What is popular music?

Popular music, or the meaning of the term can be taken to have many different meanings. Firstly, if the word 'popular' is concentrated on, it can be assumed that pop music is simply 'popular', and belonging to the people. This idea does not however confine pop music to a certain genre, and is simply a comment on the quality, or more specifically, the origin of the music.

If pop music is 'by the people' then it would suggest that folk music is pop music, as is simple home made music, a church choir for example, however these music types don't fit in to the general idea of pop music. Other ideas imply that the word 'pop' is a synonym for good, obvious examples of chart music dispute this idea.

Although all these ideas convey an idea of what the term 'pop music' means. However pop music nowadays is used to identify a genre of music, usually the music that is in the charts and recently seems to carry a certain taboo along with it. Perhaps the meaning of pop music was best summed up by Roy Shuker as a 'hybrid of musical traditions.'