Popular music

Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially. It stands in contrast to classical music, which historically was the music of elites or the upper strata of society, and traditional folk music which was shared non-commercially. It is sometimes abbreviated to pop music, although pop music is more often used for a narrower branch of popular music.

Definitions

The term "popular music" is used in broader and narrower senses. At its broadest it refers to all music other than classical music, also known as art music. In the early 19th century, the traditional songs of the common people were referred to as "popular song". By the late 19th century these songs were referred to as "folk song" and a distinction was made between folk music and the more recently developed urban popular music. Now popular music is distributed via mass media such as recordings and radio (as classical music is now also). Popular music forms part of popular culture. For varieties of popular music, see the list of genres below.

Related Topics:
Mass media - Popular culture

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See the separate article on pop music for the narrower genre of very commercial, light, catchy, melodic music.

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