Before the '50s “young people” were dancing to Swing, Jazz, the Charleston, the Lindy, the Jitterbug, and lots of other tunes. Do these not count as “pop music”?
The thing that made the '50s noteworthy was the rise to predominance of the guitar, and the drum beats that up to then had been heard mainly in what was called “Race Music.” I suspect the introduction of 45 rpm records and portable electric players were also hugely important.
What became “Easy Listening” in the '60s and '70s had been around for a while, so it hadn’t always been the domain of parents and other old farts. They too were young at one time.
I should also mention that the sister of one of my high school friends loved Andy Williams and had a huge collection of his records. She was only a couple of years older than we were, so the appeal of such artists wasn’t entirely generational.
Good music is good music. .It always has been, and it always will be. I’ve been listening to singers like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tom Jones, and Engelbert Humperdinck since before I was in high school… Doesn’t mean I can’t like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, or any other artists as well.
Perhaps I should have said “specifically intended”. My objection is to people making youth a defining aspect of Pop Music just because teens became a bigger percentage of available consumers.
This is part of the question. Does Sinatra’s music, for example, count as being pop? What about Johnny Mathis and Andy Williams that were mentioned earlier, and the folk music that has been mentioned by several posters?
I certainly wouldn’t limit pop music to that music liked by the teenagers at any given period of time. Extending things to the time period before vinyl was invented, however, also presents some difficulties, and not just what age groups like which music. With classical music, one can point out the numerous artists who both composed and performed the music. From the early baroque era composers like Corelli, to Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and so on through the years, particular artists can be identified. With pop music, what names could be brought up prior to the invention of records?
One of the issues that kept coming out in commentaries about young people before WWII was the lack of places for them to go to for after school fun.
They couldn’t go to nightclubs, which were the major source of dance music. Most cities had non-alcoholic dance halls which were very popular, but from what I’ve read they catered mainly to late teens or older because of worries about alcohol use or sex.
Various organizations put on dance events specifically for teens, but they were sporadic, without daily availability. Schools held proms and hops but they also were occasional. Of course, teens could hold parties in their own houses and I imagine these were regular weekend rituals, but not mass gatherings.
Without teens being the primary customers of music and dance, music and dance wasn’t aimed at them. Their participation was looked as a nice extra and prep for adulthood by the music industry but they were peripheral until suddenly they weren’t.