The Pop Music Portal
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. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which pop became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.
Identifying factors of pop music usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse–chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles such as rock, urban, dance, Latin, and country. (Full article...)
Cher performing on her Here We Go Again Tour in 2019 |
Cher (/ʃɛər/; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry. Cher is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety of styles and appearances throughout her six-decade-long career.
Cher gained popularity in 1965 as one half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher, after their song "I Got You Babe" peaked at number one on the US and UK charts. Together they sold 40 million records worldwide. Her solo career was established during the same time, with the top-ten singles "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" and "You Better Sit Down Kids". She became a television personality in the 1970s with her CBS shows ― The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run, and the namesake Cher. While working on television, Cher released the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves", "Half-Breed", and "Dark Lady", becoming the female solo artist with the most number-one singles in United States history at the time. After her divorce from Sonny Bono in 1975, she released the disco album Take Me Home (1979) and earned $300,000 a week for her 1979–1982 concert residency in Las Vegas. (Full article...)Let Go is the debut studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne. It was released on June 4, 2002, by Arista Records. For a year after signing a record deal with Arista, Lavigne struggled due to conflicts in musical direction. She relocated to Los Angeles, where she recorded her earlier materials for the album, the sound of which the label did not approve. She was paired with the production team the Matrix, who understood her vision for the album. Critics described Let Go as an alternative rock album with a pop-punk and post-grunge-oriented sound.
The album was credited as the biggest pop debut of 2002 and was certified 7x Platinum in the United States. It was released to generally positive reviews, although Lavigne's songwriting received some criticism. It also did extremely well in Canada, receiving a diamond certification from Music Canada, as well as reaching multi-platinum in many countries around the world, including the UK, in which she became the youngest female solo artist to have a number-one album in the region. (Full article...)General images
"Halo" is a song recorded by American singer Beyoncé for her third studio album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008). Included on the I Am... disc, it was intended to give a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Beyoncé's life, stripped of her make-up and celebrity trappings. Columbia Records released the song, the album's fourth single, to mainstream radio in the United States on January 20, 2009, and to international markets from February 20. Inspired by Ray LaMontagne's 2004 song "Shelter", "Halo" was written and composed by Ryan Tedder and Evan Bogart, with additional minor songwriting by Beyoncé. It was originally conceived by Tedder and Bogart specifically for Beyoncé, although there was media speculation that it had been intended for Leona Lewis.
"Halo" is a pop and R&B power ballad, the lyrics of which describe a sublime love. It features drum, piano, keyboard, string, synthesizer, and percussion instrumentation. The song faced a controversy when Kelly Clarkson claimed that Tedder had reused the musical arrangement in her own 2009 song "Already Gone". "Halo" received positive reviews from music critics, who made comparisons with Lewis's 2007 song "Bleeding Love". Its production and Beyoncé's vocals also received critical praise. "Halo" was nominated for Record of the Year and won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. It won Best Song at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards. (Full article...)Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that the lap steel guitar was the first "foreign" musical instrument to gain a foothold in American pop music?
- ... that "Kiss Me More" interpolates the melody from "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John?
- ... that the first episode of the British pop music TV show Top of the Pops was broadcast on 1 January 1964 from Dickenson Road Studios, a converted church in Manchester?
- ... that Yoko Ono considered her 1971 song "Listen, the Snow Is Falling" to be the first pop song she ever wrote?
- ... that Mirror, a Hong Kong Cantopop music group which does not want to go for a "K-pop feel", performed Korean pop songs at a concert?
- ... that 22-year-old singer Milena Warthon has created a new genre, pop andino, by fusing pop and Andean music?
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- Wikipedia:WikiProject Pop music was created with the purpose of assembling writers and editors interested in Pop music.
- The aim of this project is to standardize and improve articles related to the various genres of Pop music, as well as to create missing articles.
- To become a member of the WikiProject (anyone may join), simply click here and add your username.
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