What Is Pop?

A video essay about what "pop" actually means.

Produced by Matt Beat. Music by Patrick Patrikios. All images and video found in the public domain or used under fair use guidelines.
My other channel: @iammrbeat

What is pop?
Well, the conventional wisdom tells us that it’s just whatever is popular.
As a younger man, I would smugly say “huh, ya know….pop is just short for popular, so if something enters the mainstream, it’s automatically pop.”

But I’ve been thinking a lot more about this lately, and I think I disagree with my younger self, as I often do.

Usually, the word “pop” describes not only art, but culture. More specifically, the practices and beliefs of society, and the people and objects dominant in that society. Pop culture refers to categories such as music, film and other mediums of video, video games, sports, politicians, technology, fashion, and even slang.

The Dictionary defines pop culture as “modern popular culture transmitted via the mass media and aimed particularly at younger people.”

Or here’s another one: “cultural activities or commercial products reflecting, suited to, or aimed at the tastes of the general masses of people.” Well, younger people are often the ones driving the masses of people since they are more open to new things and advertisers know they’ll often hold on to those things for the rest of their lives.

So according to both definitions I shared with you about what pop culture is, the PURPOSE of the creation is a part of the definition that needs to be emphasized.

To better understand this, let’s take music as an example. When music journalists first distinguished pop from rock in the 1960s, they classified it as music designed to appeal to everyone, as opposed to rock, which aspired to being authentic and creative, pushing the boundaries of music. But today, some of the most innovative music is classified to some degree as pop. Take Animal Collective, who are even often classified as “experimental pop.”

So let’s break this down. Say you have a musician. Often, a musician doesn’t set out to make “pop music.” They make music, and if they are so fortunate, it enters the mainstream and then becomes pop music.

When the English new wave band Japan released the song “Ghosts,” they were probably the most surprised that it was such a big hit. It is a ridiculously unconventional song. Everything about it is not what you would typically hear in a pop hit, and yet, it was popular. It was technically...pop.

Then you have another type of a musician- one who specifically is trying to make a song they know the most people will like. So what do most people like in a song? They like a song with a steady rhythm, a repetitive chord or note progression that fits that rhythm like a glove, a memorable melody that is easy to sing along to, a predictable verse-chorus-bridge structure, with the verse building up to a strong chorus, and that chorus better repeat at least 2-3 times in the song.

More often than not, this musician loves all of those elements in a song, so it doesn’t feel forced at all. But occasionally you do get a team of songwriters who might as well be a machine because they are pumping out a formula that is a much safer bet to be commercially successful.

Spotify adds at least 20,000 songs each day, and has more than 30 million songs in its entire catalog. I would argue the vast majority of these songs are wannabe pop songs. Yep, the musicians that make them strive to give them a steady rhythm, a repetitive chord or note progression that fits that rhythm like a glove, a memorable melody that is easy to sing along to, a predictable verse-chorus-bridge structure, with the verse building up to a strong chorus, and that chorus better repeat at least 2-3 times in the song. But only a fraction of those 20,000 songs released every day are actually classified “pop,” and even of those classified as “pop,” an even smaller fraction will enter the mainstream culture.

Which brings us to an interesting development- there are many, MANY subgenres of pop. There’s the aforementioned experimental pop, pop rock, power pop, synth pop, electropop, noise pop, teen pop, J pop, K pop, chamber pop, indie pop…..that’s a weird one. I would say there are 50 different definitions of what indie pop actually is. But anyway, yeah, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of pops. Lots of pop subgenres.

So as a whole, pop just means stuff that lots of people just so happen to already like. It doesn’t mean it can’t push the boundaries of art and culture, but it does mean that it tends to be a safer bet to be accepted by the mainstream. Even when the mainstream ignores it, it can still be pop.

#popculture #videoessay #thebeatgoeson

[mattbeatgoeson]

What is your favorite pop song of all time?

What bands or artists should I do a brief history of next?

[johannesmarbun]

in summary pop songs is
1). has a steady rythm
2). has a repetitive chord or note progression that fits that rythm like a glove
3). has a memorable melody that's easy to sing along to
4). has a predictable verse-chorus-bridge structure, with the verse building up to a strong chorus
5). and that chorus better repeat atleast 2-3 times in the song

[SalutExpla]

Pop ...corn

It's delicious and has so much variety

[bred]

Where'd this dude go? His videos are freaking amazing.

[rino]

This is a great video. Definitely do more genres.

[mojowoelflein]

This is such a great breakdown of pop.

I feel pop being used as a umbrella term for genres as well is something thats always fascinating to me. I mean like you got all those genres that you said but then you got stuff like Bedroom Pop, Dancehall Pop, Bubblegum Pop and so many others.

Video request on Electronic Music history would be pretty cool to see :) Evolution on genres from the USA like House & Techno or other stuff would be neat

[swayamnihalani]

Thanks for the wonderful explaination!😊 The visuals, editing, examples etc. They are great!❤❤
Keep going and educating us❤

[CalebHimself]

Genres/sub-genres get so confusing sometimes and definitions can be so vague that it can apply to anything. I just like to keep it simple and listen to anything that sounds like rock or is just good lol. Also, love to see the Vampire Weekend representation. One of a kind band.

[marcozuleta]

"Pop" is just a marketing strategy from the music industry. Instead of having their mainstream arsist such as Michal Jackson, Prince, Madonna, etc saying that they make all types of music, they just label the music as "Pop" to avoid confusion and to say that their music appeals to everyone and no one in particular. When music is categorized based on the marketing appeal and not the music itself, we are not talking about a music genre but a music label.

[eourytbn]

"Pop" is shorthand for popular music but its also a genre. There are artists who aren't very "popular" who make pop music

[stevensonjc]

I think the term pop has gone through the transference that Indi is going through. When you categorized something as…bubblegum pop (Tiffany, Britney ) or electro pop (Feist, ) . And whereas pop meant popular and indi meant indi….indi bands are no longer indi but signed to one. Indie darling Phoebe Bridgers is basically signed to a major but through an indi. It’s very hush hushed . But after strangers in the alp, they basically farmed her out to Sony and they helped her market Punisher which basically was a slam dunk. And the producers who took her sad melancholy and turned it into a rock smash like in Kyoto. You can tell by the lyrics she was going for sadness like Funeral but got a rocker one. I forget what I was saying- just really love PHoebe lol

[jackrosende]

This is great. I love your vids as I often come here for explanations in music or history of it. Please please do a history on, the band, Rush.

[sandrovalcalixto]

In October 2023, Billboard compiled a list of "the 500 best pop songs". In doing so, they noted the difficulty of defining "pop songs":

One of the reasons pop can be hard to summarize is because there’s no real sonic or musical definition to it. There are common elements to a lot of the biggest pop songs, but at the end of the day, "pop" means "popular" first and foremost, and just about any song that becomes popular enough...can be considered a pop song. Source: Wikipedia

[mikemateescu]

I know that a lot of people dislike Bono, but he said it best (and I'm paraphrasing). «Pop music tells you that everything is alright. It lulls you. Whereas rock music tells you that nothing is alright – but you can do something about it!»

[jaymoussamann]

My dogs called Indy. She kept jumping up every time you said “Indie Pop” 😂

[melaniemagdalene]

Could you do a brief HIStory of Michael Jackson? That would be awesome.

[brittneyking]

Can you do a brief history on Jimi Hendrix?/Psychedelic rock?

[Lycaon]

I was like "I recognize this voice from somewhere", I looked in the description to see who the voice was and if this was a channel that had guest narrators, but it didn't click. The visual and editing style felt so similar. And then I was like "no, is it?!?" And it is! It's fuckin' Mr. Beat. Wowie.

[PrincessDie]

Another good way of looking at it is as contemporary, kind of like contemporary houses or contemporary interior design style

[CMan]

Aye wow I knew I recognized that voice. Nice job Mr.Beat. I use to watch your main channel all the time. I love your political videos