# When did the era of pop music begin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [September 2, 2021, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956 "2021-09-02T02:38:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/1 "2021-09-02T02:38:02Z")
When did pop music begin? According to wikipedia, the date is some time in the early 1950s with the likes of Bill Haley and Elvis. > **[Pop music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop music remained roughly synon... Presumably the assumption is that the rise in popularity of FM radio went along with the beginnings of pop music. IMHO this date is too late. I think that at the very least, the date can be pushed back to the 1930s and the music of artists like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. It’s my understanding that their music from that time period falls into the jazz category, but that just doesn’t sound right to me. Their music seems to me to be a lot more similar to those of contemporary pop artists as opposed to jazz musicians like Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk, etc. Is my ear merely miscalibrated, or am I missing something else? What about the era before Sinatra? It seems like it would be all the more difficult to say much about those times before vinyl records became widely available, and my understanding is that people mostly listened to classical music prior to that. My hypothesis is that pop music as we know it took off prior to the 1950s, likely as far back as the introduction of vinyl records. What say you all? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/2 "2021-09-02T02:45:23Z")
Pop music predates the introduction of recording technology. It goes back to when instruments that could be played at home became widely available and sheet music was published for them. I’d put this in the last quarter of the 18th century, if not before. Hell, “Yankee Doodle” was already a pop song before the American Revolution. So were a lot of other songs like “The World Turned Upside Down.” ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/3 "2021-09-02T02:58:58Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > It goes back to when instruments that could be played at home became widely available and sheet music was published for them. I’d put this in the last quarter of the 18th century, if not before. That’s what I immediately thought of. Though long before that I’m sure there were overly-cultured Ladies Of The Salon deriding Mozart’s crowd-pleasing works as _“POP-u-lar”_ (with an affected derision in their voices). And that Pachelbel? “Who invited HIM? Oh, God, don’t let him near the pianoforte, he’s going to play that _Canon in D or P, or whatever it is,_ again… vapid pop music.” ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/4 "2021-09-02T03:07:49Z")
As early as the 1840s [Stephen Foster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Foster) took time out from writing hymns to come up with songs like Beautiful Dreamer, Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, and Oh! Susanna. In those days the style was called “parlor music” but it was the same thing - catchy tunes, simple instrumentation, mostly romantic themes, etc. Like @terentii says, pop music goes back to the widespread availability of sheet music, enabling many people to play the same song. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/5 "2021-09-02T03:15:02Z")
I first thought of Stephen Foster, but it then occurred to me that pop music went back even farther, to Colonial times at least. What most people think of as pop music today started almost as soon as Edison started marketing wax cylinders and players. It spread quickly thanks to publishing centers like Tin Pan Alley around the turn of the 20th century. > **[Tin Pan Alley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Pan_Alley)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}40°44′44″N 73°59′22.5″W / 40.74556°N 73.989583°W / 40.74556; -73.989583 > Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the ... ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/6 "2021-09-02T03:18:54Z")
For centuries, there’s been a dichotomy between “serious” music and “popular”. This goes back at least as far as chants vs. minstrels and troubadours. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/7 "2021-09-02T03:31:05Z")
There’s also a distinction between “Pop” and “Folk.” Some centuries-old songs that started out as the latter have crossed the genre line, but ones like “Yankee Doodle” (written to make fun of the bumpkin Americans before the Revolution) have origins that are much later and reflect more modern times. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/8 "2021-09-02T14:47:56Z")
And I’d always heard that when Martin Luther composed hymns, he’d sometimes use “bar songs” that he’d heard in taverns, for the melodies. That’d be 1500s. After a bunch of research, looks like that’s not settled fact (though he did use some secular songs), but the Lutheran Church says: > At the time of Luther, there were not sharp distinctions between secular and sacred musical styles. When we speak today of “popular music,” we mean it in a way not familiar to sixteenth-century Germany. They go on to say that Luther felt that singing in a pub and singing in church were similar, and wanted that same sort of camaraderie to come from his hymns. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/9 "2021-09-02T15:15:17Z")
Note that Wikipedia says “in its modern form.” It goes on to say: > Pop music continuously evolves along with the term’s definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as “the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class.”[10] The term “pop song” was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music “having popular appeal”.[11] Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues, and hillbilly music.[12] > > According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term “pop music” “originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced”.[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop’s “earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience […] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc.”[13] Even though the term may have appeared first in Britain, in the U.S. it was very much a commercial term to refer to radio stations that played a certain type of new music that wasn’t the standard mainstream popular tunes. The Billboard charts once ranked songs by record and sheet sales, disk jockey, and jukebox performances, but in 1958 scrapped those to launch what we now think of as the Hot 100, combining sales and radio play. Those songs had their own section in stores as well, not mixed in with the Sinatras, and usually were produced and promoted by outsider companies. That music spent the next decade taking over the commercial record industry until standard mainstream was a small appendage the reverse of the situation in 1954. There’s always been popular music. Pop music is a subset, “codified” in the mid-1950s. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/10 "2021-09-02T17:34:41Z")
I think of “pop music” as 1) music created or popularized by young people and 2) new music, i.e. not their parents’ music. So I’d agree with the Wiki link that it started about the same time our modern generational revolutions started. So post-WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/11 "2021-09-02T19:20:48Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > I think of “pop music” as 1) music created or popularized by young people and 2) new music, i.e. not their parents’ music. I think you’re conflating the origin of Pop Music with the origin of the teenager. Much, if not most pop music produced in the 20th Century wasn’t intended for young people. Bing Crosby is as much pop music as David Crosby. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/12 "2021-09-02T19:32:11Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > > [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > > > I think of “pop music” as 1) music created or popularized by young people and 2) new music, i.e. not their parents’ music. > > I think you’re conflating the origin of Pop Music with the origin of the teenager. Much, if not most pop music produced in the 20th Century wasn’t intended for young people. Bing Crosby is as much pop music as David Crosby.  Depends on how you’re defining “pop.” If you’re taking it to literally mean “popular music,” then okay. Crosby was hugely popular. But if you’re referring to genres, pop is a constantly evolving mixture of influences that does largely go hand-in-hand with the concept of teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/13 "2021-09-02T19:55:09Z")
This information about [The Boston Pops](https://www.bso.org/brands/pops/about-us/historyarchives/the-history-of-the-boston-pops.aspx) might be worth considering. To be clear, the words “it all began” refer to the orchestra: “It all began in 1885, thanks to the vision of Civil War veteran Henry Lee Higginson. Fours years earlier, in 1881, he founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra, calling its establishment ‘the dream of my life.’ From the start he intended to present, in the warmer months, concerts of light classics and the popular music of the day. From a practical perspective, Higginson realized that these ‘lighter’ performances would provide year-round employment for his musicians. The ‘Promenade Concerts,’ as they were originally called, were soon informally known as ‘Popular Concerts,’ which eventually became shortened to ‘Pops,’ the name officially adopted in 1900.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/14 "2021-09-02T20:04:48Z")
I’d always heard that the key turning point was World War II. With men off fighting Over There, and women taking over blue-collar jobs in the men’s absence, someone had to care for the young children, and so teenagers had disposable income from babysitting, and so they could buy the music they liked, rather than what their parents liked. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/15 "2021-09-02T20:24:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > … teenagers had disposable income from babysitting, and so they could buy the music they liked, rather than what their parents liked. Examples, please? ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2021, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/16 "2021-09-02T23:06:22Z")
I say post-WWII. OP asks about era not genre so is more about society than music. Pop implies simplification for the masses of popular music. The source could be “classical” and/or “folk” music. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2021, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/17 "2021-09-03T01:04:42Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Much, if not most pop music produced in the 20th Century wasn’t intended for young people. That’s true. But the advent of teen fans was a decade before rock started. Frank Sinatra had [audiences full of screaming teen-age girls in the 1940s](https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/sinatra-riots-1942-1944/). The problem for Chronos’ theory is that the Sinatra Riots started in 1942. Was that enough time to build up a ton of money from wartime work? I think it’s more likely that, as in the 50s, several trends came together at once. Sinatra’s first major hit was in 1940. By then, the economy had finally picked from the Depression. Swing music was entering a more energetic period that encouraged fancy, athletic dancing that teens could dominate. And 1942 also saw the start of the two-year long [musicians’ strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942%E2%80%931944_musicians%27_strike), which banned union musicians from making recordings. Without new records, people flocked to live concerts. When the strike ended, all record sales boomed. It still took RCA’s introduction of the affordable 45 rpm single in 1948 to really turn around the record business, with teens as the prime consumers and therefore target. A few years of stewing and then the lid came off. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2021, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/18 "2021-09-03T01:29:01Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Much, if not most pop music produced in the 20th Century wasn’t intended for young people. How are you defining “young people”? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2021, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/19 "2021-09-03T04:48:57Z")
People who haven’t fully entered the workforce or started their own family. For every Stones or Zeppelin album I bought in the 70s as a teen, my parents were buying a Johnny Mathis or Andy Williams album. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2021, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956/20 "2021-09-03T04:51:51Z")
I think the turning point you’re looking for was the mid-50s when teens just became a much larger percentage of the general population. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-era-of-pop-music-begin/949956.md?page=2)