a wide range of rhythms, instruments, vocal and recording styles.

Popular music is also about popular culture - it shapes the way people dress, talk, wear their hair, and, some say, other behaviour such as violence and drug use. It expresses the here and now, how artists feel about what is happening in the world around them, and as such can be used as a cultural thermometer to test the temperature of the times: the protest songs of the 1960s, the punk explosion of the late 1970s, hip hop today. Popular music can be the direct expression of the zeitgeist, especially when it is written, played and sung by performers who have strong political feelings. It can be a force for the radicalisation and empowerment of youth.

Unless you're a contestant on American Idol, of course.