The Best Pop Music Of All Time

Originally stemming from the word popular music, pop music is generally used to denote music that has wide mass appeal. Pop music generally includes such genres as rock, Latin, country, dance and urban music. Some musicologists believe that the term pop music was first used to describe rock and roll and other music that appealed to the youth in the 1950s in Britain. Later, of course, the term pop music was used in opposition to rock, signifying that pop was lighter, less serious and meaningful than was rock.

The popularity of pop music

Needless to say, pop music has received influences from prevailing genres of music: be it country, jazz, gospel, soul or rock music. The popularity of pop music, if one can say that, grew in the 70s and 80s, with the accessibility of television and alongside it, flourishing of music channels. The coming of television and the burgeoning of music channels like MTV made for attractive music videos like those featuring Madonna and Michael Jackson, who were themselves highly visual in their appeal. This naturally, led to higher TV viewing and an enhanced popularity of these forms of pop music. Pop music generally involved the use of electric guitar, drums, keyboards, piano, synthesizer, bass guitars and other subsidiary instruments like the sequencer, sampler and drum machine. So which songs count among the best of the pop songs of all time? While there can never be any consensus on these matters, involving personal tastes and preferences, one of the best loved pop songs of all time is Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. The song, definitely one of the greats of pop, is about a girl called Wendy and about one mans love for her. What the song did for Bruce Springsteen is that it made him a star, taking him to the covers of Time and Newsweek. Another pop music great is Vibrations by the Beach Boys. The song was the number one single for some time and catapulted Brian Wilson to the path of fame. Another pop classic is Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers. The song was powerful enough to be nominated Best Song from a Motion Picture in the Academy Awards. The specialty of the song is that it remains one of the finest romantic songs in the pop genre even today.

pop music classics

No discussion of music classics is complete without the mention of Rod Stewarts Maggie May. The song went on to be hailed as number one pop single and is regarded as being highly autobiographical. And of course, who can write or say the words pop music without mentioning Michael Jackson or Madonna? Both carved out niches of their own and both remain immortal. Michael Jacksons universal appeal took a leap with the new generations grooving to his beats years after he made his mark, and especially after his death. His present day appeal shows for sure that pop music is not to be trifled with and has a position of its own. pop music