Popular music, sometimes abbreviated pop music (although the term "pop" is used in some contexts as a more specific musical genre), is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are broadly popular or intended for mass consumption and wide commercial distribution—in other words, music that forms part of popular culture.
Popular music dates at least as far back as the mid-19th century. In the United States, much of it evolved from folk music and black culture. It includes Broadway tunes, ballads and singers such as Frank Sinatra.
The relationship (particularly, the relative value) of classical music and popular music is a controversial question. Richard Middleton writes:
Neat divisions between "folk" and "popular", and "popular" and "art", are impossible to find... arbitrary criteria [are used] to define the complement of "popular". "Art" music, for example, is generally regarded as by nature complex, difficult, demanding; "popular" music then has to be defined as "simple", "accessible", "facile". But many pieces commonly thought of as "art" (Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus", many Schubert songs, many Verdi arias) have qualities of simplicity; conversely, it is by no means obvious that the Sex Pistols' records were "accessible", Frank Zappa's work "simple", or Billie Holiday's "facile".[3]
Moreover, composers such as Scott Joplin, George Gershwin and Andrew Lloyd Webber tried to cater to both popular and high brow tastes. Composers as varied as Mozart and Arthur Sullivan had no difficulty in catering to popular taste when it was required, although their credentials as serious composers are also unchallenged.[citation needed] Likewise, electronic instruments and styles were incorporated into some classical pieces.
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