Popular music

Traditional music forms such as early blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences.

[clarification needed] Some sort of popular music has existed for as long as there has been an urban middle class to consume it.

The cultural elite has always endowed music with an exalted if not self-important religious or aesthetic status, while for the rural folk, it has been practical and unselfconscious, an accompaniment to fieldwork or to the festivals that provide periodic escape from toil.

But since Rome and Alexandria, professional entertainers have diverted and edified city dwellers with songs, marches, and dances, whose pretensions fell somewhere in between."

[22] David Riesman states that the youth audiences of popular music fit into either a majority group or a subculture.

"[23] In his mind, a liking "for the nasty, brutish, and short intensifies a common semipopular tendency in which lyrical and conceptual sophistication are applauded while musical sophistication—jazz chops or classical design or avant-garde innovation—is left to the specialists.

Amateur music-making in the 19th century often centred around the piano, as this instrument could play melodies, chords and basslines, thus enabling a pianist to reproduce popular songs and pieces.

[citation needed] The center of the music publishing industry in the US during the late 19th century was in New York's 'Tin Pan Alley' district.

[citation needed] Radio broadcasting of music, which began in the early 1920s, helped to spread popular songs to a huge audience, enabling a much larger proportion of the population to hear songs performed by professional singers and music ensembles, including individuals from lower income groups who previously would not have been able to afford concert tickets.

The next decade saw moves away from these sensibilities, as Robert Christgau noted in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): "In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock ...

"[28] In the 1970s, the trend towards consolidation in the recording industry continued to the point that the "... dominance was in the hands of five huge transnational organizations, three American-owned (WEA, RCA, CBS) and two European-owned companies (EMI, Polygram)".

For example, a record company's singing star could be cross-promoted by the conglomerate's television talk shows and magazine arms.

In countries like the United States, rock, rap and hip-hop, blues and R&B have a long history of taking the leading spots.

[32] In addition to many changes in specific sounds and technologies used, there has been a shift in the content and key elements of popular music since the 1960s.

[36] The subject matter and lyrics of popular music have also undergone major change, becoming sadder[37][38] as well as more antisocial and self-centered since the 1960s.

Vinyl record singles, which were heavily favored for radio play, only had room for about three minutes of music, physically limiting the possible length of popular songs.

As for the difference in songs' subject matter and emotional content, popular music since the late 1960s has increasingly been used to promote social change and political agendas.

Another theory is that globalization makes audiences' tastes more diverse, so different ideas in music have a chance to gain popularity.

[21] New media technology has led urban music styles to filter into distant rural areas across the globe.

[41] A popular maskandi artist, Phuzekhemisi, had to lessen the political influence within his music to be ready for the public sphere.

These songs were based on Western marches and hymns reflecting the European education system that the early nationalistic leaders grew up in.

For example, in South Africa, the political songs during the Anti-Apartheid Movement were based on traditional tribal styles along with hybrid forms of imported genres.

[15] Activists used protest and freedom songs to persuade individuals to take action, become educated with the struggle, and empower others to be politically conscious.

[43] Although hip hop in Africa is based on the North American template, it has been remade to produce new meanings for African young people.

These rappers compare themselves to the traditional artists like the griot and oral storyteller, who both had a role in reflecting on the internal dynamics of the larger society.

[45] With the technique he created when mixing two identical records back and forth, he was able to make unique-sounding sounds that later gave birth to rap itself.

Dangdut takes the noisy instrumentation from underground music, but makes it easier to listen to, like indo pop.

[48] This genre has formed into a larger social movement that includes clothing, youth culture, the resurgence of Islam, and the capitalist entertainment industry.

[47] In a 2015 study involving young students in Shanghai, youths stated they enjoyed listening to both Chinese, other Asian nationalities, and Anglo-American popular music.

[50] Iranian underground rock bands are composed of members who are young, urban-minded, educated, relatively well-off, and global beings.